1892 Pioneer Building in Seattle: how and when was it built?

Banta said:

853 - President Hayes Addressing Seattle's Entire Population in 1881

Click to expand...

whose president?!

damn those wonky streets... the ground around the main OP buildings actually looks fairly level in the old photos, and looks really hilly now??

harris said:

whose president?!

Click to expand...

Great question. Who did the Washington Territory really belong to? Is there a meaning to this?

• The Territory of Washington was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1853, until November 11, 1889, when the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Washington.

Also, in 1881 Seattle was supposed to have close to 3,500 people. On the photo we barely have 300-400 people.

Hills definitely do not look as steep as they are today.

This may be wandering off topic a bit but I set off looking into the difference between a Territory and a State, turns out its just the legal form the wordage takes, least as far as I can tell. Basically a Territory is an informal State. As with any legal definitions the rabbit hole instantly becomes a sandworm tunnel so the difference between formal and informal is outside the scope of this thread.

However I did find this as I reckoned there must be some public domain legal documents kicking around from 1883 and this is a big one of 481 pages in length.

• Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Washington

Here are some screen grabs. I did search within the pdf on various words as the accompanying text from me will illustrate.

• First off this.

Ninth Biennial Session in 1883 puts the original Session back into 1865 and I have yet to look that ar back for other documents as I felt these findings were worth sharing now.


This one mentions the different classes of humanity involved in the enforced state education of children. It really was enforced by threat of fines and imprisonment for not playing by the rules laid out within this document. Proof that government is nothing more than a claim of jurisdiction.
Teachers is pretty self explanatory as it seems to have the same meaning today as it did in 1883.
Laborers is also pretty self explanatory. Basically anyone employed at the school who is not a teacher on menials tasks.
Mechanics today has a very different meaning. I have no idea what the definition was in 1883 but it isn't 'someone who works with engines/machines'

The only other reference to mechanics in that document is the one below.


Which doesn't help with the definition. However it does again show how government enforces its claim of limited jurisdiction on the living. City limits which only ever expand over time, note.

This one is very interesting as it shows the process in crystal clarity. The notice is crafted and published in a newspaper, any newspaper for a time or frequency specified by the claimants of jurisdiction and that is all that is required for the government to give itself permission to steal money or any other form of what it defines as wealth from living people. Sick society, I may have mentioned this once or twice but it really is sick.
This too me is a very good example of the evidence that suggests that our history is not that old and this system was brought into being not that long before this document was printed. Hundreds of years possibly but equally just a few decades prior to 1883. It's just an elusive thing to pin down. Whatever certainly not thousands of years.


So here the constitution of the United States, not the constitution of the United States of America or the constitution of the United States for America is being invoked as the supreme being as far as those elected or appointed into a government office. Surely god should get a look in here but it does not. The constitution of the United States is top dog. Governance is a religion in exactly the same way Catholicism, Islamism, Buddhism etc etc are. You have to believe in its rules and its authority over you.
The organic act of the territory is again a phrase I do not understand. Organic to me means something living. The territory (note it loses its capital T in this phrase a legal switch) is neither living or dead. It's just a claim of jurisdiction that people comply and believe in to various degrees exactly the same as pretending a dollar bill has any value.
The constitution of the United States first, the organic act of the territory and then they get to the "interests of education" something else that is not defined.
This suggests that whatever the Territory and the territory are they were both subservient to the United States whatever that is. Perhaps today the United States would be called Federal I don't know but obviously far from being outside of the United States Washington Territory was within it and acting as being part of it without the benefits and downsides to being a State.
Suggesting that since its inception in 1865 it has been part of the United States.

Here we see mention of Indians in relation to education. Gives a window into how the Indians were viewed at the time.
In school for 17 years from your fourth birthday. Dear god that is horrific but actually it further enhances my suggestion that our history is not that old as it took far longer back then to instil compliance and indoctrination to kowtow to authority than it does today which to me suggests these poor bastards have only fairly recently been corralled into being subjected to the idea of governance ergo the claim of jurisdiction given force by the constitution of the United States is still fresh and these people, their parents, grandparents, great grandparents knew a time of no claim of jurisdiction.

There is a lot of stuff in there in regards Indians and I have yet to go through it all to see if it helps shed any light on what Washington Territory was.


This is good because it refers to a year prior 1856 to be exact. Nine years before the First Biennial Session. Ergo when Washington Territory did not exist on any paper anywhere.
In 1856 Robert Williams was an employee of the United States infantry ergo a direct employee of the United States and he was employed in defending settlers in lands which the later Washington Territory claim would exert jurisdiction over. So this leaves two cards on the table for me. Either the lands of what became Washington Territory were not under any measure of control given power of enforcement by the constitution of the United States and therefore the US Infantry/Government were invading another claim of jurisdiction lands or there was no claim that could be enforced by another party or the constitution of the United States claimed all the terra firma land of America as its geographical area of jurisdiction thus giving itself the right to do whatever it took to enforce said jurisdiction claim upon any living being living on the terra firma land.

Also of interest is Robert Williams became a citizen of Washington Territory. Citizenship is something only the government people within the claim of jurisdiction can apply to a named individual. This is likely how they kept the Indians out of everything and likely anyone else who was not an Indian who may have been living there say Russians or Chinese people for example. Basically the government can choose who it wants to oppress by taxation ergo in laws and who it wants to oppress by exclusion out laws.
A very neat paper based trick using the notice in any newspaper trick to exclude all deemed unworthy from 'society; as it it is being built by the new religion of authority. If you do not English you cannot know what the English written word is let alone what it means. Dispossessing people of things you deem to be valuable to you by such a method is underhand at best.
Seems obvious to say it but until the claim of jurisdiction is written down and published there is no idea Washington Territory or United States.
What this document show to me is the process of enforcing began in 1865 and it was from the get go divisive in nature. It sought to exclude any and all existing people on the land by crafting a form of legal words on paper by the self proclaimed legal process as people decided was made possible by the crafting of legal words on paper called a constitution and its publication. These pieces of paper gave powers to people who were not born on the lands but who travelled there and occupied or settled it either of their own volition or by encouragement both financial and religious or simply by being given a choice in the land already under the jursidiction claim of the constitution of the United States either death to go to gaol or go occupy in land to the West. The United States equivalent of the United Kingdoms transportation of convicts to Australia.

