Chapter IX

DR. HENRY A. SMITH, THE BRILLIANT WRITER.

This well known pioneer joined the "mighty nation moving west" in 1852. From Portland, the wayside inn of weary travelers, he pushed on to Puget Sound, settling in 1853 on Elliott Bay, at a place known for many years as Smith's Cove.

Being a gifted writer he has made numerous contributions to northwestern literature, both in prose and poetry.

In a rarely entertaining set of papers entitled "Early Reminiscences," he brings vividly to the minds of his readers the "good old times" on Elliott Bay, as he describes the manner of life, personal adventure, odd characters and striking environment of the first decade of settlement. In them he relates that after the White River massacre, he conveyed his mother to a place of safety, by night, in a boat with muffled oars.

To quote his own words: "Early the next morning I persuaded James
Broad and Charley Williamson, a couple of harum-scarum run-away
sailors, to accompany me to my ranch in the cove, where we
remained two weeks securing crops. We always kept our rifles near
us while working in the field, so as to be ready for
emergencies, and brave as they seemed their faces several times
blanched white as they sprang for their guns on hearing brush
crack near them, usually caused by deer. One morning on going to
the field where we were digging potatoes, we found fresh moccasin
tracks, and judged from the difference in the size of the tracks
that at least half a dozen savages had paid the field a visit
during the night. As nothing had been disturbed we concluded that
they were waiting in ambush for us and accordingly we retired to
the side of the field farthest from the woods and began work,
keeping a sharp lookout the while. Soon we heard a cracking in
the brush and a noise that sounded like the snapping of a
flintlock. We grabbed our rifles and rushed into the woods where
we heard the noise, so as to have the trees for shelter, and if
possible to draw a bead on the enemy. On reaching shelter, the
crackling sound receded toward Salmon Bay. But fearing a surprise
if we followed the sound of retreat, we concluded to reach the
Bay by way of a trail that led to it, but higher up; we reached
the water just in time to see five redskins land in a canoe, on
the opposite side of the Bay where the Crooks' barn now stands.
After that I had hard work to keep the runaways until the crop
was secured, and did so only by keeping one of them secreted in
the nearest brush constantly on guard. At night we barred the
doors and slept in the attic, hauling the ladder up after us.
Sometimes, when the boys told blood-curdling stories until they
became panicky by their own eloquence, we slept in the woods, but
that was not often.

"In this way the crops were all saved, cellared and stacked, only
to be destroyed afterward by the torch of the common enemy.

"Twice the house was fired before it was finally consumed, and
each time I happened to arrive in time to extinguish the flames,
the incendiaries evidently having taken to their heels as soon as
the torch was applied."

While yet new to the country he met with an adventure not uncommon to the earliest settlers in the great forest, recorded as follows:

"I once had a little experience, but a very amusing one, of being 'lost.' In the summer of 1854, I concluded to make a trail to Seattle. Up to that time I had ridden to the city in a 'Chinook buggy.' One bright morning I took a compass and started for Seattle on as nearly a straight line as possible. After an hour's travel the sun was hid by clouds and the compass had to be entirely relied upon for the right course. This was tedious business, for the woods had never been burned, and the old fallen timber was almost impassable. About noon I noticed to my utter astonishment, that the compass had reversed its poles. I knew that beds of mineral would sometimes cause a variation of the needle and was delighted at the thought of discovering a _valuable iron mine_ so near salt water. A good deal of time was spent in breaking bushes and thoroughly marking the spot so that there would be no difficulty in finding it again, and from that on I broke bushes as I walked, so as to be able to easily retrace my steps. From that place I followed the compass _reversed_, calculating, as I walked, the number of ships that would load annually at Seattle with pig-iron, and the amount of ground that would be eventually covered at the cove with furnaces, rolling mills, foundries, tool manufacturing establishments, etc.

