Part 7 (1/2)
Captain Gansevoort (who was lying in his berth): ”John bring me my boots.”
H. L. Yesler: ”Never mind Captain, just send the lieutenant with the howitzer.”
Captain G.: ”No sir! Where my men go, I go too John bring me my boots.”
And thus the ball opened; a sh.e.l.l was dropped in the neighborhood of ”Tom Pepper's house” with the effect to arouse the whole horde of savages, perhaps a thousand, gathered in the woods back of the town.
Unearthly yells of Indians and brisk firing of musketry followed; the battle raged until noon, when there was a lull.
A volume of personal experiences might be written, but I will give here but a few incidents. To a number of the settlers who were about breakfasting, it was a time of breathless terror; they must flee for their lives to the fort. The bullets from unseen foes whistled over their heads and the distance traversed to the fort was the longest journey of their lives. It was remembered afterward that some very amusing things took place in the midst of fright and flight. One man, rising late and not fully attired, donned his wife's red flannel petticoat instead of the bifurcated garment that usually graced his limbs. The ”pants” were not handy and the petticoat was put on in a trice.
Louisa Boren Denny, my mother, was alone with her child about two years old, in the little frame house, a short distance from the fort. She was engaged in baking biscuits when hearing the shots and yells of the Indians she looked out to see the marines from the Decatur swarming up out of their boats onto Yesler's wharf and concluded it was best to retire in good order. With provident foresight she s.n.a.t.c.hed the pan from the oven and turned the biscuits into her ap.r.o.n, picked up the child, Emily Inez Denny, with her free hand and hurried out, leaving the premises to their fate. Fortunately her husband, David T. Denny, who had been standing guard, met her in the midst of the flying bullets and a.s.sisted her, speedily, into the friendly fort.
A terrible day it was for all those who were called upon to endure the anxiety and suspense that hovered within those walls; perhaps the moment that tried them most was when the report was circulated that all would be burned alive as the Indians would shoot arrows carrying fire on the roof of cedar s.h.i.+ngles or heap combustibles against the walls near the ground and thus set fire to the building. To prevent the latter maneuver, the walls were banked with earth all around.
But the Indians kept at a respectful distance, the rifle-b.a.l.l.s and sh.e.l.ls were not to their taste and it is not their way to fight in the open.
A tragic incident was the death of Milton Holgate. Francis McNatt, a tall man, stood in the door of the fort with one hand up on the frame and Jim Broad beside him; Milton Holgate stood a little back of McNatt, and the bullet from a savage's gun pa.s.sed either over or under the uplifted arm of McNatt, striking the boy between the eyes.
Quite a number of women and children were taken on board the two s.h.i.+ps in the harbor, but my mother remained in the fort.
The battle was again renewed and fiercely fought in the afternoon.
Toward evening the Indians prepared to burn the town, but a brisk dropping of sh.e.l.ls from the big guns of the Decatur dispersed them and they departed for cooler regions, burning houses on the outskirts of the settlement as they retreated toward the Duwamish River.
[Ill.u.s.tration: INDIAN CANOES SAILING WITH NORTH WIND]
Leschi, the leader, threatened to return in a month with his bands and annihilate the place. In view of other possible attacks, a second block house was built and the forest side of the town barricaded.
Fort Decatur was a two-story building, forty feet square; the upper story was part.i.tioned off into small rooms, where a half dozen or more families lived until it was safe or convenient to return to their distant homes. Each had a stove on which to cook, and water was carried from a well inside the stockade.
There were a number of children thus shut in, who enlivened the grim walls with their s.h.i.+fting shadows, awakened mirth by their playfulness or touched the hearts of their elders by their pathos.
Like a ray of sunlight in a gloomy interior was little Sam Neely, a great pet, a sociable, affectionate little fellow, visiting about from corner to corner, always sure of attention and a kindly welcome. The marines from the man-of-war spoiled him without stint. One of the Sergeants gave his mother a half worn uniform, which she skilfully re-made, gold braid, b.u.t.tons and all, for little Sam. How proud he was, with everybody calling him the ”Little Sergeant”; whenever he approached a loquacious group, some one was sure to say, ”Well, Sergeant, what's the news?”
When the day came for the Neely family to move out of the fort, his mother was very busy and meals uncertain.
He finally appealed to a friend, who had before proven herself capable of sympathy, for something to appease his gnawing hunger, and she promptly gave him a bowl of bread and milk. Down he sat and ate with much relish; as he drained the last drop he observed, ”I was just so hungry, I didn't know how hungry I was.”
Poor little Sam was drowned in the Duwampsh River the same year, and buried on its banks.
Laura Bell, a little girl of perhaps ten years, during her stay in the fort exhibited the courage and constancy characterizing even the children in those troublous times.
She did a great part of the work for the family, cared for her younger sisters, prepared and carried food to her sick mother who was heard to say with tender grat.i.tude, ”Your dear little hands have brought me almost everything I have had.” Both have pa.s.sed into the Beyond; one who remembers Laura well says she was a beautiful, bright, rosy cheeked child, pleasant to look upon.
In unconscious childhood I was carried into Fort Decatur, on the morning of the battle, yet by careful investigation it has been satisfactorily proven that one lasting impression was recorded upon the palimpsest of my immature mind.
A shot was accidentally fired from a gun inside the fort, by which a palefaced, dark haired lady narrowly escaped death. The bullet pa.s.sed through a loop of her hair, below the ear, just beside the white neck.
Her hair was dressed in an old fas.h.i.+oned way, parted in the middle on the forehead and smoothly brushed down over the ears, divided and twisted on each side and the two ropes of hair coiled together at the back of the head. Like a flashlight photograph, her face is imprinted on my memory, nothing before or after for sometime can I claim to recall.
A daughter, the second child of David T. and Louisa Denny, was born in Fort Decatur on the sixteenth of March, 1856, who lived to mature into a gifted and gracious womanhood and pa.s.sed away from earth in Christian faith and hope on January seventeenth, 1889.