Sounds like a little overkill, considering that the entire population of the Territory of Washington was allegedly only 75k. Here is their seal by the way.

• Wondering if we are talking about a converted pre-existing government.

As far as the United States of What(?) goes, I'll be doing a separate article-question on that.

That name Alki has always bugged me since first seeing Alki. Over here is is slang for alcoholic!


That seal. The people who seek control over others do love their symbols. Seems they always need something visible to identify their beliefs with.

Anyhow I went looking for other copies or versions of this seal and found this. Which is altogether more grand in appearance to my eye and that building on the left what is it?

It clearly shows a side paddle wheel warship in front of the building. I wonder what ship played a part in the creation of Washington Territory. Also the spelling of AL.KI suggests to me they are two separate words. Over here the sliding of names is going on all the time said to be by colloquial usage of the words but my guess is its done deliberately in writing first to hide the true origins in plain sight. And once again we have the high tech, for the day steam powered ship and the old tech of horse and cart. What I find very disturbing to be quite honest is the ship and the building are depicted as replacing the trees, log cabin, covered wagon in a right to left disposition and the lady is facing 'the future' where there is no nature. I have no idea when these seal was first drafted and little faith in any official dating evidence but this process has been going on since 1853 and again throws weight behind our joint feeling that this human history is not as long as we are being told it is.


Source


Then from the page I found these quotes about heroic historical figures which read to me completely made up by when by whom is a mystery. Flannelling maybe, embellishing real people, completely fabricated narrative who knows but made up to at least some degree none the less.

Historian Edmond S. Meany described the territorial seal in a Seattle Times article published on April 1, 1923.

“In territorial days, the state had a seal which was designed by Lieutenant Duncan of the United States Army,” Meany told the Times. “The seal portrayed a girl holding a cornucopia from which was flowing the wealth of the state [trees, a cabin, a covered wagon, an anchor, buildings, mountains]. About the girl’s head was the Indian word “Al-ki,” which means ‘by and by’ [or, eventually].”

Click to expand...

Seems the ship was ignored by the historian. And why would a lowly Army Lieutenant be credited with a design of a seal for a Territory?

Coming to the explanation of the words Al.Ki which the page author writes as Al-ki which is itself another layer of obfuscation, possibly deliberate possibly not but obfuscation none the less. Hisorians it seems are not sticklers for detail. Perhaps the pay check matter more, who knows.

So it occurred to me how does anyone know what the sound Al and the sound Ki actually look like in writing. The indians of North America we are told did not have a written language or did they and the written alphabet was the English alphabet.

Seems far fetched to assume it was so but assuming tales of the British running around in the decades prior to the creation of Washington Territory are anywhere near true perhaps the indians really did adopt and use the English language alphabet and maybe they did write things down. But then again I live next door to a Tamil family and although they do use spoken English and can read written English to a degree they always fall back into Tamil when speaking to each other and when writing to each other. Only the kids manage to do both languages in both forms with a degree of ease. The adults who are immigrants who have been here for eighteen years or so struggle with both forms of English.

So I clicked the link within that quote hoping to find out a bit more about Al.Ki and this appeared.

David Denny was known for taking extra care to maintain ties with local Native Americans.

“He spoke Lushootseed and Chinook [Native American dialects] fluently. He was considered a great friend to the Native people,” Johnson said of her great-great-grandfather.

Click to expand...

So how did this David Denny come to learn these two dialects as they are called fluently?
Surely as they are separated thus it must mean that the Lushootseed and Chinook are separate spoken languages and the speaker of one cannot understand the speaker of the other. And furthermore unless the indians who saw this bloke pitch up on the beach could speak either 'dialect' then his fluency would be useless.
I don't know about you but this story doesn't ring true. Is it just embellishment by the lady?
And I do doubt David Denny would take the time to write down anything he heard in any dialect he was fluent in when all he had to write with was the English alphabet. I also doubt that any indian would be able to read written English.

“His cabin and Thomas Mercer’s were the two cabins that weren’t burnt in the Battle of Seattle, that weren’t burnt down because even the [Native American] people from Eastern Washington knew they were friends of the Indians,” Johnson said.

Click to expand...

Bloody amazing eh!
So this invader turns up and gets on famously with the natives so much so that when the natives realise they are being conned they spare these two chaps and their cabins. Again doesn't ring true. Surely in a tribe the ruling chief or head of the tribe and his council or one presumes her council as this over emphasising of patriarchal structure has never sat right with me no matter where it rears is head, surely the top dog would decide what goes on so we must assume that David Denny had the ear and confidence of the top dog of whatever tribe was burning cabins. We are also meant to assume the the tribe burning cabins was the same one David Denny met up with on that beach yet what evidence would there be to back up such an assumption?

Remember no indians could write so there would be nothing written from 'their side' and there is nothing but hearsay from 'the other side', least I've not found a personal journal or reference to one to back up the assertion.

Native Americans living in what’s now Seattle, including Chief Seattle, helped with practical advice and other aid to the settlers who landed at what’s now Alki Beach in West Seattle on a rainy morning in 1851.

Click to expand...

I bet you a pound to a penny that beach was not known as Alki beach either by the indians or the settlers. 'A rainy morning' is the sort of detail which I would suggest can only be found in a personal journal. It is of absolutely zero significance to the story or to the actual meeting yet where is the journal. I cannot find it.

Also 'practical advice and other aid'. Surely the ship carried all the practicalities David Denny and crew required and surely David Denny was only one of the landing party. I cannot see him rowing himself to shore. Makes no sense a man hitching a ride on a ship and getting off on the off chance of finding friendly indians to parley with.
Was David Denny a ships captain or an officer on the ship or did he hire the ship and why if the state of the weather was known and recorded wasn't the ships name and the names of the other people he landed with?

As ever its what not that there that has more relevance to me than what we are told is there.

I prefer the term sold to told but realise that would confuse things but we really are sold a version of history that is manufactured.

During that first tough winter, the story goes, Native Americans suggested that sickly infants in the Denny Party be nourished with clam nectar. They also showed the men in the party how to split cedar, by hand, into useful pieces of lumber.

Click to expand...

