"Early History of Thurston County, Washington; Together with Biographies and Reminiscences of those Identified with Pioneer Days." Compiled and Edited by Mrs. George E. (Georgiana) Blankenship. Published in Olympia, Washington, 1914. p. 81. DAVID CRANE BEATTY David Crane Beatty and his wife, Mary Thompson Beatty, have made Olympia their home for almost 65 years Sometimes venturing their fortunes in other places, sometimes farming in the County near, once leaving Washington entirely but always coming back to the scene of their youthful prime and vigor, and now as the shadows gather and the sun of their lives sinks low in the West, their only hope or thought is to take their final rest near the place that has spelled home to this devoted couple for well over the half century mark Mr. Beatty first saw the light of day in Champaign County, Ohio the year of his birth being 1828. When nine years of age his parents took their eleven children and went to Illinois, where they settled for a good many years. Here the young David grew to manhood and learned the trade of cabinet making. He was of rather delicate health, however and realized that a complete change of climate was advisable so decided to take the famous advise and "Go West." The start was made from New York on December 16, 1852. The young man took passage on the old steamer Brother Jonathan to Panama. One of the excitements of the trip was the almost daily occurrence of fire on the boat. Only the oldest and most unseaworthy of water craft was then used to bring those foolhardy enough to seek what was considered an imaginary fortune in the almost unknown West. From San Francisco Mr. Beatty came on to Portland, Oregon, his steamer this time being the Fremont, well remembered by pioneer emigrants. Portland was then a village in the woods on the Willamette River, of probably two business blocks and a few scattered houses. The Winter months were spent there, but when Spring came and tales began to reach the Oregon town of opportunities for business openings in the Sound country, which was just beginning to attract the emigrants attention, Beatty, whose health was still poor, decided to join a party of young men and take the venture. Sixteen stalwart young men were in the party with which the young man cast his fortune. All that Mr. Beatty can remember the names of at this late day are Tom Prather, four Hays brothers and Edmund Carr. The trip was made up the Cowlitz River in Indian canoes to the lower landing. Here the boys took the Indian trail up the river through brush so dense that many times the only possible way to get along was by crawling on their knees. When Jackson's place was reached the men were served a breakfast that, even after the lapse of these many years, remains fresh in Mr. Beatty's memory. About noon the party came out on Scatter Creek. They were almost famished by this time, and were delighted to find a shack standing there in the wilderness. The owner was not around, but the door was unlocked, so they went in and searched for something to satisfy their hunger. Edmund Carr was the first to reach the rude cupboard and opened the door. Mother Hubbard's cupboard must have been a close connection to this one, for the only eatable the hungry young men could find was one cold potato on a tin plate. As this potato was only about the size of a walnut Carr appropriated it for himself. There was nothing else in all the cabin to eat so the men had to push on to the next stopping place. Carr then called his friend Beatty aside and, dividing the diminutive potato exactly in half, gave one portion to him, eating the other himself. This was among the many acts of generosity and brotherly love that were related to the compiler of these reminiscences that made the work one of the most delightful and inspiring experiences of her life. As evening approached, the party of adventurers reached Bush's, where a good supper was served them and permission given the boys to roll up in their blankets on the floor of the shack, which permission was gladly accepted. In the morning the march was completed by the arrival at Tumwater. There was only the stringers of a bridge then across the Des Chutes River at this place, the crossing having been made heretofore by Indian canoes. Horses and cattle were generally taken to Tenalquot Prairie, where there was a safe ford. This bridge, under construction, was being built by Ira Ward, the pioneer millman of Puget Sound. The young men, single file, walked the square timbers across the river, so reaching Tumwater. Mr. Beatty's eyes grew dim as he mused. "I can see them yet, sixteen as fine young men as were ever to be seen, filing across that river which flowed swiftly beneath the single stick of timber. Of that goodly party only Tom Prather and myself are left. All the rest, are long since gone." The experience of crossing the river was a new one for the prairie raised lad. From Tumwater the trail to Olympia was taken and