Denny Emily Inez
Blazing the Way; Or, True Stories, Songs and Sketches of Puget Sound
CHAPTER VI.
ARTHUR A. DENNY
(Born June 20th, 1822, Died January 9th, 1889.)
A ponderous volume of biography could scarcely set forth the journeyings, experiences, efforts, achievements and character of this well-known pioneer of the Northwest Coast. He was one of the foremost of the steadfast leaders of the pioneers. A long, useful and worthy life he spent among men, the far-reaching influence of which cannot be estimated. When he passed away both private citizens and public officials honored him; those who had known him far back in his youth and through the intervening years said of the eulogies pronounced upon his life, “Well, it is all true, and much more might be said.”
A. A. Denny was a son of John Denny and brother of David Thomas Denny; each of them exerted a great influence on the life and institutions of the Northwest.
From sketches published in the local papers I have made these selections:
“The Dennys are a very ancient family of England, Ireland and Scotland. The present branch traces its ancestry from Ireland to America through great-grandparents, David and Margaret Denny, who settled in Berks County, Pennsylvania, previous to the revolutionary war. There Robert Denny, the grandfather of A. A. Denny was born in 1753. In early life he removed to Frederick County, Virginia, where in 1778 he married Rachel Thomas; and about 1790 removed to and settled in Mercer County, Kentucky.
“There John Denny, father of the deceased, was born May 4, 1793, and was married August 25, 1814, to Sarah Wilson, daughter of Bassel and Ann (Scott) Wilson, who was born in the old town of Bladensburg, near Washington City, February 3, 1797. Her parents came to America in an early day.
“Their paternal and maternal grandparents served in the revolutionary war. The former belonged to Washington’s command at the time of Braddock’s defeat.
“John Denny was a soldier in the war of 1812, being in Col. Richard M. Johnson’s regiment of Kentucky volunteers. He was also an ensign in Capt. McFee’s company, and was with Gen. Harrison at the battle of the Thames, when Proctor was defeated and the noted Tecumseh killed. He was a member of the Illinois legislature in 1840 and 1841, with Lincoln, Yates, Bates and others, who afterwards became renowned in national affairs. In politics he was first a Whig and afterward a Republican. For many years he was a Justice of the Peace. He died July 28th, 1875, when 83 years of age. His first wife died March 21st, 1841, when 44 years of age.
“About 1816 John Denny and his family removed to Washington County, Indiana, and settled near Salem, where Arthur A. Denny was born June 20th, 1822. One year later they removed to Putnam County, six miles east from Greencastle, where they remained twelve years, and from there went to Knox County, Illinois. Mr. A. A. Denny has said of his boyhood:
“‘My early education began in the log schoolhouse so familiar to the early settler in the West. The teachers were paid by subscription, so much per pupil, and the schools rarely lasted more than half the year, and often but three months. Among the earliest of my recollections is of my father hewing out a farm in the beech woods of Indiana, and I well remember that the first school that I attended was two and a half miles from my home. When I became older it was often necessary for me to attend to home duties half of the day before going to school a mile distant. By close application I was able to keep up with my class.
“‘My opportunities to some extent improved as time advanced. I spent my vacations with an older brother at carpenter and joiner work to obtain the means to pay my expenses during term time.’”
A. A. Denny was married November 23, 1843, to Mary Ann Boren, to whom he has paid a graceful and well-deserved tribute in these words:
“She has been kind and indulgent to all my faults, and in cases of doubt and difficulty in the long voyage we have made together she has always been, without the least disposition to dictate, a safe and prudent adviser.”
He held many public offices, each and all of which he filled with scrupulous care, from county supervisor in Illinois in 1843 to first postmaster of Seattle in 1853. He was elected to the legislature of Washington Territory, serving for nine consecutive sessions, being the speaker of the third; was registrar of the U. S. Land Office at Olympia from 1861 to 1865. He was a member of the Thirty-ninth Congress, being a delegate from Washington Territory. Even in his age he was given the unanimous vote of the Republicans for U. S. Senator from the State of Washington.
His business enterprises date from the founding of the City of Seattle and are interwoven with its history.
