THE HISTORY OF A HISTORY.

Before giving an account of the adventure incident to marking the Oregon Trail given in detail in chapters to follow in this volume, I will write of one more adventure following my return from the Klondike; that is, of my writing a book. The simple act of writing a book was in no sense either a venture or an adventure, though it took me over three years to do it. But when I undertook to have it printed (an afterthought), then a real venture confronted me. No local works so far had paid printers' bills and I was admonished by friends that a loss would undoubtedly occur if I printed the work. But their fears were not well founded, the work was printed, [20] the sales were made and the printer paid.

Four years ago today I arrived at the ripe age of three score years and ten, supposed to be the limit of life. Finding that I possessed more ambition than strength, and that my disposition for a strenuous life was greater than my power of physical endurance, I naturally turned to other fields of work, that condition of life so necessary for the welfare and happiness of the human race.

Many years before it had been my ambition to write our earlier experiences of pioneer life on Puget Sound, and not necessarily for the printer, but because I wanted to, but never could find time; and so when the change came and my usual occupation was gone, what else would I be more likely to do than to turn to my long delayed work, the more particularly being admonished that it must be done soon or not at all. And so, in a cheerful, happy mood, I entered again into the domain of pioneer life, and began writing. But this is not history, you will say. True, but we will come to that by and by.

I had, during the summer of 1853, with an inexperienced companion, in an open boat—a frail skiff built with our own hands—crossed the path of Theodore Winthrop, spending more than a month on a cruise from Olympia to the Straits and return, while that adventurous traveler and delightful writer had with a crew of Indians made the trip from Port Townsend to Fort Nisqually in a canoe. I had followed Winthrop a year later through the Natchess Pass to the Columbia River and beyond, alone, except a companion pony that carried my sack of hard bread for food, the saddle blanket for my bed and myself across the turbulent rivers, and on easy grades. If Winthrop could write such a beautiful book, "The Canoe and the Saddle," based upon such a trip, with Indians to paddle his canoe on the Sound, and with an attendant and three horses through the mountains, why should not my own experience of such a trip be interesting to my own children and their children's children? And so I wrote these trips.

Did you ever, when hungry, taste of a dish of fruit, a luscious, ripe, highly flavored apple for instance, that seemed only to whet but not satisfy your appetite? I know you have, and so can appreciate my feelings when these stories were written. I craved more of pioneer life experience, and so I went back to the earlier scenes, a little earlier only—to the trip in a flat boat down the Columbia. River from The Dalles to the first cabin, where Kalama town now stands; to the pack on our backs from the Columbia to the Sound; to the three times passing the road to and fro to get the wife and baby to tidewater—what a charm that word tidewater had for me with a vision of the greatness of opportunities of the seaboard—and I may say it has never lost its charm—of the great world opened up before me, and so we were soon again housed in the little cabin with its puncheon floor, "cat-and-clay" chimney, and clapboard roof; its surroundings of scenery; of magnificent forests and of constantly moving life, the Indians with their happy song and fishing parties.

All this and more, too, I wrote, every now and then getting over to the Indian question. How could I help it? We had been treated civilly, and I may say, kindly, by them from the very outset, when we, almost alone, were their white neighbors. I had been treated generously by some, and had always found them ready to reciprocate in acts of kindness, and so we had come to respect our untutored neighbors and to sympathize with them in their troubles. Deep troubles came to them when the treaty-making period arrived, and a little later upon all of us, when war came, to break up all our plans and amicable relations. As I began to write more about the Indians and their ways, a step further brought me to the consideration of our Territorial government and the government officials and their acts. It gradually dawned upon me this was a more important work than writing of humble individuals; that the history of our commonwealth was by far a more interesting theme, and more profitable to the generations to follow than recording of private achievements of the pioneer. It was but a step further until I realized that I was fairly launched upon the domain of history, and that I must need be more painstaking and more certain of my facts, and so then came a long rest for my pen and a long search of the records, of old musty letters, of no less old musty books, of forgetful minds of the pioneers left, and again I was carried away into the almost forgotten past.

An authoress once told me that she never named her book until after it was written. I could not then understand why, but I now do. While writing of pioneer life I could think of no other title than something like this: "Pioneer Life on Puget Sound Fifty Years Ago," a pretty long title, but that was what the writing treated of. But when I got on the Indian question and came to realize what a splendid true story was wrapped up in the darkness of impending oblivion; how the Indians had been wronged; how they had fought for their homes and won them; how the chief actors had been sacrificed, but the tribes had profited—I again became enthusiastic over my theme and over my ready-made heroes, and before I realized it, lo! a new name took possession of my mind and rang in it until there was born the title, "The Tragedy of Leschi."

When I come to think of it, that here were tribes that had never shed white men's blood until grim war came, and that then they refused to make war on their old neighbors, and that but one non-combatant settler had lost his life after the first day of frenzy of the Muckleshoot band at the massacre of White River, that here were men we called savages, fighting for a cause, but threw themselves on the track of the military arm of the government and not against helpless settlers. I had myself been in their power and remained unharmed. I knew other of my neighbors also that had been exposed and remained unmolested; surely to tell the truth about such people is no more than justice and I said to myself, I will write it down and prove what I write by the records and the best obtainable witnesses alive, and having done so, will print it, two books in one, two titles, yet but one volume, "Pioneer Reminiscences of Puget Sound; The Tragedy of Leschi."

It is natural that in the stirring times of early days opinions would differ; that neighbors, and even members of families, would look upon events from different points of view, and so out of this maze I have tried to state exact facts and draw just conclusions. The chapter of this history begins with the creation of the Territory and ends with Governor Stevens' official life in the Territory in the period concerned. During that period, treaties were made with the Indians, the war with them was fought; massacres horrid to contemplate were perpetrated by the Indians and whites—by the Indians at the outbreak, and the whites later—murders were committed; martial law proclaimed, our courts invaded with armed men, judges dragged from the bench; our governor in turn brought before the courts, fined and reprieved by himself, and many other happenings unique in history are related, and so, when my labor was finished and my pen laid aside, my only regret was that the work had not been undertaken earlier in life when memory served more accurately, and my contemporaries were more numerous.