Right so these people who turn up in a wooden ship, row or rowed to shore in a wooden boat, presumably having come from a town where wooden buildings predominate have to be shown how to split wooden logs by hand to create 'useful lumber'. Beggars belief, doesn't it.
Why were there sickly infants on board that ship?
Were they seasick?
How would the indians know what they were sick with if David Denny or anyone else onboard did not speak the indians language?

Surely the indians would diagnose before prescribing and there has to be a great deal of trust on the part of the sickly infants mothers in what we are always told are 'savages', unless the meaning of the word savages was different back then. Either way it seems to me to be a brave mother who trusts someone she cannot understand or converse with the health of her child.


It reads more and more like a made up story.

Well, to be honest, I suspect Seattle has nothing to do with no Chief Seattle. I think the word has a Nahuatl ring to it. Like it should be something similar to:

• Seatl

Sometimes the trick is to remove a letter from a word.

Sea-battle

KorbenDallas said:

Well, to be honest, I suspect Seattle has nothing to do with no Chief Seattle. I think the word has a Nahuatl ring to it. Like it should be something similar to:

• Seatl

Click to expand...

Quite a few hits on the radar on the wiki about him, them majic numbers again.

Chief Seattle

Or stick a letter in where there isn't one Settle plus a misplaced 'a' and you get Seattle.
Over here settle is a place and the name for a bench seat.

Still digging and found something else.
Reading about the North West Company on a wiki page either it or a page that I read after it was stated that "the local indians refused to work at trapping' for the company so they imported native Hawaiians to do the trapping and teach the locals how to trap". Which makes no sense whatsoever not least because I reckon Seattle is a tad colder than Hawaii and there are no beavers or sea otters in Hawaii unless there were in the 1700's.
Anyway after seeing this image of the Duwamish boats in this photograph from this page I begin to wonder of the Duwamish as they call themselves are actually Hawaiian in origin either sailing across the Pacific of their own volition or conversely going the other way. I would if I didn't like the cold!
Or they are actually the descendants of the Hawaiian Native imported to trap fur bearing animals for the North West Company.

EDIT to add they were Kanakas so not necessarily from Hawaii Kanaka (Pacific Island worker) Having trouble finding photos of any Duwaimish men save for their 'chief'.

Certainly the facial characteristics of the two 'tribes' are strikingly similar. Getting distracted at the moment by the antics of the first Governor of the Washington Territory who was on a stipend of $3000 per year hack then yet manages to get himself killed in 'the civil war'. Bloody idiot. I'll add in the pictures of the two tribes later.

What does anyone else think or see?

And to round things off this one brings us back the the Yesler's

• Battle of Seattle (1856)

Phelps remarks that the tailings from Henry Yesler's recently erected mill were steadily filling in the marshy land at the north of the head or peninsula where the settlement was located. He described the arrangement of the troops arrayed in defense on the nights before the battle:

The divisions… nightly occupied the shore, vigilantly guarding the people as they slept, and resting only when the morning light released them from the apprehended attack. … [They] were distributed along the line of defense in the following order: The fourth, under Lieutenant Dallas.

Click to expand...

Any relation??? KD

Right Arm said:

steadily filling in the marshy land at the north of the head or peninsula where the settlement was located

Click to expand...

Banta old chap was I on the money or what?

jd755 said:

Banta old chap was I on the money or what?

Click to expand...

It mostly was in the area of the current SODO district and West Seattle Bridge.
The below photograph is dated with c. 1900. Wondering what this building was doing there.


Alaskan Way along the waterfront is also mostly a fill, but that fill has nothing to do with buried Pioneer Square buildings.

By the way, if this is 1900, can anyone see the Pioneer Building and Hotel Seattle there? It should be about a mile away from where they took the photograph.

No my suggestion was Pioneer square was at the point where the tidal marshes became solid land so partial fill partial solidified land. Marshs hereabouts form where the sea loses its currents or they change course or become less so about four miles from me there is now marshland whereas when I was kid in the sixties it was all seashore mud and sand washed twice a day by waves and every spring tide coinciding with an onshore wind flooded the coastal road and the houses on the landward side of the road. In former employment I had cause to work in the gardens of one of those houses and it was almost pure sand with the thinnest of skins of soil upon it which is why the plants the lady was trying to grow struggled due to the high levels of salt and the all but too good drainage of the soil which suggests that marshes move out from the solid land and into the sea mud and sand.
This is the process I reckon was going on either just prior to the establishment of pioneer square or was speeded up by man to establish the square.
Of course it is just as feasible for a flood to have buried the square and any constructions on it be it a flood by tsunami or a flood from the rivers it's just the evidence for such an event in the physical record or the documentary/pictorial record is missing.
The fact a lot of the area of Seattle is on made up land is strikingly similar to the fact a lot of area of San Francisco is also sitting on made up land. If land can liquefy over a large area of many square miles not just a few acres say by a tidal wave flooding the land and then an earthquake shaking it to settle it out so too speak then large volumes of buildings would be destroyed very quickly but I cannot see how this chain of events, tidal wave then an earthquake would permit burial of undamaged building sitting there to be dug out and put into use again.
Were it the other way earthquake first and then tidal wave then surely the earthquake would severely damage the buildings and the wave would take all movable rubble either way inland or far out to sea or both and could conceivably leave stone or brick foundations relatively undamaged and available to build off of.

They could be reclaiming the area. Just a speculation.

As far as the mechanism of mud delivery goes. There are many things we have not seen, or do not consider.

• This human error part is interesting.

Continuing with the dig into Seattle and its surrounds through the tales within online documents images and articles.

The Duwaimish chief whose photograph dominates any image search for the Duwaimish who is said to go by the name Chief Si'ahl.

It is said that Si'ahl grew up speaking both the dxʷdəwʔabš and Suquamish dialects of Lushootseed.

Click to expand...

• Chief Si'ahl - Duwamish Tribe

So seems a tribe as it is defined today has a different meaning to the Indians. Again to my mind speaking a different dialect does not constitute a different tribe or nation. Seems in the Indian world if you speak a dialect you are simply speaking a dialect that cannot be understood by any other group of different dialect speakers.
Strikingly similar to the 52 tribes of China who all speak different versions of Chinese ergo the same spoken language made different but they can all communicate with each other through the pictogram Chinese alphabet in the written word.

Did the Indians also have a written alphabet that has been all but completely erased from the historical record by the narrative creators or by the Indians themselves to keep their secrets secret?