this place reached about noon. The very afternoon the boys reached here news was brought to the settlement that Washington had, by Act of Congress, been set aside from Oregon. Everyone was glad and believed that a great era of prosperity was about to set in for the new territory. "When I reached Olympia there were no buildings south of Fourth Street, everywhere else stood the tall timber coming right down to the beach, the only exception being Isaac Wood's residence, a shack constructed of clapboards down on the beach at where the end of Fifth Street now is. Mrs. Simpson Moses and Mrs. George Barnes are the names of the only white women I can remember, although there were two others when we got here. "Edmund Sylvester and his brother had a Hall for Travelers, as they called their place, on the corner where the Old New England hotel now stands. Their 'Hall' was of split and hewn lumber, lined with cloth, and while very comfortable for those days hardly came up to its pretentious name. ''My first job was taken to split rails for Mr. Ruddle, out on Chambers Prairie. My friend Carr went with me and we found we had to first cut down the cedar trees, saw them into lengths, and then split the logs into rails. Well, I was not strong yet and too much of a tenderfoot to last long at this kind of work, so when noon came we quit and came back to Olympia. "Our next venture was to go to Alki Point, as it is now known, but which was then held as a townsite by Charles Terry and called New York. W. W. Miller was at that time internal revenue officer for the government and offered Carr and myself passage to New York for rowing the boat to that place. I was fresh from the prairie country, the water was new to me and I had never rowed a boat in my life, but we accepted the offer and made out tolerably well. "When we reached New York we found that Charlie Terry, of the firm of Lowe & Terry, loggers, was an old friend of my family, having come from the same place in Illinois. There were only three or four cabins there, but Terry had great faith in the prospect of a great city growing up there some day, so had platted the town site and laid off city lots. "I was given work driving an ox team, familiar work it was, too, on Bainbridge Island. Carr was set to felling trees. At this time our only food for over six weeks was salmon and potatoes, but I never thrived better, and gained a pound a day, till I was quite a comfortable weight and my bad health greatly improved. For this six weeks we were out of flour and it was not till the next sailing vessel came into port, that we were enabled to have a variation from our diet of salmon and potatoes. "When Lowe sold out I returned to Olympia with him, and about the first thing I did upon my return was to build a little house for John Swan, on the corner where the Knox hotel now stands. Upon completion of this building I rented it of Swan, procured a foot lathe, cut alder trees from the swamp and began making furniture. In the early days carpenters or cabinet makers were of necessity mechanics in the true meaning of the word, not wood butchers. Though the trade was not governed by unions, the very condition compelled a man to be proficient. It was not possible then to go to the mill and get his doors and windows, his matched lumber and shingles or mouldings, all these were the work of the carpenter, whose kit of tools must include moulding planes and other accessories now made unnecessary by modern improvements. "Later I bought the corner where for so many years John Miller Murphy has had his printing office, and which I sold to him in after years. Here I built for myself a shop, and continued making furniture. I was getting a fine start, and all my prospects were of the brightest when the Indian war broke out. This put a stop to business of all kinds. Emigration slacked, and the country was set back ten years. Closing my shop I enlisted with the first volunteer company organized to fight the Indians. "Well, my experiences during this war would fill a small volume by themselves. Many exciting and dangerous times were before me then. I was among the soldiers engaged in the Indian fight in the Puyallup Valley. Once I was with a party of volunteers who rescued an English family of settlers from massacre in this valley. Their house was surrounded, and although the inmates had made a gallant defense, the Indians were just breaking down the door when our men came galloping up, scattering the enemy and saving the lives of the white people. "After the White River battle and the subsequent, subduing of the Indians on this side of the mountains, our company was ordered East of the mountains, where the Indians of the Cayuse, Walla Walla and Umatilla tribes were on the warpath. We crossed the mountains through the Natchez Pass, which was wild and rough, and proved a trying experience. "Our camp was made for several weeks on Mill Creek near Walla Walla, at the place where the Whitman massacre