"As night came on I became satisfied that I had traveled too far to the east, and had passed Seattle, and the prospect of spending a night in the woods knocked my iron calculations into pi. Soon, however, I was delighted to see a clearing ahead, and a shake-built shanty that I concluded must be the ranch that Mr. Nagle had commenced improving some time before, and which, I had understood, lay between Seattle and Lake Washington. When I reached the fence surrounding the improvements, I seated myself on one of the top rails for a seat and to ponder the advisability of remaining with my new neighbor over night, or going on to town. While sitting thus, I could not help contrasting his improvements with my own. The size of the clearing was the same, the house was a good deal like mine, the only seeming difference was that the front of his faced the west, whereas the front of mine faced the east. While puzzling over this strange coincidence, my own mother came out of the house to feed the poultry that had commenced going to roost, in a rookery for all the world like my own, only facing the wrong way. 'In the name of all that's wonderful!' I thought, 'what is she doing here? and how did she get here ahead of me?' Just then the world took a spin around, my ranch wheeled into line, and, lo! I was sitting on my own fence, and had been looking at my own improvements without knowing them." And from this he draws a moral and adorns the tale with the philosophic conclusion that people cannot see and think alike owing to their point of view, and we therefore must be charitable.

Until accustomed to it and schooled in wood-craft, the mighty and amazing forest was bewildering and mysterious to the adventurous settler; however, they soon learned how not to lose themselves in its labyrinthine depths.

Dr. Smith is a past master in description, as will be seen by this word-picture of a fire in a vast pitchy and resinous mass of combustible material. I have witnessed many, each a magnificent display.

"Washington beats the world for variety and magnificence of awe
inspiring mountains and other scenery. I have seen old ocean in
her wildest moods, have beheld the western prairie on fire by
night, when the long, waving lines of flame flared and flashed
their red light against the low, fleecy clouds till they
blossomed into roseate beauty, looking like vast spectral flower
gardens, majestically sweeping through the heavens; have been in
the valley of the river Platte, when all the windows of the sky
and a good many doors opened at once and the cloud-masked
batteries of the invisible hosts of the air volleyed and
thundered till the earth fairly reeled beneath the terrific
cannonade that tore its quivering bosom with red-hot bombs until
awe-stricken humanity shriveled into utter nothingness in the
presence of the mad fury of the mightiest forces of nature. But
for magnificence of sublime imagery and awe-inspiring grandeur a
forest fire raging among the gigantic firs and towering cedars
that mantle the shores of Puget Sound, surpasses anything I have
ever beheld, and absolutely baffles all attempts at description.
It has to be seen to be comprehended. The grandest display of
forest pyrotechnics is witnessed when an extensive tract that has
been partly cleared by logging is purposely or accidentally
fired. When thus partly cleared, all the tops of the fir, cedar,
spruce, pine and hemlock trees felled for their lumber remain on
the ground, their boughs fairly reeking with balsam. All inferior
trees are left standing, and in early days when only the very
choicest logs would be accepted by the mills, about one-third
would be left untouched, and then the trees would stand thicker,
mightier, taller than in the average forest of the eastern and
middle states.

"I once witnessed the firing of a two thousand acre tract thus
logged over. It was noon in the month of August, and not a breath
of air moved the most delicate ferns on the hillsides. The birds
had hushed their songs for their midday siesta, and the babbling
brook at our feet had grown less garrulous, as if in sympathy
with the rest of nature, when the torch was applied. A dozen or
more neighbors had come together to witness the exhibition of the
unchained element about to hold high carnival in the amphitheater
of the hills, and each one posted himself, rifle in hand, in some
conspicuous place at least a quarter of a mile from the slashing
in order to get a shot at any wild animal fleeing from the 'wrath
to come.'

"The tract was fired simultaneously on all sides by siwashes, who
rapidly circled it with long brands, followed closely by rivers
of flame in hot pursuit.