Anyway this chief chap the present day Duwamish make the claim he saw Royal Navy Warships of the day sail up anchor and pay the Suquamish summer village a visit.

As a boy, Si'ahl saw British Captain George Vancouver's ships passing through the Khwulch (Puget Sound) in 1792. Vancouver anchored the ships HMS Discovery and HMS Chatham at the Suquamish summer village at Restoration Point, near the southeast corner of Bainbridge Island. Si'ahl and his father Shweabe saw the British visitors to Puget Sound.

Click to expand...

Quite how the British and the Suquaimish were able to communicate with each other is anyone's guess. Nevertheless this is used to position the man we are told was Chief in a certain place and time.

Coming forwards to 1851 this man is aid to have met the settlers when they first arrived.

Chief Si'ahl and other members of the dxʷdəwʔabš Nation greeted the first European-American immigrants when they arrived at Alki Point, near Duwamish Head in what is now West Seattle.

Click to expand...

• Chief Si'ahl - Duwamish Tribe

So presumably he was on or near the beach when David Dennny stepped ashore and permit me a slight aside.
Here is the tale which seems to the source of the shorter tale in the page linked above about how inept the settlers were and how good the Indians were.

Chief Si'ahl and his tribes were helpful in times of distress. With no cows available, the new European-American immigrants lacked milk for their children. The dxʷdəwʔabš showed them how to substitute clam juice. The dxʷdəwʔabš helped to shelter the newcomers, teaching them how long boards could be split from straight-grained cedar. The dxʷdəwʔabš also traded salmon, venison, furs, and even potatoes from dxʷdəwʔabš gardens, to the new arrivals.

Click to expand...

• Chief Si'ahl - Duwamish Tribe

Remember these settlers had no clue about how to split wood yet sailed in wooden ships. The same settlers who were stupid enough to take babes in arms with them without having a cow to hand to give them milk. I kinda thought mothers were well able to provide milk for their babies but what do I know.

Just how could these settlers prosper on the journey when they seem to have nothing not even the knowledge required to survive.

The whole tale of Chief whats his name and David Denney's arrival feels like completer fabrication.

Si’ahl's mother Sholeetsa was dxʷdəwʔabš and his father Shweabe was chief of the the Suquamish Tribe.

Click to expand...

• Chief Si'ahl - Duwamish Tribe

Did the tribes name and dialect change every time a new chief was made up or brought into being or whatever the actual process is?

Makes me wonder.

And why just the one photo of him seemingly either asleep or newly dead?

Another thing that arises out of this look back into Seattle is Governor Stevens. An all American hero who died heroically fighting the Confederates. As you do.

He was the first Governor of the Territory of Washington as it was demerged by 'public agitation' (since when did any government give in to public agitation) from the Oragan Territory as it was often called back then, something else I didn't know and yet another sliding of words hiding things in plain sight.

He was both the first Governor and the Superintendent of Indian Affairs and was on $3.000 a year from both positions.

Now I would have thought that as the public of the geographical area about to be named the Territory of Washington would be the pool of talent from which the first Governor was appointed or elected.

He grew up in Massachusetts, and was appointed by President Franklin Pierce in 1853 to serve as governor of the newly created Washington Territory.

Click to expand...

• State of Oregon: Territorial Government

Er no he was from Massachusetts and was appointed not elected by the President of the United States even though the United States had no jurisdiction as Oragan was not a state.

Once again we see the United States people simply taking things by claiming this or that by writing stuff down on paper.

On August 14, 1848, President Polk signed the Organic Act creating the Oregon Territory. Uncle Sam could now begin his labors in the Pacific Northwest in earnest.

Click to expand...

• State of Oregon: Territorial Government

This is the same President who effectively halted the Mormons dash to California at Salt Lake City just to put a bit of context into the chap.

It seems it really is all that is required to steal land from right under the noses of the people who live upon it is to write it down on the correct form and get some idiot to sign it. t's the exact same process in play today.

So Governor Stevens was a political appointee from 'back east' and so instead of running things from 'back east' it seems that actually relocating to said Territory was vital.

In true Captain Kirk style this chap didn't just ride into the Washington Territory and take control hell no he went surveying in a land he didn't grow up in and knew next to nothing about.

On the way west, he led a surveying crew to identify and map a northern transcontinental railroad route.

Click to expand...

• Remembering Washington's complicated first governor Isaac Stevens

Which interested me greatly primarily to see if he came into contact with chief whatisname and to see if the Duwaish claim of the Denny part not having cows held water.

But again permit me a slight aside. I know this is one mans opinion but I find it very funny to see a comparison to the little general.

“A more appropriate historical analogy, biographically speaking, is Napoleon,” Nicandri said. “[Stevens] certainly had a Napoleonic streak, in fact, doubly so, because like Napoleon himself, he was small in stature, probably overly conscious about prerogatives and his place in the world, which did a lot to inform his character.”

Click to expand...

• Remembering Washington's complicated first governor Isaac Stevens

Dear god how lame is that but it does give us some idea of his stature.

Does he look small in this photograph said to be of him?

I cannot find any of him in his Governor role.

Here is how the United States operated in stealing land and with it enforcing itself upon people upon the land.

Joseph Lane, a Mexican War hero and resident of Indiana, was appointed governor. He set out for Oregon City, where he was inaugurated on March 3, 1849, proclaiming the sprawling region under the administration of the United States. The event was of singular consequence. Territorial status brought not only a governor but also three judges, an attorney, and a marshal--all federal appointees. Oregonians who were male, 21 years or older, and citizens of the United States had the franchise and could elect a territorial legislature. Its laws, however, were subject to veto by Congress and the legislature had limited power to incur debt.

Click to expand...

• State of Oregon: Territorial Government

So it seems written words once spoken are required to make a claim of ownership valid in the United States.

Maybe just me but I find it extremely dubious not to say odd that a mere 6 years later another group of settlers were said to be agitating for a Territory of their own created by the United States in the exact same way. What was so wrong with the Oregon Territory and its politics?
And they simply 'changed coats' in reality as both Oregon Territory and Washington Territory were subservient to the United States.

Seems particularly pointless other than to make another layer of obfuscation to lay over what amounts to annexation or takeover by force, Not necessarily physical force but force nonetheless.