occurred. We had to wait here till our government supplies arrived from Portland. "Here occurred an incident the reasons of which kept my comrades guessing for the remainder of the campaign. Among the supplies sent the volunteers was a barrel of whisky. This was divided among the several companies, my company's share being a three gallon camp kettle full. The kettle, with its precious contents, was set in the commanding officer's tent to wait till the boys got in from a scouting expedition, before dividing the whisky. As it was difficult to get the men together that night our captain decided that a morning drink would best be appreciated by the boys. Now, it was my duty to care for this captain's tent, as I was 2nd sergeant of our company, and was generally the first one up in the morning, to make the fire and bring fresh water for making the coffee for our mess. I grabbed this kettle, threw the contents on the ground and filled the utensil with water. Later, when the boys were lined up with their tin cups in their hands and glad anticipation in their minds, the captain went into the tent to bring out the kettle. Where was it? Why, there on the fire filled with boiling coffee. I was questioned and acknowledged that it was through my act, that the whisky was scattered on the ground. How was I to know that the kettle held anything but dirty water? The captain could say but little, for he had not told me to be careful of the contents of the kettle, and it was my custom to take that kettle every morning to the creek for fresh water. My comrades growled a good bit, but they never could tell for certain whether I really did know what was in that kettle or not. After these years I can say that the very name of whisky has always been distasteful to me. We were on the eve of an attack from the Indians, we supposed, and I was determined that there would be at least one sober company in the engagement. The boys didn't, dare to manhandle me, but I know they would have liked to do so. "Word was received that the Indian tribes were collecting in the Grande Rounde Valley to gather camas for the Winter and we were sent in to rout them. We were 100 fighting men with a guard of 75 men with the pack animals. It was night when we reached the upper end of the valley and we went into camp there. Very foolishly we built camp fires, so letting the Indians know where we were. We expected to find the Indians at the lower passage on the Grande Rounde River, and in the morning formed in line and started for there. Before the passage was reached there came riding out of the willow trees that fringed the river banks an Indian brave in war paint. In his hand was a long pole on which was a white man's scalp. Riding wildly around in front of the volunteers, but always out of rifle range, the Indian gave his war whoop and waved the ghastly trophy as a tantalizing menace before our boys. My comrade all through the war was G. C. Blankenship, and a finer man I never met. This sight was too much for his temper, so he dashed up to our commanding officer and plead: 'Col. let me get that fellow? 'Go then ' said the colonel, 'Get him if you can while he is in the open but do not follow him into the brush.' Blankenship rode out after the Indian, but when the rascal saw he was pursued he took refuge in the bushes and the man had to return to his company. "Dust arising from the plain near the upper crossing of the Grande Rounde was seen, and Col. Shaw called a halt and said: 'Boys, there is where we want to charge, for there is where the Indian train, with their supplies, are trying to get out of the valley. ' We dashed up and Col. Shaw dismounted and went into the bushes where he could see up and down the river. A man named Buchanan, and myself, also dismounted and went up to the river, leading our horses. I saw blood on Buchanan's horse's flank and said, 'We'd better get back a little, Buck,' which we did. When Col. Shaw joined us, one of the boys said, ' What's that on your coat collar, Colonel?' He looked, and there was a bullet hole clear through the cloth and another one through the skirt of his coat. The Indians were poor shooters and couldn't hit anything a few yards away. "We crossed the river and the Indians fired on us as we were fording, but no one was killed, although we got three or four of their men. As expected, we found the pack train with the women and papooses. The ponies, were loaded with camas and the next day we had a burning and destroyed at least 200 bushels of roots. "This was the Indians' last struggle against the whites. By destroying their winter's supplies they were rendered helpless. They couldn't fight on empty stomachs and so we conquered them. "That the Indian war was hastened and fostered by the Hudson Bay people there is little doubt. At that time England claimed all this country from the Canadian possessions to the Columbia river, and the ever increasing number of Americans coming to settle the Northwest