He was a volunteer in the war against the Indians and had some stirring experiences. In his book, “Pioneer Days on Puget Sound,” he gives a very clear and accurate account of the beginning of the trouble with the Indians and many facts concerning the war following.
He found, as many others did, good and true friends, as well as enemies, among the Indians. On page 68 of the work mentioned may be found these words: “I will say further, that my acquaintance and experience with the Puget Sound Indians proved them to be sincere in their friendship, and no more unfaithful and treasonable than the average white man, and I am disposed to believe that the same might be truthfully said of many other Indians.”
With regard to the dissatisfied tenderfoot he says: “All old settlers know that it is a common occurrence for parties who have reached here by the easy method of steamer or railway in a palace car to be most blindly unreasonable in their fault-finding, and they are often not content with abusing the country and climate, but they heap curses and abuse on those who came before them by the good old method of ninety or a hundred days crossing the plains, just as though we had sent for them and thus given them an undoubted right to abuse us for their lack of good strong sense. Then we all know, too, that it as been a common occurrence for those same fault-finders to leave, declaring that the country was not fit for civilized people to live in; and not by any means unusual for the same parties to return after a short time ready to settle down and commence praising the country, as though they wanted to make amends for their unreasonable behavior in the first instance.”
There are a good many other pithy remarks in this book, forcible for their truth and simplicity.
As the stories of adventure have an imperishable fascination, I give his own account of the discovery of Shilshole or Salmon Bay:
“When we selected our claims we had fears that the range for our stock would not afford them sufficient feed in the winter, and it was not possible to provide feed for them, which caused us a great deal of anxiety. From statements made by the Indians, which we could then but imperfectly understand, we were led to believe that there was prairie or grass lands to the northwest, where we might find feed in case of necessity, but we were too busy to explore until in December, 1852, when Bell, my brother, D. T. Denny, and myself determined to look for the prairie. It was slow and laborious traveling through the unbroken forest, and before we had gone far Bell gave out and returned home, leaving us to proceed alone. In the afternoon we unexpectedly came to a body of water, and at first thought we had inclined too far eastward and struck the lake, but on examination we found it to be tidewater. From our point of observation we could not see the outlet to the Sound, and our anxiety to learn more about it caused us to spend so much time that when we turned homeward it soon became so dark that we were compelled to camp for the night without dinner, supper or blankets, and we came near being without fire also, as it had rained on us nearly all day and wet our matches so that we could only get fire by the flash of a rifle, which was exceedingly difficult under the circumstances.”
D. T. Denny remembers that A. A. Denny pulled some of the cotton wadding out of his coat and then dug into a dead fir tree that was dry inside and put it in with what other dry stuff they could find, which was very little, and D. T. Denny fired off his gun into it with the muzzle so close as to set fire to it.
He also relates that he shot a pheasant and broiled it before the fire, dividing it in halves.
A. A. Denny further says:
“Our camp was about midway between the mouth of the bay and the cove, and in the morning we made our way to the cove and took the beach for home. Of course, our failing to return at night caused great anxiety at home, and soon after we got on the beach we met Bell coming on hunt of us, and the thing of most interest to us just then was he had his pockets filled with hard bread.
“This was our first knowledge of Shilshole Bay, which, we soon after fully explored, and were ready to point newcomers in that direction for locations.”
Old Salmon Bay Curley had told them there was grass in that region, which was true they afterward learned, but not prairie grass, it was salt marsh, in sufficient quantity to sustain the cattle.
Speaking of the Indians, he tells how they settled around the cabins of the whites at Alki until there were perhaps a thousand, and relates this incident: “On one occasion during the winter, Nelson (Chief Pialse) came with a party of Green River and Muckilshoot Indians, and got into an altercation with John Kanem and the Snoqualmies. They met and the opposing forces, amounting to thirty or forty on a side, drew up directly in front of Low’s house, armed with Hudson Bay muskets, the two parties near enough together to have powder-burnt each other, and were apparently in the act of opening fire, when we interposed and restored peace without bloodshed, by my taking John Kanem away and keeping them apart until Nelson and his party left.”
