Historian visited with Macah; large stable built

THE OLYMPIAN | • Published October 04, 2009

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The following are excerpts from the Pioneer & Democrat newspaper from this week in 1859.

Historian and artist John G. Swan took a trip by canoe from Victoria to the Macah reservation, which he described as of large size, Chinook model, owned and commanded by Swell, one the Macah chiefs.

He said it was propelled by “nine other savages, two of whom were squaws. They had just come up from the Cape with oil and dried fish, and were now returning with the proceeds of their adventure, consisting of flour, bacon, molasses and blankets. The whole party, with the exception of Swell, who was dressed in a new suite of Boston clothes (white men were referred to by Northwest Indians as Bostons), was redolent of fish oil and smoked salmon. The men, with the exception of their blankets, were entirely naked, and their skins covered with a coating of grease and dirt ... . The squaws ... had a modest addition to their clothing, of a cotton chemise begrimed with oil and soot.”

The publishers of the Pioneer & Democrat were ever trying to improve the fire department for Olympia and were quick to point out, “A bell, weighing over 1,000 pounds, has been purchased for the use of the fire department of Portland, to be suspended from a temporary tower erected on the levee.”

A new tannery at Tumwater – Biles & Carter have their new tannery in successful operation. “None need send abroad for leather now, as we can more than supply the entire demands of the Territory.”

Early legislator Leonard Durgins had a sheriff’s sale of his Olympia premises known as Durgin’s Nursery. The area was in Swan’s addition (Swantown and west across East Bay Drive), and included five square blocks. Durgin owed William Winlock Miller, a shrewd businessman of the time, more than $1,500 and was forced to sell to pay damages. Sheriff George C. Blankenship was the auctioneer. Durgin retired to his house atop the Grand Mound near what now is Rochester.

Also, 34-year-old Alexander Baldwin, who had in 1855 “completed a large and commodious livery stable with a capacity of 100 horses,” just after retiring as second sergeant with Co. C in the first regiment of the Washington Volunteers in the Indian Wars, decided to sell his house “and two lots adjacent to the district school house in Olympia.” (It is thought it was either at the site of the Olympian Hotel, or Drees.) The house contained a dining and sitting room, a parlor, two bedrooms, a kitchen and an out-house, and a good well for water.

Though in the Indian wars, Baldwin was Yelm Jim’s friend. In an incident in Olympia, an American Indian was filling a bucket at the town’s well (a spring still running in the basement of buildings at Fourth Avenue and Capital Way), whereupon it was grabbed out of his hands by a white man and thrown into a mud hole (many of which dotted Olympia’s early streets). Baldwin picked up the belligerent white man and threw him after the bucket.

South Sound historian Roger Easton can be reached at rogereaston@comcast.net.

Sesquicentennial celebration

This marks the 36th weekly installment in a yearlong series looking back at life in newly incorporated Olympia 150 years ago this week. The Olympian has teamed up with South Sound historian Roger Easton on this feature celebrating the city’s 150th birthday, relying on newspaper articles from the Pioneer & Democrat, town council minutes and other historical records.