threatened to put under the plow land that the Hudson Bay sheep men were accustomed to look upon as their legitimate pasturage, so they aided the Indians with arms and supplies in a struggle to maintain control of the country. "Governor Stevens sent his clerk out once to visit the Indian camps to see if he could find evidence of aid to the Indians from this source. I was sent along, with other's, as a guard. We found empty sacks and cans with the Hudson Bay lettering on them, proving conclusively where much of the support the Indians received came from. "I must tell one other incident of the war. While we were camped on Tenalquot prairie, at the fort there, and the volunteer troops were assembling, myself and seven other men were sent to Olympia for supplies. We were on horseback and had just come out on Long prairie when we spied a party of 75 Indians coming towards us. That they were armed, we could see, for the sun glittered on their guns. We held a hurried consultation and decided that as we were mounted and the Indians were on foot we would go a bit closer to see what was doing, although we intended keeping well out of rifle shot. It proved to be the Squaxon Indian tribe, under leadership of Indian Agent Gosnald coming to join forces with the volunteers to fight the hostiles. When they saw us eight men ride up single file to meet their army of 75, they broke into a perfect bedlam, they were so excited. 'What's the use, Indian fight white man,' their chief said, 'one white man not, afraid ten Indians.' And that was always the way it was. We never thought it, was possible that the Indians could lick us. When we went down into the Grande Rounde after them we were only 100 fighting men not counting the 75 men in charge of the pack train, and there were 1,000 Indian warriors against us. But we were never afraid, and so won the struggle. "When we were on the campaign one of the pleasant recollections of this grim time was the cooking ray comrade, G. C. Blankenship, did for the mess. The men were supposed to take turns in this task but after they had all been tried out, Mr. Blankenship proved so superior in the culinary art that he was made chief cook for the rest of the campaign. He would open a sack of flour, mix up a batch of bread with his sour dough starting' and when that bread was baked in the camp oven with plenty of bacon grease it was a delight to the hungry men. One day, to vary the menu our cook rolled some sugar in the dough, cut it into little pieces and fried these in bacon grease. The result, was the best doughnuts man ever tasted or so we thought at the time. When I got home I tried them to show my women folks how, but they didn't taste so good. With this bread, doughnuts and bacon, beans and coffee, we fared well on the trip. "After the war was over I was appointed Indian Agent under General R. H. Milroy. and became well acquainted with the Indians. I could speak their language and had many friends among them. I have worked as cabinet maker and carpenter for years in Olympia, and once went to Salem, Oregon, where I was engaged in a sash and door factory for three years, but always came back to this town." Here Mr. Beatty ceased, his talk and asked to be excused while his wife proceeded with the narrative. "With my uncle, Rev. Geo. F. Whitworth, and my aunt, Eliza Whitworth, and her mother, Mrs. Sarah Thompson, my sister Sarah and the four young Whitworth children, I crossed the plains from Connelton, Indiana. Grandmother was 78 years old, and I was a young girl of sixteen. "The way I happened to make this trip was, when the Presbyterian Board of Missionaries sent Uncle Whitworth out to preach the Gospel in the wilderness, he begged father to let my sister Sarah and myself come along as company for Aunt Eliza and to help take care of our grandmother. Of course, I was to go back in a year or two, but it has been over sixty years since I made that journey and I have never been back yet. "We had no special hardships on the trip, other than was to be expected from camping out for so long a time and the fatigue of constant but slow traveling, for we had ox teams. There were 40 wagons in our train, and so owing to our considerable numbers, we were not molested by the Indians, although once we were followed 150 miles by a band of warriors, who told us they intended killing every one of our party in revenge for the death of one of their number, which had occurred shortly before. An emigrant in a train ahead of ours had shot and killed the Indian. The brave who came into our camp to tell us of their intentions amused himself by marking off with stakes in the ground the length of the graves he informed us we would soon occupy when they had finished us. But they never seemed to find the weak spot in our defense and finally gave over following us. When we reached the Snake river we waited for other teams along the road to join us for further protection. Two wagons came along the trail with their beds