His daughter, Lenora Denny, related the same incident to me. She witnessed it as a little child and remembers it perfectly, together with her fright at the preparations for battle, and added that Kanem desired her father at their conference behind the cabin just to let him go around behind the enemy’s line of battle and stab their chief; nobody would know who did it and that would be sufficient in lieu of the proposed fight. Mr. Denny dissuaded him and the “war” terminated as above stated.
In the fall of 1855, the Indians exhibited more and more hostility toward the whites, and narrow escapes were not uncommon before the war fairly broke out.
About this time as A. A. Denny was making a canoe voyage from Olympia down the Sound he met with a thrilling experience.
When he and his two Indian canoemen were opposite a camp of savages on the beach, they were hailed by the latter with:
“Who is it you have in the canoe and where are you going?” spoken in their native tongue. After calling back and forth for some little time, two of them put out hastily in a canoe to overtake the travelers, keeping up an earnest and excited argument with one of Mr. Denny’s Indians, both of whom he observed never ceased paddling. One of the strangers was dressed up in war-paint and had a gun across his lap; he kept up the angry debate with one of the travelers while the other was perfectly silent.
Finally the pursuers were near enough so that one reached out to catch hold of the canoe when Denny’s men paddled quickly out of reach and increased their speed to a furious rate, continuing to paddle with all their might until a long distance from their threatening visitors. Although Mr. Denny did not understand their speech, their voices and gestures were not difficult to interpret; he felt they wished to kill him and thought himself lost.
He afterward learned that his canoeman, who had answered the attacking party, had saved his life by his courage and cunning. The savages from the camp had demanded that Mr. Denny be given up to them that they might kill him in revenge for the killing of some Indians, saying he was a “hyas tyee” (great man) and a most suitable subject for their satisfaction.
He had answered that Mr. Denny was not near so high up nor as great as some others and was always a good friend of the Indians and then carried him to a place of safety by fast and furious paddling. The one who was silent during the colloquy declared afterward that he said nothing for fear they would kill him too.
This exhibition of faithfulness on the part of Indian hirelings is worthy of note in the face of many accusations of treachery on the part of their race.
It is my opinion that Arthur Armstrong Denny led an exemplary life and that he ever desired to do justice to others. If he failed in doing so, it was the fault of those with whom he was associated rather than his own.
A leading trait in his character was integrity, another was the modesty that ever accompanies true greatness, noticeable also in his well known younger brother, D. T. Denny; neither has been boastful, arrogant or grasping for public honors.
A. A. Denny fought the long battle of the pioneer faithfully and well and sleeps in an honored grave.
MARY A. DENNY
Mary Ann Boren (Denny) was born in Tennessee, November 25th, 1822, the first child of Richard Boren and Sarah Latimer Boren (afterward Denny). Her grandfather Latimer, a kind hearted, sympathetic man, sent a bottle of camphor to revive the pale young mother. This camphor bottle was kept in the family, the children resorting to it for the palliation of cuts and bruises throughout their adolescence, and it is now preserved by her own family as a cherished relic, having seen eighty years and more since its presentation.
After the death of her father, leaving her mother a young widow with three small children, they lived in Illinois as pioneers, where Mary shared the toils, dangers and vicissitudes of frontier life. Was not this the school for the greater pioneering of the farthest west?
November 23rd, 1843, she married Arthur A. Denny, a man who both recognized and acknowledged her worth.
When she crossed the plains in 1851 with the Denny company, Mrs. Denny was a young matron of twenty-nine years, with two little daughters. The journey, arduous to any, was peculiarly trying to her with the helpless ones to care for and make as comfortable as such tenting in the wilds might be.
At Fort Laramie her own feet were so uncomfortable in shoes that she put on a pair of moccasins which David T. Denny had bought of an Indian and worn for one day. Mrs. Denny wore them during the remainder of the journey to Portland.
One incident among many serves to show her unfaltering courage; an Indian reached into her wagon to take the gun hung up inside: Mrs. Mary A. Denny pluckily seized a hatchet and drew it to strike a vigorous blow when the savage suddenly withdrew, doubtless with an increased respect for white squaws in general and this one in particular.
The great journey ended, at Portland her third child, Rolland H., was born. If motherhood be a trial under the most favorable circumstances, what must it have been on the long march?
On the stormy and dangerous trip from Portland on the schooner Exact, out over the bar and around Cape Flattery to the landing at Alki Point, went the little band with this brave mother and her babe.
