Poor old Angeline. Bent, decrepit and carrying the weight of 80 years with an effort, she still possessed a heart full of tenderness that could only find relief in a flood of tears.
Long, long ago it had been that old Angeline saw the royal old chieftain, her father, for the last time. Only in her Indian memory had she communed with him who was once lord of all around in the neighborhood of Elliott bay. But now she stood face to face once more and looked into the kindly face of the old chief, who has been dead these many years. It was Chief Sealth, life size, as he appeared thirty-five or forty years ago, with his big, blue-bordered Hudsons Bay company blanket hanging in Grecian folds from his dusky shoulders. No wonder poor old Angeline cried and sobbed and broke down in the rush of tender recollections that must have filled her old soul. No wonder she exclaimed: “Utch-i-dah! utch-i-da! nika papa hias klosh.”
It was her old-time friend Samuel Coombs, the pioneer, who took old Angeline to see the picture of the old chief, painted by Mr. Coombs’ son Raphael for the chamber of commerce of this city. Angeline, the last survivor of the old chief’s family, did not know what was wanted of her, but she knew that her old friend meant her no harm and she trudged along, muttering in her peculiar guttural Indian dialect until she came plunk upon the big painting. It shows the old chief as he first appeared to the whites about 40 years ago, standing erect with a big shock of raven hair, a broad face, kindly eye and the picture of a perfect Indian, showing in a marked degree the great intelligence the old chief is known to have possessed. He is as nature found him, bereft of ornament save the big gray blanket with its broad border of blue about his shoulders.
Angeline’s judgment ought to be taken as to the merits of the picture. She pronounces it good, very good, and it will probably become the one great memento of the now vanished royal rule that prevailed over the woods and bays and tribes hereabouts before the white man came and took possession. In the perspective of the picture are the snowy lines of the grand Olympic mountains, looking very pretty and true to reality. Angeline leaned against the counter and cried till her Indian tears fell thick and fast. “Nika papa hias klosh,” she muttered as she turned away towards the door and then trudged off down the street, but not for long. She trudged back for another look and many times during the afternoon she passed and repassed the window, muttering that it was good, and peeking through the big plate windows, for the picture had been set therein for the passerby to look at. Young Coombs’ picture is from a photograph of the old chief furnished by the old pioneer, Hon. A. A. Denny, taken years ago.
To the older settlers Angeline’s name was given by some of the Indians as Wee-wy-eke and by herself as Kakii-Silma; very pretty names both of them. A daughter of Angeline, known to the whites by the unpretentious name of Betsey, had the prettily sounding Indian name of Che-wa-tum.
There is another little painting by young Coombs, just as full of interest as that of the old chief. It is a reproduction in oil of the old log cabin, the first log cabin built by the white settlers forty or more years ago, on Alki point. The picture is from a sketch taken a dozen years ago while yet the old log hut was in a state of preservation and it is said to be a very realistic likeness. The picture is now the property of Mr. Denny and he treasures it as one of his most valued mementoes.
In his little book, “Pioneer Days on Puget Sound,” Mr. Denny, speaking of the first log house says:
“Our first work was to provide shelter for the winter, and we finished the house begun by brother and Lee Terry for J. N. Low, and took shelter in it from the rain, which was falling more or less every day; but we did not regard it with much concern and seldom lost any time on that account. We next built a log house for myself, which increased our room very materially and made all more comfortable. We had now used up all the timber suitable for log houses, which we could get without a team, and we split cedar and built houses for Bell and Boren, which we considered quite a fancy, but not so substantial as log houses. About the time we had completed our winter quarters, the brig Leonesa, Captain Daniel S. Howard, came to anchor in the bay. Seeing that the place was inhabited by whites, the captain came ashore seeking a cargo of piles, and we readily made a contract to load the vessel. We had no team at the time, but some of us went to work cutting the timber nearest the water, and rolled and hauled in by hand, while Lee Terry went up Sound and obtained a yoke of oxen, which he drove on the beach from Puyallup with which to complete the cargo, but we had made very considerable progress by hand before his arrival.
“Alki point had not been a general camping place for the Indians, but soon after we landed and commenced clearing the land, they commenced to congregate and continued coming until we had over 1,000 in our midst and most of them remained all winter. Some of them built their houses very near ours, even on the ground we had cleared, and although they seemed very friendly towards us, we did not feel safe in objecting to their building, and it was very noticeable that they regarded their proximity to us as a protection against other Indians.”