Blazing The Way Part 18

One night, toward morning, she dreamed that she saw a horse saddled and bridled at the gate and some one said to her that she must mount and ride to see her husband, who was very sick; she obeyed, in her dream, riding over a strange road, crossing a swollen stream at one point.

At daylight she awoke; a horse with side-saddle on was waiting and a messenger called her to go to her husband, as he was dangerously ill at a distant house. Exactly as in her dream she was conducted, she traversed the road and crossed the swollen stream to reach the place where he lay, stricken with a fatal malady.

After his death she returned to her father's house, but the family migrated from Tennessee to Illinois, spent their first winter in Sangamon County, afterward settling in Knox County.

There the brave young pioneer took up her abode in a log cabin on a piece of land which she purchased with the proceeds of her own hard toil.

The cabin was built without nails, of either oak or black walnut logs, it is not now known, with oak clapboards, braces and weight-poles and puncheon floor. There was one window without gla.s.s, a stick and clay mortar chimney, and a large, cheerful fireplace where the backlogs and fore-sticks held pyramids of dancing, ruddy flames, and the good cooking was done in the good old way.

By industry and thrift everything was turned to account. The ground was made to yield wheat, corn and flax; the last was taken through the whole process of manufacture into bed and table linen on the spot. Sheep were raised, the wool sheared, carded, spun, dyed and woven, all by hand, by this indefatigable worker, just as did many others of her time.

They made almost every article of clothing they wore, besides cloth for sale.

Great, soft, warm feather beds comforted them in the cold Illinois winters, the contents of which were plucked from the home flock of geese.

As soon as the children were old enough, they a.s.sisted in planting corn and other crops.

The domestic supplies were almost entirely of home production and manufacture. Soap for washing owed its existence to the ash-hopper and sc.r.a.p-kettle, and the soap-boiling was an important and necessary process. The modern housewife would consider herself much afflicted if she had to do such work.

And the sugar-making, which had its pleasant side, the sugar camp and its merry tenants.

About half a mile from the cabin stood the sugar maple grove to which this energetic provider went to tap the trees, collect the sap and finally boil the same until the "sugaring off." A considerable event it was, with which they began the busy season.

One of the daughters of Sarah Latimer Denny remembers that when a little child she went with her mother to the sugar camp where they spent the night. Resting on a bed of leaves, she listened to her mother as she sang an old camp meeting hymn, "Wrestling Jacob," while she toiled, mending the fire and stirring the sap, all night long under dim stars sprinkled in the naked branches overhead.

Other memories of childish satisfaction hold visions of the early breakfast when "Uncle John" came to see his widowed sister, who, with affectionate hospitality, set the "Johnny-cake" to bake on a board before the fire, made chocolate, fried the chicken and served them with snowy biscuits and translucent preserves.

For the huge fireplace, huge lengths of logs, for the backlogs, were cut, which required three persons to roll in place.

Cracking walnuts on the generous hearth helped to beguile the long winter evenings. A master might have beheld a worthy subject in the merry children and their mother thus occupied.

If other light were needed than the ruddy gleams the fire gave, it was furnished by a lard lamp hung by a chain and staple in the wall, or one of a pallid company of dipped candles.

Sometimes there were unwelcome visitors bent on helping themselves to the best the farm afforded; one day a wolf chased a chicken up into the chimney corner of the Boren cabin, to the consternation of the small children. Wolves also attacked the sheep alongside the cabin at the very moment when one of the family was trying to catch some lambs; such savage boldness brought hearty and justifiable screams from the young shepherdess thus engaged.

The products of the garden attached to this cabin are remembered as wonderful in richness and variety; the melons, squashes, pumpkins, etc., the fragrant garden herbs, the dill and caraway seeds for the famous seedcakes carried in grandmothers' pockets or "reticules." In addition to these, the wild fruits and game; haws, persimmons, grapes, plums, deer and wild turkey; the medicinal herbs, bone-set and blood-root; the nut trees heavily laden in autumn, all ministered to the comfort and health of the pioneers.

The mistress was known for her generous hospitality then, and throughout her life. In visiting and treating the sick she distanced educated pract.i.tioners in success. Never a violent partisan, she was yet a steadfast friend. One daughter has said that she never knew any one who came so near loving her neighbor as herself. Just, reasonable, kind, ever ready with sympathetic and wholesome advice, it was applicably said of her, "She openeth her mouth with wisdom and in her tongue is the law of kindness."

As the years went by the children were sent to school, the youngest becoming a teacher.

Toilsome years they were, but doubtless full of rich reward.

Afterward, while yet in the prime of life, she married John Denny, a Kentuckian and pioneer of Indiana, Illinois and finally of Oregon and Washington.

With this new alliance new fields of effort and usefulness opened before her. The unusual occurrence of a widowed mother and her two daughters marrying a widower and his two sons made this new tie exceeding strong.

With them, as before stated, she crossed the plains and "pioneered it"

in Oregon among the Waldo Hills, from whence she moved to Seattle on Puget Sound with her husband and little daughter, Loretta Denny, in 1859.