It's very easy for me to go off down another tunnel in this rabbit hole, too easy actually so coming back to the Captain Kirk style Governor Stevens and his slow progress into Washington Territory to become its governor by Proclamation.

I went looking for any articles about the surveying trip and this is what I found.

Funnily enough this Napoleon reference appeared again in this PDF in fact its in it's title.

• The Young Napoleons

What follows is my retrieval of what I feel matters in relation to Seattle and its origin story from within it.

McClellan and Stevens were the products of well-to-do families. The former was born in Pennsylvania in 1826, the son of a prominent surgeon and teacher. Stevens, born eight years earlier in North Andover, Massachusetts, descended from a long line of prosperous farmers and mill owners. Both distinguished themselves at the United States Military Academy which, in the 1830s and 1840s, was beginning to make its mark as a training ground for military engineers. Stevens graduated first in a class of 31 in 1839 and McClellan second of 59 in 1846.

Click to expand...

McClellad and Stevens were the two leaders of the surveying expedition. As we see Stevens is no swamp cookie he is well connected and does indeed hail from Massachusetts. Not only that accomplished military man to boot.

They both served in the Mexican War then Stevens returned to his former duties.

After the cessation of hostilities, these officers returned to the often demanding but prosaic duties of the peace time military. Stevens resumed his pre-war task of constructing fortifications on the East Coast and then won assignment to the Washington, D.C. office of the Coast Survey.

Click to expand...

Clearly he was an engineer and surveyor first and foremost.

In 1853 Stevens received appointment as governor of the new Washington Territory. At the same time, Congress authorized a series of transcontinental surveys to ascertain the best railway route across the continent in the forlorn hope that the political deadlock created by the clash of sectional interests would be broken by the clear topographical superiority of one of the alternatives. Stevens lobbied hard for appointment to the northernmost of these routes, which would survey the territory between the 47th and 49th parallels from St. Paul to Puget Sound. He saw the railway survey as the best way to begin his duties as governor and superintendent of Indian affairs for the Union's newest territory. The survey would provide valuable geographic, scientific and topographic information, enable contact and preliminary negotiations with Indian leaders and, with luck, bring a transcontinental railroad which would fill the new territory with the one commodity it desperately needed settlers.

Click to expand...

As I said in true Captain Kirk style. Not enough to be appointed Governor on a colossal figure (for the day) of $1500 per annum but he had to be the one to do the surveying work in 'hostile' territory.

Lets refresh the memory of what David Denny was up to about this time. Landing in Seattle without cows without woodworking knowledge to be met by the friendly Duwaimish who helped him and his fellow settlers out with some fundamentals and yet here just across the ways the brand spanking new Governor was making his way into the same Territory to seek out a railway route.

Stevens had to leave the United States Army on his appointment as Governor of Washington Territory but he went on to run the expedition as though he were still in the army and most of the people on the expedition were army men not ex-army men.

Just to throw some more context into this story here's a flavour.

Competition for engineering and scientific personnel for the four transcontinental surveys was intense and was further complicated by Commodore Matthew Perry's expedition to Japan and ventures setting out for arctic exploration. Stevens' presence in the nation's capital and his personal acquaintance with many of the leading scientific and military personnel in the country put him in a position to secure much of the available talent.

Click to expand...

Also see how really well Stevens was connected. That he was politically connected in the exact same way seems to be outside the scope of the articles author.

What I find interesting is not one of his surveying party actually lived in Washington Territory or it seems Oregon Territory although Indian 'guides' do flit in and out of the story so presumably they were native to the region.

Do read the whole pdf. It is well worth it especially when the entire expedition seems to have been undertaken with broken and faulty equipment of dubious quality to begin with and yet the skills and bravery of the men won through overcoming personal clashes, the weather. the loss of animals and the constant attrition of depleting stores.

Bear in mind this is the brand new Governor on this journey. A political appointment to a new political Territory. Doesn't seem urgent that he gets there to make his proclamation which too me suggests there were not that many people knocking about in Washington Territory at the time, least not enough to agitate for its creation.

And just to re-emphasis the Captain Kirk nature of this expedition.

Despite the bickering at the end, the western portion, as indeed the entire survey, was a great success. Stevens and his lieutenants had made the work more than just a reconnaissance for a possible railroad route. It was a geographic, topographic, geologic survey which included assessments of animal and plant life, climate, soils, terrain and the native inhabitants. On the western portion George Gibbs made major contributions with his "Report on the Indian Tribes of Washington" and another on the geology of the central portion of the territory.

Click to expand...

Bloody amazing eh. Literally bloody amazing.

Stevens surveying route took him into the exact same area Seattle is to be found, where the Duwamish are to be found, where the chief was too be found. It seems inconceivable that the Duwaimish did not meet up with Stevens but it seems they didn't.

Here is a map of his route.

• Rocky Mountains to Puget Sound

Given the easy going chief made friends with David Denney and co I would suggest he would have been just as easy going with anyone from the surveying expedition he came across and such a meeting would be worthy of record but there seems to be none.
One young lieutenant on the surveying expedition JK Duncan did a lot of sketches of indian chiefs but chief whatshisname doesn't appear to be among them, at least online.

This already quite long so will take a break here and put together the next instalment.

jd755 said:

That name Alki has always bugged me since first seeing Alki. Over here is is slang for alcoholic!

Click to expand...

Al-ki | “by and by”
"Al-ki, adv. (C) (Chinook, –alekh). In the future; by and by; after a while; soon; presently; directly; in a little while; hold on; not so fast. The sign of the future tense, shall or will."

We also have this:

• El - Ki

@jd755, Isaac Stevens sure looks tiny, and... not without something weird about him, or his kind of species. I don't know how to explain, hobbitish or something...

• Wondering how old he was in this picture.
• UW suggests this photograph was taken between 1861 and 1870
• According to this (second picturein the slide), it could be 1855.

...and not only him appears to be that way.

• General Isaac I. Stevens (seated) and his staff are pictured on a porch of a house.
• Beaufort, South Carolina in 1862

Here is a page chock full of photographs and stories which may throw some light on the Seattle prior to the establishment of Pioneer Square.