completely riddled from the Indians' bullets. They had been attacked by a roving band, one of the children killed and an attempt made to stampede their stock. They were a sorry-looking outfit. "Uncle Whitworth would have no Sunday traveling, and the train was always halted on this day, and we laid by for rest and generally held some kind of worship. But when we reached the Blue Mountains the supplies were running so low that the other people in the train determined to travel all day Sunday. We started up the Blue Mountains on this particular Sabbath day, which was the first we had failed to properly observe. When we were rounding a canyon I was driving the oxen on one side and my sister on the other to keep them in the narrow road. The front yoke deliberately walked off over the edge of the precipice. The rigging gave way and left a single yoke of young oxen to hold the wagon from slipping back down the hillside. These animals strained till their horns were buried in the dust of the road, and they were brought to their knees before the wagon could be stopped That was our first Sunday trial. As evening came on Uncle Whitworth had to take our big wagon and strike cut to the river, twelve miles away, leaving Aunt Eliza one of the children and me to guard, the other wagon. We were frightened, for the coyotes were howling round and it was a fearsome spot. William Mitchell, who was with our tram heard of our being left behind alone and rode back to stay with us till Uncle Whitworth could return. We were so glad to see him and appreciated his thoughtfulness. "When we reach Portland, Uncle Whitworth came on up to Fort Steilacoom to take up his missionary labors. He found an Episcopal minister already stationed at the fort, and doing such a noble work that there seemed to be no field of labor there for any other minister. But in Olympia there was a good opening, and it seemed to him that he could do a great deal of good in this new place, so decided to locate here. There was scarcely anybody living here then, the settlement being mostly at Tumwater, but at what is now known as Priest's Point some Catholic fathers had established a mission. "Uncle took up a donation claim on land adjoining the mission property, built a temporary home for his family and began his missionary labors. He organized the First Presbyterian church in Olympia, also at Chehalis, and the one on Chambers prairie. Riding for miles to carry the gospel wherever a few were congregated, sometimes being obliged to teach school to support his family, so meager was the pittance allowed him by the Presbytery, and so poor were his congregations. He was a good man and has gone to a well earned reward. "Aunt Eliza, with the rest of the family, had stayed in Portland the first winter in the West, while Uncle Whitworth was locating on the Sound. Aunt and my sister, Sarah, taught school that winter to pay our expenses. "In May of the following summer Uncle came to bring us to our new home. The trip in the Indian canoes up the Cowlitz river was one of the most thrilling experiences of my life. I was totally unused to water, and although the canoes were large, they looked dangerous to me. Indeed, one of the canoes was upset and we lost all our bread and dishes, although the latter were recovered after several weeks and sent on to us. We found refuge the night we reached the landing in the home of Mr. Lemon, whose son is now Millard Lemon, the Olympia capitalist. "We were met at the landing by Judge B. F. Yantis with an ox team to bring us to our new home. As we had to camp out along the way from the Cowlitz to Olympia, the loss of our dishes was very inconvenient. Judge Yantis searched among the ranch houses to find cups for us to drink out of, but all the dishes he could procure were three small sugar bowls of thick earthenware. These the elders used for drinking cups, but we younger ones had to use egg shells from which to drink our coffee. But we enjoyed the experience and thought coffee never tasted so good. "We had one scare as a welcome to the new country. At the Cowlitz landing were a number of Indian tents and in them were some very sick squaws and papooses. Harry Whitworth, then about nine years old, went in among them, carrying them water and tending them until way in the night. Later it developed that the disease with which the Indians were ill was smallpox, and that in the most virulent form. So severe did the disease rage that that particular band of Indians was almost lost. We watched Harry with great uneasiness till the danger period was safely over. I suppose the fresh air and our perfect health prevented our taking the disease. "When we reached Tumwater Judge Yantis, who was always full of his fun and jokes, took Sarah and me to visit an Indian camp, to see what he told us would be our eatables from now on. They had just finished drying and hanging up a string of geoducks. The long necks and scaly looking bodies of this, to us, new species