Читать книгу The Busy Life of Eighty-Five Years of Ezra Meeker - Ezra Meeker Meeker - Страница 20

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CRUISE ON PUGET SOUND.

"Keep to the right, as the law directs," is an old western adage that governs travelers on the road, but we kept to the right because we wanted to follow the shore as we thought it safer, and besides, why not go that way as well as any other—it was all new to us. So, on the second morning, as we rounded Johnson's Point and saw no channel opening in any direction; saw only water in the foreground and timber beyond, we concluded to skirt the coast line and see what the day would bring forth. This led us a southeasterly course and in part doubling back with that traveled the previous day, and past what became the historical grounds of the Medicine Creek Treaty Council, or, rather leaving this two miles to our right as the Nisqually flats were encountered. Here we were crowded to a northerly course, leaving the Nisqually House on the beach to the east without stopping for investigation.

According to Finlayson's journal, as I afterwards ascertained, this had been built twenty-three years before. At least, some house had been built on this spot at that time (1829 or 1830), though the fort by that name one-fourth mile back from the water was not constructed until the summer of 1833, just twenty years previous to our visit.

This fort mentioned must not be confounded with the Nisqually fort built some three years later (1836) a mile farther east and convenient to the waters of Segwalitchew Creek, which there runs near the surface of the surrounding country. All remains of the old fort have long since vanished, but the nearly filled trenches where the stockade timbers stood can yet be traced, showing that a space 250 feet square had been enclosed. Another visible sign was an apple tree yet alive near the spot, grown from seed planted in 1833, but now, when I visited the place in June, 1903, overshadowed by a lusty fir that is sapping the life of the only living, though mute, witness (except it may be the Indian, Steilacoom) we have of those early days, when the first fort was built by the intrepid employes of the Hudson Bay Company.

An interesting feature of the intervening space between the old and the newer fort is the dense growth of fir timber averaging nearly two feet in diameter and in some cases fully three, and over a hundred feet high on what was prairie when the early fort builders began work. The land upon which this timber is growing still shows unmistakable signs of the furrow marks that can be traced through the forest. Verily, this is a most wonderful country where forest product will grow, if properly protected, more rapidly than the hand of man will destroy.

As the tide and wind favored us we did not stop, but had not proceeded far before we came in sight of a fleet of seven vessels lying at anchor in a large bay of several miles in extent.

Upon the eastern slope of the shores of this bay lay the two towns, Port Steilacoom, established January 23d, 1851, by Captain Lafayette Balch, and Steilacoom City, upon an adjoining land claim taken by John B. Chapman, August 23d, of same year and later held by his son, John M. Chapman. These two rival towns were built as far apart as possible on the frontage lands of the claim owners (about one mile apart) and became known locally as Upper and Lower Steilacoom, the latter name being applied to Balch's town.

We found the stocks of goods carried by the merchants of these two towns exceeded those held by the Olympia merchants, and that at Fort Nisqually, six miles distant, the merchandise carried by the Puget Sound Agricultural Company would probably equal that of all three of the towns combined, possibly, in the aggregate, over one hundred thousand dollars for the whole district under review.

Evidently a far larger trade centered on Steilacoom Bay and vicinity than at any other point we had seen and, as we found afterwards, than any other point on Puget Sound. Naturally we would here call a halt to examine the country and to make ourselves acquainted with the surroundings that made this early center of trade.

One mile and a half back from the shore and east of lower Steilacoom we found what was by courtesy called Fort Steilacoom but which was simply a camp of a company of United States soldiers in wooden shells of houses and log cabins. This camp or fort had been established by Captain Bennett H. Hill with Company M, 1st Artillery, August 27th, 1849, following the attempted robbery of Fort Nisqually the previous May by Pat Kanim and his followers, the Snoqualmie Indians.

Dr. Tolmie, Chief Factor of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company at Fort Nisqually, quickly seized the opportunity to demand rent from the United States for the occupancy of the site of Fort Steilacoom, of six hundred dollars a year, and actually received it for fifteen years and until the final award was made extinguishing the claims of his company. We found the plains alive with this company's stock (many thousand head) running at large and fattened upon the scant but nutritious grass growing upon the adjacent prairie and glade lands.

Balch and Webber were doing a thriving trade in their store at the little town of Steilacoom, besides their shipping trade of piles and square timber, shingles, lumber, cord wood, hides, furs, fish, and other odds and ends. Just across the street from their store stood the main hotel of the place with the unique history of being the only building erected on Puget Sound from lumber shipped from the eastern seaboard. Captain Balch brought the building with him from Maine, ready to set up. At the upper town Philip Keach was merchandising while Abner Martin kept a hotel. Intense rivalry ran between the two towns in the early days when we were at Steilacoom.

Thomas M. Chambers, father of the prominent members of the Olympia community of that name, had built a saw-mill on Steilacoom creek, two miles from the town, and a grist mill where farmers oftentimes came with pebbles in their wheat to dull the burrs.