On a drizzly day in November, the 13th, 1851, she climbed the bank at Alki Point to the rude cabin, bare of everything now considered necessary to begin housekeeping. They were imperfectly protected from the elements and the eldest child, Catharine, or Kate as she was called, yet remembers how the rain dropped on her face the first night they slept in the unfinished cabin, giving her a decided prejudice against camping out.
The mother’s health was poor and it became necessary to provide nourishment for the infant; as there were no cows within reach, or tinned substitutes, the experiment of feeding him on clam juice was made with good effect.
Louisa Boren Denny, her sister, then unmarried, relates the following incident:
“At Alki Point one day, I stood just within the door of the cabin and Mary stood just inside; both of us saw an Indian bob up from behind the bank and point his gun directly at my sister Mary and almost immediately lower it without firing.”
Mary A. Denny, when asked recently what she thought might have been his reason for doing so replied, “Well, I don’t know, unless it was just to show what he could do; it was Indian Jim; I suppose he did it to show that he could shoot me if he wanted to.”
Probably he thought to frighten her at least, but with the customary nerve of the pioneer woman, she exhibited no sign of fear and he went his way.
They afterward learned that on the same evening there had been some trouble with the Indians at the Maple Place and it was thought that this Indian was one of the disaffected or a sympathizer.
Mrs. Mary A. Denny moved about from place to place, living first in the cabin at Alki Point, then a cabin on Elliott Bay, on the north end of their claim, then another cabin near the great laurel tree, on the site of the Stevens Hotel, Seattle. After a time the family went to Olympia. Her husband was in the Land Office, was a member of the Territorial Legislature and Delegate to Congress; all the while she toiled on in her home with her growing family.
They returned to Seattle and built what was for those times a very good residence on the corner of Pike Street and First Avenue, where they had a fine orchard, and there they lived many years.
After having struggled through long years of poverty, not extreme, to be sure, but requiring much patient toil and endurance, their property became immensely valuable and they enjoyed well deserved affluence.
Mrs. Mary A. Denny’s family consists of four sons and two daughters; Orion O., the second son, was the second white child born in Seattle. Catherine (Denny) Frye, the elder daughter, was happily married in her girlhood and is the mother of a most interesting family. Rolland H., Orion O., A. Wilson and Charles L. Denny, the four sons, are prominent business men of Seattle.
Mrs. Denny makes her home with Lenora, the younger unmarried daughter, at her palatial residence in Seattle. The last mentioned is a traveled, well read woman of most sympathetic nature, devoted to her friends, one who has shown kindness to many strangers in times past as they were guests in her parents’ home.
CHAPTER VII.
HENRY VAN ASSELT OF DUWAMISH
In the Post-Intelligencer of December 8th and 9th, 1902, appeared the following sketches of this well known pioneer:
“At the ripe old age of 85, with the friendship and affection of every man he knew in this life, Henry Van Asselt, one of the founders of King County, and one of the four of the first white men to set foot on the shores of Elliott Bay, died yesterday morning at his home, on Fifteenth Avenue, of paralysis. Mr. Van Asselt, with Samuel and Jacob Maple and L. M. Collins, landed in a canoe September 14th, 1851, at the mouth of the Duwamish River, where it enters the harbor of Seattle. They had come from the Columbia River and were more than two months in advance of Arthur Denny, one of the pioneer builders of the city of Seattle. Van Asselt’s name is perpetuated through the town of Van Asselt, adjoining the southern limits of the city. He was well known all over the Puget Sound country, and he was the last living member of one of the first bands of white arrivals, on the shores of Elliott Bay.
“Mr. Van Asselt was a Hollander, having been born in Holland April 11, 1817, two years after the battle of Waterloo. He was in his early youth a soldier in the Holland army during its dispute with Belgium. An expert marksman and an indefatigable huntsman, he came to America in 1850, on a sailing schooner, and a year later was traveling the trail from the Central West to California. Instead of going to the land of gold and sunshine, Van Asselt headed north, reaching the Columbia River in the fall of 1850. A year later found him crossing the Columbia River, after a short sojourn in the mining camps of Northern California. With three companions, L. M. Collins, Jacob and Samuel Maple, Henry Van Asselt made the perilous journey from the Columbia River to the Sound, where, near Olympia, he boarded a canoe, and after two days’ traveling reached the mouth of the Duwamish River. Ascending the stream to the junction of the White and Black Rivers, a distance of only a few miles, he staked out a donation land claim of 320 acres in the heart of the richest section of the Duwamish valley.”
