The Log School-House on the Columbia Part 27

He was a man of great intellect, of a forceful and magnetic presence--a man born to lead in great emergencies. He carried New England ideas and traditions to the Pacific, and established them there for all time to come, creating there a greater New England which should gather to its harbors the commerce of the world.

Governor Stevens was a conservative in politics, but when the news of the fall of Sumter thrilled the country, he said to the people of Olympia, "I conceive it my duty to stop disunion." He went to Washington and entered the Union service.

He fell like a hero at Chantilly, and under the flag which he had taken from his color-bearer, who had received a mortal wound. His was a splendid career that the nation should honor. We recently saw his sword and historic pictures at the home of his widow and son at Dorchester, Ma.s.s., and were impressed with these relics of a spirit that had done so much for the progress of the country and mankind.

The State of Washington is his monument, and progressive thought his eulogy. His great mind and energy brought order out of chaos, and set the flag in whose folds he died forever under the gleaming dome of the Colossus of American mountains and over the celestial blue of the Pacific harbors of the Puget Sea.

IV.

SEATTLE THE CHIEF.

Seattle was a Dwamish chief, and a true friend of the white race, whom he seemed to follow on account of their superior intelligence. He gave the name to an early settlement, which is now a great city, and which seems destined to become one of the important port cities of the world; for when in 1852, some forty years ago, the pioneers of Alke Point left the town which they had laid out and called New York, and removed to the other side of the bay, they named the place Seattle, from the friendly chief, instead of New York. Alke means _by and by_ and Seattle is likely to become the New York of the Pacific, and one of the great ports for Asiatic trade.

With the immense agricultural and mineral resources with which it is surrounded, with its inexhaustible stores of timber, its sublime scenery and delightful climate, with its direct and natural water-road to j.a.pan and China, and its opportunity of manufacturing for the Asiatic market the kind of goods that England has to carry to the same markets over an adventurous course of three times the distance, with the great demand for grain among the rice-eating countries of the East--the mind can not map the possibilities of this port city for the next hundred years or more.

The prophecy of its enterprising citizens, that it will one day be one of the great cities in the world, is not unlikely to be realized; and it is interesting to ask what was the history of the chief who gave the name to this new Troy of the Puget Sea.

He was at this time somewhat advanced in life, a portly man, of benevolent face, recalling the picture of Senator Benton, of Missouri, whom he was said to resemble. He was the chief of the Dwamishes, a small tribe inhabiting the territory around what is now Elliott Bay. He became a friend of Dr. Maynard, one of the pioneers of the new town, and of General Stevens, the great Territorial Governor. He was well known to Foster, Denny, Bell, and Borden, who took claims where the city now stands. His last years were pa.s.sed at Port Madison, where he died in 1866, at a great age.

Governor Stevens confirmed his sachemship, and Seattle became the protector and the good genius of the town. A curious legend, which seems to be well founded, is related of a tax which Seattle levied upon the new town, for the sake of the trouble that the name would give him in the spiritual world. When a Dwamish Indian lost a near relative of the same name by death, he changed his own name, because the name might attract the ghost of the deceased, and so cause him to be haunted. The tribe believed that departed spirits loved their old habitations, and the a.s.sociations of their names and deeds, and so they changed their names and places on the death of relatives, that they might not be disturbed by ghostly apparitions.

"Why do you ask for a tax?" asked a pioneer of Seattle.

"The name of the town will call me back after I am dead, and make me unhappy. I want my pay for what I shall suffer then, now."

I hope that the rapid growth of the great city of the North does not disquiet the gentle and benevolent soul of Seattle. The city should raise a monument to him, that he may see that he is kindly remembered when he comes back to visit the a.s.sociations of his name and life. Or, better for his shade, the city should kindly care for his daughter, poor old Angeline Seattle, who at the time of this writing (1890) is a beggar in the streets of uplifting commercial palaces and lovely homes!

We visited her in her hut outside of the city some months ago, to ask her if she saved Seattle in 1855, by giving information to the pioneers that the woods around it were full of lurking Indians, bent on a plot to destroy it; for there is a legend that on that shadowy December night, when Seattle was in peril, and the council of Indian warriors met and resolved to destroy the town before morning, Jim, a friendly Indian, was present at the conference as a spy. He found means to warn the pioneers of their immediate danger.

The ship of war Decatur, under Captain Gansevoort, lay in the harbor. Jim, who had acted in the Indian council, secretly, in the interest of the town, had advised the chiefs to defer the attack until early in the morning, when the officers of the Decatur would be off their guard.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Middle block-house at the Cascades._]

Night fell on the Puget Sea. The people went into the block-house to sleep, and the men of the Decatur guarded the town, taking their stations on sh.o.r.e. As the night deepened, a thousand hostile Indians crept up to the place and awaited the morning, when the guard should go on board the ship for breakfast, and the people should come out of the block-house and go to their houses, and "set the gun behind the door."