We are wont now to speak of this place as "poor old Steilacoom," with its tumbled-down houses, rotting sidewalks and decayed wharves; the last vestige of the latter of which has disappeared; but then everything was new, with an air of business bustle that made one feel here was a center of trade. The sight of those seven vessels lying in the offing made a profound impression upon our minds. We had never before seen so many ships at one place as were quietly lying at anchor in front of the embryo city. Curiously enough, here was the very identical vessel we had first seen on the Willamette River, the bark "Mary Melville," with her gruff mate and big hearted master, Capt. Barston, with whom the reader has been made acquainted in a previous chapter. I took no special note of the names of these vessels other than this one, but from the columns of the Columbian I am able to glean the names of twenty-two vessels, brigs, barks, and schooners, then plying between Puget Sound and San Francisco, which are as follows:

Brig Cyclops, Perkins; Bark Delegate——; Brig Tarquina——; Bark John Adams, McKelmer; Brig G. W. Kendall, Gove; Brig Merchantman, Bolton; Brig Kingsbury, Cook; Schooner Cynosure, Fowler; Brig George Emery, Diggs; Bark Mary Melville, Barston; Bark Brontes, Blinn; Bark Sarah Warren, Gove; Ship Persia, Brown; Brig I. C. Cabot, Dryden; Brig Jane, Willett; Ship Rowena——; Brig Willingsly, Gibbs; Brig Mary Dare, Mowatt; Brig John Davis, Pray; Bark Carib, Plummer; Brig Leonesa, Howard, and Schooner Franklin, Leary. There were probably more, but I do not recall them, but these were enough to keep every man busy that could swing an axe, drag a saw or handle that instrument of torture, the goad stick, and who was willing to work.

All this activity came from the shipment of piles, square timbers, cordwood, shingles, with small quantities of lumber—all that was obtainable, which was not very much, to the San Francisco market. The descent of timber on the roll-ways sounded like distant thunder, and could be heard almost all hours of the day, even where no camps were in sight, but lay hidden up some secluded bay or inlet.

We were sorely tempted to accept the flattering offer of $4.00 each day for common labor in a timber camp, but soon concluded not to be swerved from the course we had outlined.

It was here, and I think at this time, I saw the Indian "Steilacoom," who still lives. I saw him recently at his camp in the Nisqually bottom, and judge he is bordering on ninety years. Steilacoom helped to build old Fort Nisqually in 1833, and was a married man at that time. People called him chief because he happened to bear the name adopted for the town and creek, but he was not a man of much force of character and not much of a chief. I think this is a remarkable case of longevity for an Indian. As a race, they are short lived. It was here, and during this visit, we began seeing Indians in considerable numbers. Off the mouth of the Nisqually and several places along the beach and floating on the bay we saw several hundred in the aggregate of all ages and kind. There seemed to be a perfect abandon as to care or thought for the future, or even as to the immediate present, literally floating with the tide. In those days, the Indians seemed to work or play by spurts and spells. Here and there that day a family might be seen industriously pursuing some object, but as a class there seemed to be but little life in them, and we concluded they were the laziest set on earth. I afterwards materially modified that opinion, as I became better acquainted with their habits, for I have found just as industrious Indians, both men and women, and as reliable workers, as among the whites, though this class, it may be said, is exceptional with the men. The women are all industrious.

Shall we camp here and spy out the land, or shall we go forward and see what lay before us? Here were the ideals, that had enticed us so far from our old home, where "ships went down into the sea," with the trade of the whole world before us. We waxed eloquent, catching inspiration from people of the town. After a second sober thought we found we had nothing to trade but labor, and we had not come this far to be laborers for hire. We had come to look up a place to make a farm and a farm we were going to have. We, therefore, set about searching for claims, and the more we searched the less we liked the looks of things.

The gravelly plains near Steilacoom would not do: neither the heavy fir timber lands skirting the waters of the Sound, and we were nonplused and almost ready to condemn the country. Finally, on the fourth day after a long, wearisome tramp, we cast off at high tide, and in a dead calm, to continue our cruise. The senior soon dropped into a comfortable afternoon nap, leaving me in full command. As the sun shone nice and warm and the tide was taking us rapidly in the direction we wanted to go, why not join, even if we did lose the sight seeing for which the journey was made.

I was shortly after aroused by the senior exclaiming, "What is that?" and then answering half to himself and half to me, "Why, as I live, it's a deer swimming way out here in the bay." Answering, half asleep and half awake, that that could not be, the senior said: "Well, that's what it is." We gave chase and soon succeeded in getting a rope over its horns. We had by this time drifted into the Narrows, and soon found that we had something more important to look after than towing a deer among the tide-rips of the Sound, and turning him loose pulled for dear life for the shore, and found shelter in an eddy. A perpendicular bluff rose from the high water mark, leaving no place for a camp fire or bed. The tide seemed to roll in waves and with contending forces of currents and counter currents, yet all moving in a general direction. It was our first introduction to a real genuine, live tide-rip, that seemed to harry the waters as if boiling in a veritable caldron, swelling up here and there in centers to whirl in dizzy velocity and at times break into a foam, and, where a light breeze prevailed, into spray. Then in some areas it would seem the waters in solid volume would leap up in conical, or pointed shape—small waves broken into short sections, that would make it quite difficult for a flat bottom boat like our little skiff to float very long. We congratulated ourselves upon the escape, while belittling our careless imitation of the natives of floating with the tide. Just then some Indian canoes passed along moving with the tide. We expected to see them swamped as they encountered the troubled waters, but to our astonishment they passed right through without taking a drop of water. Then here came two well manned canoes creeping along shore against the tide. I have said well-manned, but in fact, half the paddles were wielded by women, and the post of honor, or that where most dexterity was required, was occupied by a woman. In shore, short eddies would favor the party, to be ended by a severe tug against the stiff current.

"Me-si-ka-kwass kopa s'kookum chuck," said the maiden in the bow of the first canoe, as it drew along side our boat, in which we were sitting.

Since our evening's experience at the clam bake camp, we had been industriously studying language, and pretty well mastered the Chinook, and so we with little difficulty understood her to ask if we were afraid of the rough waters, to which we responded, part in English and part in Chinook, that we were, and besides that it was impossible for us to proceed against the strong current.

"Ne-si-ka mit-lite," that is to say, she said they were going to camp with us and wait for the turn of the tide, and accordingly landed near by, and so we must wait for the remainder of this story in chapters to follow.