SAID VALUES INCREASED
“The sturdy Hollander cleared the valley of its primeval forest of firs, and made it truly blossom with farm products of every description. The land today (1902) is worth $1,000 an acre and upwards. At his death, the aged pioneer, the last of his generation, had in his own name some 100 odd acres of this land. Not many weeks ago he had sold twenty-four acres of the old homestead as the site of the new rolling mill and foundry to be constructed by the Vulcan Iron Works.
“Mr. Van Asselt was not the least interesting, by any means, of the old pioneers of King County. In fact, until his death he was the last living member of the first group of white men to set foot on the shores of Elliott Bay. He was a very devout man, and in the late years of his life, when he had retired from active business, it was his custom to spend part of every Sunday at the county jail, reading to the prisoners excerpts from holy writ and giving them words of hopefulness and cheer. This duty was performed for many years as regularly as was his attendance at the Methodist Protestant church, in this city, of which he had been for thirty years a member. It is to be said of the dead pioneer that he was universally loved and respected, and it was his proudest boast that he had never made an enemy in his life. This was literally true.
“Crossing the plains in 1850, young Van Asselt was of great assistance to his party in procuring game and in driving the hostile Indians away, because of his superior marksmanship, which he had acquired as a hunter on the estates of wealthy residents of his native country. He landed at Oregon City, Ore., in September, 1850, and the ensuing winter he spent in mining in California. He accumulated a considerable sum, and, lured by stories of the richness and vastness of the great Northwest, he returned to Portland in 1851, and, crossing the Columbia, made his way to the Sound country. On this trip he was accidentally wounded, the bullet being imbedded in his shoulder. In the days of the Indian troubles on the Sound, Van Asselt was safe from the attacks of the hostiles, who held him in superstitious reverence because of the fact that he carried a bullet in his body. They believed that he could not be killed by a tomahawk. This fact, perhaps, had much to do with his escape from assassination at the hands of the hostiles in the Indian war of 1855.
“Jacob and Samuel Maple, who with L. M. Collins accompanied Mr. Van Asselt to Puget Sound, have been dead many years. Arthur A. Denny has been gathered to his fathers, along with many others of the old pioneers of King County and Washington. Van Asselt is the last of that hardy race that opened the wilderness on Puget Sound and made it blossom like the rose.
“The news of the death of Van Asselt was received as a sad blow among the people of Van Asselt, where the aged pioneer spent the greater portion of his days in the house which still stands as a monument to his rugged pioneer days. In Van Asselt the people speak the name of the pioneer with reverence on account of the many charities he extended to the poor during his lifetime, and also on account of the many acts which he did in pioneer days to save and maintain the peaceful relations with the savages.
“The marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Van Asselt was celebrated in this county, on Christmas evening 1862. All of those present at the wedding have now passed away with a few exceptions.
“Mr. Van Asselt leaves a wife, Mrs. Mary Jane Maple Van Asselt; a son, Dr. J. H. Van Asselt; two daughters, Mrs. J. H. Benadom, of Puyallup, and Dr. Nettie Van Asselt Burling, and a grandson, Floyd Julian, son of Mrs. Mary Adriane Van Asselt Julian, who died in 1893. Mr. Van Asselt also leaves a brother, Rev. Garrett Van Asselt, of Utrecht, Holland, and several sisters in Holland.
“The following were selected as active pallbearers: William P. Harper, Dexter Horton, D. B. Ward, O. J. Carr, Isaac Parker, M. R. Maddocks. The honorary pallbearers were: Edgar Bryan, Rev. Daniel Bagley, F. M. Guye, Joseph Foster, William Carkeek, Judge Orange Jacobs.