It was on this night, according to the legend, that "Old Angeline," as she is now called, became the messenger that saved the inhabitants from destruction.

The legend has been doubted; and when we asked the short, flat-faced old woman, as she answered our knock, if she was the daughter of the chief who saved Seattle, she simply said, "Chief," grinned, and made a bow. She was ready to accept the traditional honors of the wild legend worthy of the pen of a Cooper.

On returning from our visit to old Angeline, we asked Hon. Henry Yesler, the now rich pioneer, why the princess was not better cared for by the people of the city. He himself had been generous to her. "Why," he said, "if you were to give her fifty dollars, she would give it all away before night!" Benevolent old Angeline! She ought to live in a palace instead of a hovel! Mr. Yesler doubted the local legend, but I still wished to believe it to be true.

V.

The story of "Whitman's Ride for Oregon" has been told in verse by the writer of this volume, as follows:

WHITMAN'S RIDE FOR OREGON.

I.

"An empire to be lost or won!"

And who four thousand miles will ride And climb to heaven the Great Divide, And find the way to Washington, Through mountain canons, winter snows, O'er streams where free the north wind blows?

Who, who will ride from Walla-Walla, Four thousand miles, for Oregon?

II.

"An empire to be lost or won?

In youth to man I gave my all, And naught is yonder mountain wall; If but the will of Heaven be done, It is not mine to live or die, Or count the mountains low or high, Or count the miles from Walla-Walla.

I, I will ride for Oregon!"

'Twas thus that Whitman made reply.

III.

"An empire to be lost or won?

Bring me my Cayuse pony, then, And I will thread old ways again, Beneath the gray skies' crystal sun.

'Twas on those altars of the air I raised the flag, and saw below The measureless Columbia flow; The Bible oped, and bowed in prayer, And gave myself to G.o.d anew, And felt my spirit newly born; And to my mission I'll be true, And from the vale of Walla-Walla I'll ride again for Oregon.

IV.

"I'm not my own; myself I've given, To bear to savage hordes the Word; If on the altars of the heaven I'm called to die, it is the Lord.

The herald may not wait or choose, 'Tis his the summons to obey; To do his best, or gain or lose, To seek the Guide and not the way.

He must not miss the cross, and I Have ceased to think of life or death; My ark I've builded--heaven is nigh, And earth is but a morning's breath!

Go, then, my Cayuse pony bring; The hopes that seek myself are gone, And from the vale of Walla-Walla I'll ride again for Oregon."

V.

He disappeared, as not his own, He heard the warning ice winds sigh; The smoky sun-flames o'er him shone, On whitened altars of the sky, As up the mountain-sides he rose; The wandering eagle round him wheeled, The partridge fled, the gentle roes, And oft his Cayuse pony reeled Upon some dizzy crag, and gazed Down cloudy chasms, falling storms, While higher yet the peaks upraised Against the winds their giant forms.

On, on and on, past Idaho, On past the mighty Saline sea, His covering at night the snow, His only sentinel a tree.

On, past Portneuf's basaltic heights, On where the San Juan Mountains lay, Through sunless days and starless nights, Toward Taos and far Sante Fe.

O'er table-lands of sleet and hail, Through pine-roofed gorges, canons cold, Now fording streams incased in mail Of ice, like Alpine knights of old, Still on, and on, forgetful on, Till far behind lay Walla-Walla, And far the fields of Oregon.

VI.

The winter deepened, sharper grew The hail and sleet, the frost and snow; Not e'en the eagle o'er him new, And scarce the partridge's wing below.

The land became a long white sea, And then a deep with scarce a coast; The stars refused their light, till he Was in the wildering mazes lost.

He dropped rein, his stiffened hand Was like a statue's hand of clay!

"My trusty beast, 'tis the command; Go on, I leave to thee the way.

I must go on, I must go on, Whatever lot may fall to me, On, 'tis for others' sake I ride-- For others I may never see, And dare thy clouds, O Great Divide, Not for myself, O Walla-Walla, Not for myself, O Washington, But for thy future, Oregon."

VII.

And on and on the dumb beast pressed Uncertain, and without a guide, And found the mountain's curves of rest And sheltered ways of the Divide.

His feet grew firm, he found the way With storm-beat limbs and frozen breath, As keen his instincts to obey As was his master's eye of faith-- Still on and on, still on and on, And far and far grew Walla-Walla, And far the fields of Oregon.