Before we go there though I feel any mention of any pre existing stone/brick structures in the Seattle area would be contained within the written reports, documents and sketches of that Steven surveying expedition. If these men were surveying the land for multiple reasons not just a railroad route through the mountains they would be in the mode of recording things rather than examining things if you get my drift. The writing down and sketching being more important than the investigation of thing so there is the likelihood their notes and sketches would be the source of any mention of pre existing structures simply noted down as such and taken for granted. I haven't looked for online copies of these notes and sketches there is only so much I can do

Now then to the so called Battle of Seattle.

• The Battle of Seattle in 1856 — Frontier Seattle

This story is based on research done by Native and non-Native scholars, primary sources such as newspaper archives, and information publicly available through the Washington State Historical Society’s website.

Click to expand...

So this chap has gone to sources I cannot which is why this article and its content is worth a look through.

Just to recap. The settler David Denny and the Duwaimish Chief Tyee Si'ahl are said to have met up in 1851. In 1853-54 the brand new Washington Territory Governor Stevens and his party visited the area of Seattle but I can find no mention of Chief Tyee Si'ahl or David Denney and crew meeting up with them. Then in 1856 some Indians apparently could see the writing on the wall and decided to do something about it.

If this map is anywhere near accurate two things jump out to me. The first which is related, sort of, to this investigation is the strait looks to me very similar to the gates of Gibraltar where a large body of water aka the ocean smashed through or wore through a silted up or weakened part of the coastline and flooded the hinterland.
The second is the Duwaimish had very very little range over the Seattle area geographically speaking. They seem to have been confined if you will to a small parcel of land and do not seem to a large population.
Here I must say I really am struggling with this concept of tribes being different from each other simply because they speak a different dialect. I don't know and cannot seem to find out what the word dialect actually means in the context of these tribes.
With that said it seems obvious that should another tribe fancy the Duwaimishes claim of territory they would end up homeless pretty quick.

The sea they lived alongside was said to teem with salmon and I see no reason to doubt that though doubt it will do so again in my lifetime given the state of the 'world' as it is today, the fishery the Duwaish were sat alongside would possibly be deemed valuable by the tribes around them and to me anyways deemed valuable by the sailors of the Royal Navy and indeed any 'settlers' entering the area. Unless of course Salmon were so ubiquitous back then their value was so low as to be taken for granted.
It's hard if not impossible to get into the mindset of people alive in 'them days' and equally hard to keep my value judgements away from these sorts of investigations. All I can say is they were either broadly similar to mine or completely different to the extent they are alien to me.

However I do suggest that making a living from the Salmon run would be far far easier than processing forests into lumber and sawdust. Seasonal yes but a couple of months of intense endeavour over a year round slog to process trees. I'd value the former over the latter every time.

The tribes located around where the City of Seattle is today, were (are) the Duwamish and Suquamish. Though these two tribes were essentially cousins with a shared language Lushootseed (“saltwater language”) and many inter-marriages, the Suquamish lived around Bainbridge Island on the western side of Puget Sound, while the Duwamish lived near Elliot Bay on the eastern side of the Sound. This geographical difference had a profound impact on how each tribe developed.

Click to expand...

Oh so they didn't speak different dialects. The two tribes spoke the same language the "saltwater language", To me this is more evidence for the origin of these people being located on the islands of the Pacific. Either they sailed to the Pacific coast of America or they were brought there by other people as slaves or itinerant workers.
I get the feeling these two tribes were not actually separate at all. They were one and the same living on the two islands as one.

Also worth noting that according to the author and presumably his sources both tribes were shoreline dwellers ergo not living within the forest rather on its edges. This makes a lot of senses as the edges of ecosystems are the most diverse in terms o natural resources such as plants, animals insects etc so it seems these humans were aware of this hence their location at the edge. It's also worth noting that light inside a forest is much much less than light at the edges and as creatures of the light this matters to humans, I would suggest, far more than we with out messed up world of artificial light realise. The cycles of light and dark play a key role in the lives of people I feel putting them in tune so too speak with their surroundings which is why the vast majority of the population of the world is living in artificial light as it disconnects us at a base level from our surroundings.

Living at the edge of the islands gave the tribe access to sea foods and spring water coming out from the properly hydrated ground above the shoreline. Few people it seems pay any attention the the indians need for good water and my guess would be they had a mind map or a song which could direct them to good water no matter where they were in their world. Again unlike us alive today where the water is utterly lifeless and is as artificial as the light. These people valued things very differently to us. I might have mentioned that already!

It would seem that at least at this time Pioneer Square and the wider Seattle was fully hydrated land under a forest and was a location not specific or noticeable in any way. Unless of course it was something similar to the Mayan ruins where the buildings or their remnants were 'growed over' with vegetation, then buried in soil then covered in forest which would of course push the age of these structures way back beyond the age of the oldest tree stood upon them but I know of no way to age a tree stood standing to day let alone one chopped down hundreds of years ago.
I would also argue that a catastrophe, say an inundation of the land by the sea by tidal wave for example or an earthquake (as these are the only two events that I know of that could carry off such a process) on the scale intimated by the waters marked on the map would completely destroy and structures in its path no matter what they are constructed of. The process of burial of the remains would depend on the state of the soils and the tree cover between the sea inundation and the structures and indeed the amount of material that was taken up in the initial surge and was carried backwards from the backwash once the surge ran out of steam.

Whatever the time it happened if it did happen was way before the first pioneer tree seed germinated and grew tall. Certainly no-one left alive would care about the structures they would have had other things on their mind not least of which would be a clean source of drinking water.

Here is a classic example of a modern day limitation on thinking being applied to the people long dead.

For generations, this made the Suquamish a powerful naval force on the Salish Sea. In contrast, the Duwamish were often considered a poor, muddy tribe by their more affluent neighbors (Buerge 1-4).

Click to expand...

More affluent yet left the poor Duwaimsh alone with their salmon fishery and extremely productive mud flats!

Since most of the tribes in the territory spoke different languages, a trade jargon evolved called Chinook. The Chinook Jargon was a simple language of a few hundred native, English, and French words that the traders, explorers, and missionaries could use to communicate with the tribes.

Click to expand...

Were that even remotely true how the hell would any tribe of indians communicate with another?

How would one tribe know if the others were telling lies or the truth?
Deceptions would be rife.