“As illustrative of the regard and esteem in which this pioneer was held by those who knew him best, Dexter Horton, the well known banker and capitalist, who met Mr. Van Asselt in 1852, said last night:
“‘Mr. Van Asselt was a man of sterling character. His word was as good as a government bond. I knew him almost from the beginning of his life here. He was one of the kindliest men I ever met.
“‘For fifteen years after I came to Seattle I conducted a general merchandise store here. There were mighty few of us here in those early times and we were all intimately acquainted. I dare say that when a newcomer had resided on the Sound, anywhere from Olympia to the Strait of Fuca, for thirty days, I became acquainted with him. They dropped in here to trade, traveling in Indian canoes. There never was a man of them that I did not trust to any reasonable extent for goods, and my losses on that account in fifteen years’ dealing with the early settlers were less than $1,000. This is sufficient testimony as to the character and integrity of the men who, like Van Asselt, faced the privations and dangers of the Western Trail to find homes for themselves on the Pacific Coast.
“‘Mr. Van Asselt located on a level farm in the Duwamish valley on his arrival here. He was a man of great energy and thrift, and soon had good and paying crops growing. He used to bring his produce to Seattle, either by Indian canoe, or afterwards, when a trail was cut under the brow of the hill, by teams. This produce was readily disposed of, as we had a large number of men working in the mills and few to supply their necessities.
“‘I remember that after he had lived here for several years he moved to town and established a cabinet maker’s shop. He was an expert in that line of work. I have an ancient curly maple bureau which he made for me, and Mrs. A. A. Denny has another. They are beautifully fashioned, Van Asselt being well skilled in the trade. Doubtless others among the old-timers here have mementos of his handicraft.
“‘Van Asselt was of the type of men who blazed the path for generations that followed them to the Pacific Coast. His integrity was unchallenged, and his charities were numerous and unostentatious. He used to give every worthy newcomer work on his ranch, and many an emigrant in those days got his first start from Henry Van Asselt.’
“Samuel Crawford knew Mr. Van Asselt intimately since 1876. He said last night:
“‘Henry Van Asselt, or Uncle Henry, as we all called him, spent the winter of 1850-1851 with my great-great-grandfather, Robert Moore, at Oregon City, Ore., or more properly speaking, on the west shore of the Willamette, just across from Oregon City. Mr. Van Asselt told me this himself. Moore kept a large place, which was a sort of rendezvous for the immigrants, and many a man found shelter at his ranch. He gave them work enough to keep them going, and Van Asselt found employment with him that winter, making shingles from cedar bolts with a draw knife.
“‘Mr. Van Asselt was one of the best men that ever lived. His word was as good as gold, and he never overlooked a chance to do a friend a favor. While he spoke English with difficulty, on occasion he could make a good speech, and he always took a deep interest in public affairs. There was probably no important public question involving the interests of Seattle and the Puget Sound country but that Mr. Van Asselt had his say. He did not care for public office, however, but preferred to go along in his quiet way, doing all the good that was possible. He firmly believed in the future of Seattle, which he loved dearly, and I remember many years ago of his purchase of two blocks of ground on Renton Hill, in the vicinity of the residence where he passed the last years of his life. This was nearly twenty years ago.’
“Thomas W. Prosch had known Mr. Van Asselt for many years. He, too, paid a tribute to his fine character, and rugged honesty. ‘Six years ago,’ said Mr. Prosch, ‘I went to talk with Mr. Van Asselt regarding his early experiences on the Sound. He told me of his long and arduous trip across the plains in 1850, and of his escapades with the Indians then and afterward. He said himself that he believed he led a charmed life, as the Indians took many a shot at him, but without avail. He was a dead shot himself, and the Indians had great respect for his skill. He was a very determined man, and undoubtedly had a great influence over the savages.
“‘Mr. Van Asselt told me that he met Hill Harmon, a well known Oregon settler, in the spring of 1851, and together they crossed the Columbia and came to Olympia. From there they went with two or three others to Nesqually, where they met Luther M. Collins, one of the first settlers in King County. Collins endeavored to persuade them to locate near him, but they wanted a better place. Finally Collins brought them to the Duwamish valley and located them here. One of the party bought Collins’ place at Nesqually, and he came here to locate with Van Asselt and the others. Collins’ family was the first white family to establish a home in King County.’”