Part 29 (1/2)

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; n.o.body 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 a.s.sociated 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 subst.i.tutes, the experiment of feeding him on clam juice was made with good effect.