Part 25 (1/2)
CHAPTER V.
LOUISA BOREN DENNY, THE FIRST BRIDE OF SEATTLE,
Was born in White County, Illinois, on the 1st of June, 1827, and is the daughter of Richard Freeman Boren and Sarah Latimer Boren. Her father, a young Baptist minister, died when she was an infant, and she has often said, ”I have missed my father all my life.” A religious nature seems to have been inherited, as she has also said, ”I cannot remember when I did not pray to G.o.d.”
Her early youth was spent on the great prairies, then a veritable garden adorned with many beautiful wild flowers, in the log cabin with her widowed, pioneer mother, her sister Mary and brother Carson.
She learned to be industrious and thrifty without parsimony; to be simple, genuine, faithful. In the heat of summer or cold of winter she trudged to school, as she loved learning, showing, as her mind developed, a natural apt.i.tude and taste for the sciences; chemistry, philosophy, botany and astronomy being her especial delights.
Of a striking personal appearance, her fair complexion with a deep rose flush in the cheeks, sparkling eyes, ma.s.ses of heavy black hair, small and perfect figure, would have attracted marked attention in any circle.
Her temperate and wholesome life, never given to fas.h.i.+on's follies, retained for her these points of beauty far beyond middle life, when many have lost all semblance of their youth and have become faded and decrepit.
Her school life merged into the teacher's and she took her place in the ranks of the pioneer instructors, who were truly heroic.
She taught with patience the bare-foot urchins, some of whom were destined for great things, and boarded 'round as was the primitive custom.
Going to camp meetings in the summer, lectures and singing schools in the winter were developing influences in those days, and primitive pleasures were no less delightful; the husking-bees, quilting parties and sleigh rides of fifty years ago in which she partic.i.p.ated.
In 1851, when she was twenty-four years of age, she joined the army of pioneers moving West, in the division composed of her mother's and step-father's people, her mother having married John Denny and her sister Mary, A. A. Denny.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FLOWER GARDEN PLANTED BY LOUISA B. DENNY]
With what buoyant spirits, bright with hope and antic.i.p.ation, they set out, except for the cloud of sorrow that hovered over them for the parting with friends they left behind. But they soon found it was to be a hard-fought battle. Louisa Boren, the only young, unmarried woman of the party, found many things to do in a.s.sisting those who had family cares. Her delight in nature was unlimited, and although she found no time to record her observations and experiences, her anecdotes and descriptions have given pleasure to others in after years.
She possessed dauntless courage and in the face of danger was cool and collected.
It was she who pleaded for the boat to be turned insh.o.r.e on a memorable night on the Columbia River, when they came so near going over the falls (the Cascades) owing to the stupefied condition of the men who had been imbibing ”Blue Ruin” too freely.
When the party arrived at Alki Point on Puget Sound, although the outlook was not cheerful, she busied herself a little while after landing in observing the luxuriant and, to her, curious vegetation.
She soon made friends with the Indians and succeeded admirably in dealing with them, having patience and showing them kindness, for which they were not ungrateful.
It transpired that the first attempt at building on the site of Seattle, so far as known to the writer, is to be credited to Louisa Boren and another white woman, who crossed Elliott Bay in a canoe with Indian paddlers and a large dog to protect them from wild animals. They made their way through an untouched forest, and the two women cut and laid logs for the foundation of a cabin.
As she was strikingly beautiful, young and unmarried, both white and Indian braves thought it would be a fine thing to win her hand, and intimations of this fact were not wanting. The young Indians brought long poles with them and leaned them up against the cabin at Alki, the significance of which was not at first understood, but it was afterward learned that they were courts.h.i.+p poles, according to their custom.
The white compet.i.tors found themselves distanced by the younger Denny, who was the first of the name to set foot on Puget Sound.
On January 23rd, 1853, in the cabin of A. A. Denny, on the east side of Elliott Bay, Louisa Boren was married to David T. Denny.
In order to fulfil law and custom, David had made a trip to Olympia and back in a canoe to obtain a marriage license, but was told that no one there had authority to issue one, so he returned undaunted to proceed without it; neither was there a minister to perform the ceremony, but Dr. Maynard, who was a Justice of the Peace, successfully tied the knot.
Among the few articles of wearing apparel it was possible to transport to these far-off sh.o.r.es in a time of slow and difficult travel, was a white lawn dress, which did duty as a wedding gown.
The young couple moved their worldly possessions in an Indian canoe to their own cabin on the bay, about a mile and a half away, in a little clearing at the edge of the vast forest.
Here began the life of toil and struggle which characterized the early days.