"As soon as the fire worked its way to the massive winrows of dry
brush, piled in making roads in every direction, a circular wall
of solid flame rose half way to the tops of the tall trees. Soon
the rising of the heated air caused strong currents of cooler air
to set in from every side. The air currents soon increased to
cyclones. Then began a race of the towering, billowy, surging
walls of fire for the center. Driven furiously on by these
ever-increasing, eddying, and fiercely contending tornadoes, the
flames lolled and rolled and swayed and leaped, rising higher and
higher, until one vast, circular tidal wave of liquid fire rolled
in and met at the center with the whirl and roar of pandemoniac
thunder and shot up in a spiral and rapidly revolving red-hot
cone, a thousand feet in mid-air, out of whose flaring and
crater-like apex poured dense volumes of tarry smoke, spreading
out on every side, like unfolding curtains of night, till the sun
was darkened and the moon was turned to blood and the stars
seemed literally raining from heaven, as glowing firebrands that
had been carried up by the fierce tornado of swirling flame and
carried to immense distances by upper air currents, fell back in
showers to the ground. The vast tract, but a few moments before
as quiet as a sleeping infant in its cradle, was now one vast
arena of seething, roaring, raging flame. The long, lithe limbs
of the tall cedars were tossing wildly about, while the strong
limbs of the sturdier firs and hemlocks were freely gyrating like
the sinewy arms of mighty giant athletes engaged in mortal
combat. Ever and anon their lower, pitch-dripping branches would
ignite from the fervent heat below, when the flames would rush to
the very tops with the roar of contending thunders and shoot
upward in bright silvery volumes from five to seven hundred feet,
or double the height of the trees themselves. Hundreds of these
fire-volumes flaring and flaming in quick succession and
sometimes many of them simultaneously, in conjunction with the
weird eclipse-like darkness that veiled the heavens, rendered the
scene one of awful grandeur never to be forgotten.

"So absorbed were we all in the preternatural war of the fiercely
contending elements that we forgot our guns, our game and
ourselves.

* * * * *

"The burnt district, after darkness set in, was wild and weird in
the extreme. The dry bark to the very tops of the tall trees was
on fire and constantly falling off in large flakes, and the air
was filled ever and anon with dense showers of golden stars,
while the trees in the environs seemed to move about through the
fitful shadows like grim brobdignags clad in sheeny armor."

Having witnessed many similar conflagrations I am able to say that the subject could scarcely be better treated.

Through the courtesy of the author, Dr. H. A. Smith, I have been permitted to insert the following poem, which has no doubt caused many a grim chuckle and scowl of sympathy, too, from the old pioneers of the Northwest:

"THE MORTGAGE.

"The man who holds a mortgage on my farm
And sells me out to gratify his greed,
Is shielded by our shyster laws from harm,
And ever laud for the dastard deed!
Though morally the man is really worse
Than if he knocked me down and took my purse;
The last would mean, at most, a moment's strife,
The first would mean the struggle of a life,
And homeless children wailing in the cold,
A prey to want and miseries manifold;
Then if I loot him of his mangy pup
The guardians of the law will lock me up,
And jaundiced justice fly into a rage
While pampered Piety askance my rags will scan,
And Shylock shout, 'Behold a dangerous man!'
But notwithstanding want to Heaven cries,
And villains masquerade in virtue's guise,
And Liberty is moribund or dead--
Except for men who corporations head--
One little consolation still remains,
The human race will one day rend its chains."

In transcribing Indian myths and religious beliefs, Dr. Smith displays much ability. After having had considerable acquaintance with the native races, he concludes that "Many persons are honestly of the opinion that Indians have no ideas above catching and eating salmon, but if they will lay aside prejudice and converse freely with the more intelligent natives, they will soon find that they reason just as well on all subjects that attract their attention as we do, and being free from pre-conceived opinions, they go directly to the heart of theories and reason both inductively and deductively with surprising clearness and force."

Dr. Smith exhibits in his writings a broadly charitable mind which sees even in the worst, still some lingering or smothered good.