I've skipped the whole section in the article on the interactions and motivations of the tribes and the settlers as its pure speculation that parrots the mainstream narrative. Which in essence is the same one repeated ad nauseam whenever 'tribes' encounter 'white men' the world over. White men good tribes stupid ignorant people who need saving from themselves. Cobblers quite frankly complete cobblers.

Here we get to see how the fake narrative is built all too well.

Compare this said to be the written word of Arthur Denny;

Some of them built their houses very near to ours, even on the ground we had cleared, and although they seemed very friendly toward us we did not feel safe in objecting to their building thus near to us for fear of offending them, and it was very noticeable that they regarded their proximity to us as a protection against other Indians.

Click to expand...

With this:

So when The Denny Party landed at Alki Point in 1851, the powerful sia’b of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes Tyee Si’ahl welcomed them with open arms (Tyee is the Chinook Jargon word for “chief”). Chief Seattle allowed the Denny Party to camp on tribal lands and provided protection to the settlers from rival tribes and insubordinate underlings.

Click to expand...

Not clear but to me it reads that the Duwaiish people consulted by the authors are the source of the latter. So the claim is Chief Tyee Si'ahl protected the settlers then his tribe of protectors decided they needed the protection of the settlers!
Both claims cannot be true. Don't forget we were told earlier the Squamish were more affluent and controlled the waters. Why didn't the settlers pitch up on the land claimed by the Squamish?
Why did they pitch up in the land of the tidal mudflats?
Presumably their ship must have had to stand off from the mudflats or risk being beached. Presumably the Squamish would have noticed a ship sailing past their island and with their powerful canoes and 'navy' might at least put to sea and had a butchers as to where they were going and possibly got a bit annoyed when the new people chose to come ashore in the land o their 'poor neighbours'.
Perhaps thinking that their neighbours had somehow sought an alliance with these newcomers and were planning on a land or sea grab of some kind at their expense and thus do something about it whilst they could.

Seems however the Squamish were as ambivalent as the Duwaimish were welcoming but then again only to the point where the apparent separation of the two tribes disappears.

The Denny Party quickly realized that Alki Point was not an ideal location to build a town, so they began scouting around Puget Sound for a more protected harbor. They agreed on the muddy tidal flats along the eastern shore of Elliot Bay, Duwamish ancestral land known as Djicjila’letc or “the little crossing over place,” and moved across the bay to stake their claims.

Click to expand...

Did they have the permission of the chief?
What was the problem with the landing place?
Why didn't they continue scouting and avoid landing at the Duwamish village/town in the first place?
Why would they be seeking to build a town where they landed?
Were they escorted by United States Navy armed vessels?
Where were the Royal Navy, the trading company ships and personnel whilst these United States ships were wandering about looking for a place to land their cargo of settlers upon?

Just a few of the questions that spring to mind when reading these stories.

And what was so wrong with Alki point as it became known?
Too many indians living there?
Not enough good water?
Were the settlers views of indians what we would call racist?
Did the indians actually talk them into a better opportunity on the other side of the bay?
Did the indians not want the settlers anywhere near them?

Not a one of these questions seems to be posed let alone answered by the mainstream history writers or investigators.

Check this painting out attributed to David Denny's daughter but undated said to depict the meeting of David and the Chief on the shore at the later named Alki point.

• Drawing by Emily Inez Denny entitled, "Chief Seattle shaking hands with D.T. Denny at site of West Seattle

That doesn't look anything like the headgear I was told and shown 'indians' wear. Looks to me to be something akin to a coolie hat if anything. Whatever the daughter was born two years after the landing in 1853 so she never saw what she painted! In other words she imagined it.
Embellishing a story?

Seems the chief was desperate to get hold of dollars or was far more gullible than we are led to believe if this tale has any authenticity to it.

Chief Seattle had already established trading relations with the whites, but his initial capitalist venture in salmon farming went south (literally and figuratively) when his first shipment to San Francisco spoiled in the barrels and the white trader he was working with gave up and left.

Click to expand...

But it seems the Chief was in contact with settlers, trappers, company men, navy men prior to the arrival of the Denny party. Note the white trader's name doesn't appear in the story which I find convenient for forming a fake narrative.

Why not exchange the salmon for something he deemed valuable from the nameless white trader?
Surely that transfers all the risk for the onward shipment to the white trader and leaves the Chief out of it. Again it makes the argument that the indians were clueless and had to be civilised by the white man stand out as the defining narrative of all indian white man contact.

Shortly after the Denny Party arrived, Chief Seattle was in Olympia on a supply run when he met a doctor from Cleveland named David Swinson Maynard that everyone just called “Doc.” Anxious to rekindle trade with a powerful white “sia’b,” a “healer” no less, Chief Seattle told Doc of the new settlement that had just sprouted out of his muddy beach at “the little crossing over place” and offered to give Doc a ride.

Click to expand...

Unbowed by his loss to the nameless white man the Chief was off on a trading trip in Captain Kirk fashion it appears obvious that this Chief was well used to meeting and greeting and the 'ways of the white man' not some ignorant swamp cookie who would be easy to con out of anything.

But hang on a minute didn't the chief help out the Denny party with a milk substitute made from clams to heal their sick infants and showing them how to split cedar?
Why yes he did, according to the narrative so why would he need to bask in the glow of a white man's healer?
Again makes no sense.

Whatever we are supposed to believe that this Doctor fresh from Cleveland in Olympia which was further down the development path than Denny's 'muddy beach' town was enticed to leave civilisation and camp out with Denny's crew. Surely doctors back then earned their dollars by treating the sick so presumably they would need a certain number of sick people to sate their need for dollars. Just how many people did Denny actually land with?
It cannot have been more than were living or passing through Olympia and even if Arthur Denny's claim of "a thousand indians" living in his village were true they would not have any dollars to pay the doc so basically where was his source of income?
Missing I would argue.

However this Doc Maynard is central front and square to the Pioneer Square story.

When Doc stepped out of the canoe with Chief Seattle, at what the Denny Party was calling the “Duwamps,” the Denny Party realized the importance of having a doctor in the settlement and enticed him to stay. With the permission of Chief Seattle they had already staked their claims, but agreed to give Doc the “worthless” tidal swamp on the southern shore, which today we know as the Pioneer Square Neighborhood (Morgan 20-21).

Click to expand...