The shadow of pioneer days was scarcely receding, the place was a little straggling village and much remained of beginnings. As before in all other places, her busy hands found much to do; many a pair of warm stockings and mittens from her swift needles found their way into the possession of the numerous grand and great-grandchildren. In peaceful latter days she sat in a cozy corner with knitting basket at hand, her Bible in easy reach.

Her mind was clear and vigorous and she enjoyed reading and conversing upon topics old and new.

Her cottage home with its blooming plants, of which "Grandmother's calla," with its frequent, huge, snowy spathes, was much admired, outside the graceful laburnum tree and sweet-scented roses, was a place that became a Mecca to the tired feet and weary hearts of her kins-folk and acquaintances.

With devoted, filial affection her youngest daughter, S. Loretta Denny, remained with her until she entered into rest, February 10th, 1888.

CHAPTER III.

DAVID THOMAS DENNY.

David Thomas Denny was the first of the name to set foot upon the sh.o.r.es of Puget Sound. Born in Putnam County, Indiana, March 17th, 1832, he was nineteen years of age when he crossed the plains with his father's company in 1851. He is a descendant of an ancient family, English and Scotch, who moved to Ireland and thence to America, settling in Berk's County, Pa. His father was John Denny, a notable man in his time, a soldier of 1812, and a volunteer under William Henry Harrison.

The long, rough and toilsome journey across the plains was a schooling for the subsequent trials of pioneer life. Young as he was, he stood in the very forefront, the outmost skirmish line of his advancing detachment of the great army moving West. The anxious watch, the roughest toil, the reconnaissance fell to his lot. He drove a four-horse team, stood guard at night, alternately sleeping on the ground, under the wagon, hunted for game to aid in their sustenance, and, briefly, served his company in many ways with the energy and faithfulness which characterized his subsequent career.

With his party he reached Portland in August, 1851; from thence, with J.

N. Low, he made his way to Olympia on Puget Sound, where he arrived footsore and weary, they having traveled on foot the Hudson Bay Company's trail from the Columbia River. From Olympia, with Low, Lee Terry, Captain Fay and others, he journeyed in an open boat to Duwampsh Head, which has suffered many changes of name, where they camped, sleeping under the boughs of a great cedar tree the first night, September 25th, 1851.

The next day Denny, Terry and Low made use of the skill and knowledge of the native inhabitants by hiring two young Indians to take them up the Duwampsh River in their canoe. He was left to spend the following night with the two Indians, as his companions had wandered so far away that they could not return, but remained at an Indian camp farther up the river. On the 28th they were reunited and returned to their first camp, from which they removed the same day to Alki Point.

A cabin was commenced and after a time, Low and Terry returned to Portland, leaving David Thomas Denny, nineteen years of age, the only white person on Elliott Bay. There were then swarms of Indians on the Sound.

For three weeks he held this outpost of civilization, a part of the time being far from well. So impressed was he with the defenselessness of the situation that he expressed himself as "sorry" when his friends landed from the schooner "Exact" at Alki Point on the 13th of November, 1851.

No doubt realizing that an irretrievable step had been taken, he tried to rea.s.sure them by explaining that "the cabin was unfinished and that they would not be comfortable." Many incidents of his early experience are recorded in this volume elsewhere.

He was married on the 23rd of January, 1853, to Miss Louisa Boren, one of the most intelligent, courageous and devoted of pioneer women. They were the first white couple married in Seattle. He was an explorer of the eastern side of Elliott Bay, but was detained at home in the cabin by lameness occasioned by a cut on his foot, when A. A. Denny, W. N.

Bell and C. D. Boren took their claims, so had fourth choice.

For this reason his claim awaited the growth of the town of Seattle many years, but finally became very valuable.

It was early discovered by the settlers that he was a conscientious man; so well established was this fact that he was known by the sobriquet of "Honest Dave."

Like all the other pioneers, he turned his hand to any useful thing that was available, cutting and hewing timber for export, clearing a farm, hauling wood, tending cattle, anything honorable; being an advocate of total abstinence and prohibition, _he never kept a saloon_.

He has done all in his power to discountenance the sale and use of intoxicants, the baleful effects of which were manifest among both whites and Indians.

Every movement in the early days seems to have been fraught with danger.

D. T. Denny traveled in a canoe with two Indians from the Seattle settlement in July, 1852, to Bush's Prairie, back of Olympia, to purchase cattle for A. A. Denny, carrying two hundred dollars in gold for that purpose. He risked his life in so doing, as he afterward learned that the Indians thought of killing him and taking the money, but for some unknown reason decided not to do the deed.

He was a volunteer during the Indian war of 1855-6, in Company C, and with his company was not far distant when Lieut. Slaughter was killed, with several others. Those who survived the attack were rescued by this company.

On the morning of the battle of Seattle, he was standing guard near Fort Decatur; the most thrilling moment of the day to him was probably that in which he helped his wife and child into the fort as they fled from the Indians.

Although obliged to fight the Indians in self-defense in their warlike moods, yet he was ever their true friend and esteemed by them as such.