Dr. Smith is one of a family of patriots; his great-grandfather, Copelton Smith, who came from Germany to America in 1760 and settled in or near Philadelphia, Pa., fought for liberty in the war of the Revolution under General Washington. His father, Nicholas Smith, a native of Pennsylvania, fought for the Stars and Stripes in 1812. Two brothers fought for Old Glory in the war of the Rebellion, and he himself was one of the volunteers who fought for their firesides in the State, then Territory of Washington.

"A family of fighters," as he says, "famous for their peaceful proclivities when let alone."

The varied experiences of life in the Northwest have developed in him a sane and sweet philosophy, perhaps nowhere better set forth in his writings than in his poem "Pacific's Pioneers," read at a reunion of the founders of the state a few years ago, and with which I close this brief and inadequate sketch:

"PACIFIC'S PIONEERS.

"A greeting to Pacific's Pioneers,
Whose peaceful lives are drawing to a close,
Whose patient toil, for lo these many years,
Has made the forest blossom as the rose.

"And bright-browed women, bonny, brave and true,
And laughing lasses, sound of heart and head,
Who home and kindred bade a last adieu
To follow love where fortune led.

"I do not dedicate these lines alone
To men who live to bless the world today,
But I include the nameless and unknown
The pioneers who perished by the way.

"Not for the recreant do my numbers ring,
The men who spent their lives in sport and spree,
Nor for the barnacles that always cling
To every craft that cruises Freedom's sea.

"But nearly all were noble, brave and kind,
And little cared for fame or fashion's gyves;
And though they left their Sunday suits behind
They practiced pure religion all their lives.

"Their love of peace no people could excel,
Their dash in war the poet's pen awaits;
Their sterling loyalty made possible
Pacific's golden galaxy of states.

"They had no time to bother much about
Contending creeds that vex the nation's Hub,
But then they left their leather latches out
To every wandering Arab short of grub.

"Cut off from all courts, man's earthly shield from harm,
They looked for help to Him whose court's above,
And learned to lean on labor's honest arm,
And live the higher law, the law of love.

"Not one but ought to wear a crown of gold,
If crowns were made for men who do their best
Amid privations cast and manifold
That unborn generations may be blest.

"Among these rugged pioneers the rule
Was equal rights, and all took special pride
In 'tending Mother Nature's matchless school,
And on her lessons lovingly relied.

"And this is doubtless why they are in touch
With Nature's noblemen neath other skies;
And though of books they may not know as much
Their wisdom lasts, as Nature never lies.

"And trusting God and His unerring plan
As only altruistic natures could
Their faith extended to their fellow man,
The image of the Author of all good.

"Since Nature here has done her best to please
By making everything in beauty's mold,
Loads down with balm of flowers every breeze,
And runs her rivers over reefs of gold,

"It seems but natural that men who yearn
For native skies, and visit scenes of yore,
Are seldom satisfied till they return
To roam the Gardens of the Gods once more!

"And since they fell in love with nature here
How fitting they should wish to fall asleep
Where sparkling mountain spires soar and spear
The stainless azure of the upper deep.

"And yet we're saddened when the papers say
Another pioneer has passed away!
And memory recalls when first, forsooth,
We saw him in the glorious flush of youth.

"How plain the simple truth when seen appears,
No wonder that faded leaves we fall!
This is the winter of the pioneers
That blows a wreath of wrinkles to us all!

"A few more mounds for faltering feet to seek,
When, somewhere in this lovely sunset-land
Like some weird, wintry, weather-beaten peak
Some rare old Roman all alone will stand.

"But not for long, for ere the rosy dawn
Of many golden days has come and gone,
Our pine-embowered bells will shout to every shore
'Pacific's Pioneers are now no more!'

"But lovely still the glorious stars will glow
And glitter in God's upper deep like pearls
And mountains too will wear their robes of snow
Just as they did when we were boys and girls.

"Ah well, it may be best, and is, no doubt,
As death is quite as natural as birth
And since no storms can blow the sweet stars out,
Why should one wish to always stay on earth?

"Especially as God can never change,
And man's the object of His constant care
And though beyond the Pleiades we range
His boundless love and mercy must be there."