of salt water products, did not look very inviting. "From Tumwater we took canoes for Priests Point, where Uncle's claim was. If I was frightened before, imagine my sensations when I was placed in a tiny craft that, when I was in with my Indian paddler, was only about one inch above the water of Puget Sound. When we reached the point below the mission all our household goods we had with us had to be carried by hand up the hill to our home. Grandmother, who had shared in all our adventures, could not climb up there, however, so sister Sarah and myself put her in the little old rocking chair we had brought clear from our old home in Indiana for her to sit in and carried her up the hill and the quarter of a mile to where our house stood. This house was but a shack 16x16 built of poles and covered, sides and all, with cedar bark. There was a fireplace in one end three or four feet across and one of the most joyous objects we had beheld for a long time. "The good fathers at the mission, were our only neighbors and the woods came close to our shack. In our immediate neighborhood was an Indian burial place, the bodies hanging in the branches of the tall trees, laid in canoes. It was to us a fearsome sight, but we became accustomed to it, and did not mind it after a while. Indeed, we much preferred these dead Indians to some of those still alive, for it was at, this time that the Indian trouble was on. "That summer Uncle raised quite an amount of potatoes and as we had no cellar, was at loss where to store them, until someone pointed out that in the field where he was clearing there were a number of big trees, the roots of which had been burned into, leaving hollows and thus forming excellent places for storing the potatoes. "As a variation of our diet we used to put up the wild berries we found growing here in profusion. As sugar was scarce and very expensive we used wild honey as the preservative. Honey bee trees were frequently located, and it, was one of the sports of the time to cut one down and secure the sweets stored in the hollow trunk. We had rough and tumble times, but good times withal. Life was full of snap and enjoyment in simple pleasures. We had our mail about every six weeks, and for the first few years all our supplies came from the Sandwich Islands. It was a great day when we began to get things in from San Francisco; we began to feel quite civilized. I remember the first apples ever grown in Thurston County. They were grown on a tree planted by Mr. Axtel, on Grand Mound prairie. Mrs. Axtel told the boys that it they did not touch the fruit when it was ripe she would make them a pie. They obeyed and when that pie was made, so precious were the apples they went in, peel and all. No wasting good fruit by taking off even the thinnest peeling. "We lived in the shack Uncle Whitworth had provided for us for quite a while, but finally we were ready for a new house, so comes from Olympia David Beatty and A. J. Linville, carpenters, to build our new house. And that is the time and the place I met Mr. Beatty. These men cut down trees from the land around the site of the new house, split them into boards and planed out the weather boarding, all by hand. They made a very creditable and comfortable residence, which we appreciated after our crowded quarters. We sent for our household furnishings, books, etc., which came around the Horn, and from San Francisco were sent on by sailing vessels to this port. "As the Indians were getting troublesome Uncle Whitworth asked the mission fathers if they considered our situation dangerous. They replied, 'Not yet, we will give you warning, if it becomes so, in time for you to go to the stockade in Olympia. In about two weeks this warning was given and we fled to town. Again we carried grandmother in her little chair to the water and set her into a canoe. We found refuge in two rooms over Mr. Beatty's shop. These rooms had been fitted up as a photograph gallery by Samuel Holmes father of Fred Holmes and Mrs. Robert Frost, and was the first art gallery in the Northwest. I slept right under the big skylight in the roof. "Mr. Beatty and I were married in 1856 after the Indian war was over. We at one time took up a homestead of 160 acres on Ayers' Hill, joining Swan's donation claim. Mr. Beatty built a cabin on one side of a stream that flowed there then, and his partner, Mr. Linville, lived on the other side of the stream, but it was so lonesome and the trees were so formidable that the places were abandoned. The timber alone, in after years on those claims, would have been worth a fortune. "Uncle Whitworth, Aunt Eliza, the grandmother, Sister Sarah, all are gone. I can think of no one of my associates of those early days who is still living. Our daughter Adelaide, is the only child we have ever had." ******************* Submitted to the Washington Bios. Project in May 2007 by Diana Smith. Submitter has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned above.