So it seems likely my much earlier suggest of a few pages back that Pioneer square was at least partly landfill was probably correct. It certainly seems that if the area is the same location as it is today then it was on the sea shore as in the tidal flats area and in such an area would brick or stone built remains of an earlier civilisation be invisible as in buried in the ground?
I would argue that the combination of the rains, the flooding of of the cleared land, the sea, the storms, the physical clearing and processing of trees would reveal such remains and along with the number of eyes and brains wandering about would have been noticed and likely recorded and used any stones or brickwork they came across in their own construction efforts.

As for the doc:

Doc learned how to speak the Chinook Jargon while traveling around to all the tribes in the area treating their sick and injured, which led to Doc and Chief Seattle becoming close friends. When Doc opened his general store on his new claim, he called it the “Seattle Exchange” in honor of Chief Seattle.

Click to expand...

Tribes which could only converse with each other and the white man in the 'chinook language' it seems. Tribes who must have been trading with the settlers/white men to obtain dollars to pay the doc and at the same time completely disregard their own healing men or their own healing knowledge.
A doctor who was so successful financially on the treatments he sold to the indians, clearly there was a lack of sick white settlers, he had to build a general store thus getting into retail/wholesale and doctering as a sideline.
Mirrors the tales of the retailers/wholesalers getting financially wealthy from selling to the miners in the San Francisco gold rush story..

KorbenDallas said:

not without something weird about him,

Click to expand...

He looks weird in the two images you linked to because they are photo realistic drawings. Look at the coat and shirt.

Most small men seem to want to make themselves appear taller than they really are in photographs. Having him be the only one sitting in that military photo suggests to me if stood up he would be the smallest man there. Certainly his character traits on display in the articles about him suggest he was indeed small of stature.

Here's a young Stevens though not in military attire but at least it is a bona fide photograph not a drawing. Actually there is a small man lives round the corner from me and from the waist up he has a 'normal' sized body but his legs are shorter than normal. No dwarfism as other than being small his legs are normal and he walks just like everyone else does so it occurs to me Stevens was a similar sort of build. Perhaps finding an image of him on a horse would reveal all.


Here's a couple more. In army uniform. Can anyone deduce his rank from that uniform might help put an age to him in that photo if nothing else.


Here he is dressed as a Russian? Fur trapper? Davy Crockett? presumably during prior or after his surveying trip. A phot realistic body with an actual photograph head. jury is out on the headgear. Could be real or drawn in.

Salmon is all over the entire Pacific coast of WA today. I’d imagine back in the day it was more abundant due to no commercial sea fishing of today’s level.

As far as the head gear goes. First of all, I don’t think she was even born, to make this drawing based on what she actually observed.

Hypothetically, we could be seeing Sitka or Tlingit indians, but per the narrative, chief Seattle was neither one of those. I have to admit that the cape and head gear do look very similar, but what would those tribes be doing here? Of course, we do have an image like the one below. But somehow, this type of head gear did not make it into the list of favorites.


Then, there is a possibility that this territory was indeed previously known as Fousang. Shenanigans with 19th century events related to Chinese people of the Pacific Northwest are numerous, and, imho, are highly suspicious.

As far as our possible event goes, these natives, at least in my eyes, do not appear like they were living here for centuries. If they are somewhat of newcomers to the area, they could only know so much about the event itself. Seeing the consequences when you arrive, and living though an event of this magnitude is probably not quite the same. If the event did occur in 1770s, what would Indians really know?

Meanwhile, we still have an issue with our underground Seattle, where underground structures were never shown in any of the available photographs. Where did they come from?

Isaac Stevens... for whatever reason he reminds me of a certain character from the Game of Thrones. The below photograph suggests that his head is not properly proportioned to the body. It could probably be due to the head not belonging to that body. I also don’t think the uniform is a good fit. He was allegedly a General. Sure they could afford to size his uniform a bit better.

I'm not convinced it is the uniform of a Brigadier General in the Union Army which is why I asked. His head does indeed look disconnected as it does in most of the photographs/photo realistic drawings. What significance in regards to rank does the sash carry, if any?

Looking through the Denny paintings and sketches at this link one stood out as evidence of what was likely around at the time it was painted but then I read the blurb and my god it throws the story of how the Doctor Maynard came to town out of the window as one travelled overland. There were definitely not enough sick people in that little town to support two doctors financially.

This painting depicts the home of Dr. Henry A. Smith, who had come west by wagon in 1851. He was a physician who used his skills on the wagon train trip from the Midwest, in Seattle and in Snohomish, where he cared for Native Americans as he developed tidal land there.

Click to expand...

• Source

He was even said to treat the indians he exact same claim made for Dr Maynard and would you believe it they both 'acquired' or 'were given' tidal mudflats or at least laid claim to them and both became developers of the land. What are the chances?

Edit to add: I came across this sketch/painting from the Pacific Railroad Survey Report.

• Lieutenant Grover's dispatch - Return of Governor Stevens to Fort Benton

In it we do see Stevens and some horses but sadly he isn't sat on one of them. I find it an odd sort of event to be captured in drawing form to be quite honest. "Lieutenant Grover's dispatch - Return of Governor Stevens to Fort Benton" but that aside Stevens is depicted as not being the smallest man in the picture. Assuming the artist drew to scale.
The mounted Indian to his right looks for all the world like an Inca or Aztec least what we are told such people looked like and dressed.

We have a whole bunch of Civil War Generals here and here. With Stevens, we, at least, need to find a photograph where we can see what insignia he has on his shoulders. This one does not count, for it's just a drawing.

These Indians look too "cliché" if you ask me. Something you would normally see in movies.

• The mounted dude appears to be wearing a war bonnet. Why?

Found a bigger image: here.

• This print was issued as part of the Exploration's and Surveys to Ascertain the Most Practical and Economical Route for a Railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. This government sponsored exploration headed by Isaac Stevens, then Governor of Washington Territory was the Northern Explored Route starting at St Paul, Minnesota traveling through the Dakotas, Montana, Idaho and ending at the Pacific Ocean in Washington Territory. This extraordinary tinted lithograph drawn by John Mix Stanley and Gustavus Sohon recorded the scenes encountered as they marched across the continent.
• Description

The following image is from here. They are similar, but not identical.

• @jd755, which one you think is Stevens? ​