II The Great Port Townsend Controversy, Showing How Whisky Built a City
Few persons who have visited the Pacific coast of late years are ignorant of the fact that the city of Port Townsend is eligibly situated on Puget’s Sound, near the Straits of Fuca; and none who have seen that remarkable city can hesitate a moment to admit that it is a commercial metropolis without parallel.
Port Townsend is indeed a remarkable place. I am not acquainted with quite such another place in the whole world. It certainly possesses natural and artificial advantages over most of the cities known in the Atlantic States or Europe. In front there is an extensive water privilege, embracing the various ramifications of Puget’s Sound. Admiralty Inlet forms an outlet for the exports of the country, and Hood’s Canal is an excellent place for hoodwinking the revenue officers. On the rear, extending to Dunganess Point, is a jungle of pine and matted brush, through which neither man nor beast can penetrate without considerable effort. This will always be a secure place of retreat in case of an invasion from a war-canoe manned by Northern Indians. With regard to the town itself, it is singularly picturesque and diversified. The prevailing style of architecture is a mixed order of the Gothic, Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. The houses, of which there must be at least twenty in the city and suburbs, are built chiefly of pine boards, thatched with shingles, canvas, and wooden slabs. The palace and out-buildings of the Duke of York are built of drift-wood from the saw-mills of Port Ludlow, and are eligibly located near the wharf, so as to be convenient to the clams and oysters, and afford his maids of honor an opportunity of indulging in frequent ablutions. There is somewhat of an ancient and fish-like odor about the premises of his highness, and it must be admitted that his chimneys smoke horribly, but still the artistic effect is very fine at a distance. The streets of Port Townsend are paved with sand, and the public squares are curiously ornamented with dead horses and the bones of many dead cows, upon the beef of which the inhabitants have partially subsisted since the foundation of the city. This, of course, gives a very original appearance to the public pleasure-grounds, and enables strangers to know when they arrive in the city, by reason of the peculiar odor, so that, even admitting the absence of lamps, no person can fail to recognize Port Townsend in the darkest night. When it was a port of entry under the laws of the United States, there was a collector of customs stationed in a small shanty on the principal wharf, whose business it was to look out for smugglers, and pay the salary of an inspector who owns some sheep on San Juan Island, and holds joint possession of that disputed territory with the British government. The collector of customs, being unable to attend to the many important duties that devolved upon him without assistance, was allowed two boatmen, whose duty it was to put him on board of suspicious vessels in the offing, and one of whom, by virtue of a special commission, was ex-officio deputy collector, and made up the accounts of the district.
The principal luxuries afforded by the market of this delightful sea-port are clams, and the carcasses of dead whales that drift ashore, by reason of eating which the inhabitants have clammy skins, and are given to much spouting at public meetings. The prevailing languages spoken are the Clallam, Chenook, and Skookum-Chuck, or Strong Water, with a mixture of broken English; and all the public notices are written on shingles with burnt sticks, and nailed up over the door of the town-hall. A newspaper, issued here once every six months, is printed by means of wooden types whittled out of pine knots by the Indians, and rubbed against the bottom of the editor’s potato pot. The cast-off shirts of the inhabitants answer for paper. For the preservation of public morals, a jail has been constructed out of logs that drifted ashore in times past, in which noted criminals are put for safe keeping. The first and last prisoners ever incarcerated in that institution were eleven Northern Indians, who were suspected of the murder of Colonel Ehy at Whidbey’s Island. As the logs are laid upon sand to make the foundation secure, the Indians, while rooting for clams one night, happened to come up at the outside of the jail, and finding the watchman, who had been placed there by the citizens, fast asleep, with an empty whisky bottle in the distance, they stole his blanket, hat, boots, and pipe, and bade an affectionate farewell to Port Townsend.
The municipal affairs of the city are managed by a mayor and six councilmen, who are elected to office in a very peculiar manner. On the day of election, notice having been previously given on the town shingles, all the candidates for corporate honors go up on the top of the hill back of the water-front, and play at pitch-penny and quoits till a certain number are declared eligible; after which all the eligible candidates are required to climb a greased pole in the centre of the main public square. The two best then become eligible for the mayoralty, and the twelve next best for the common council. These fourteen candidates then get on the roof of the town-hall and begin to yell like Indians. Whoever can yell the loudest is declared mayor, and the six next loudest become the members of the common council for the ensuing year.
While I had the misfortune to be in public employ (and for no disreputable act that I can now remember), it became my duty to inquire into the condition of the Indians on Puget’s Sound. In the course of my tour I visited this unique city for the purpose of having a “wa-wa” with the Duke of York, chief of the Clallam tribe.
The principal articles of commerce, I soon discovered, were whisky, cotton handkerchiefs, tobacco, and cigars, and the principal shops were devoted to billiards and the sale of grog. I was introduced by the Indian Agent to the Duke, who inhabited that region, and still disputed the possession of the place with the white settlers. If the settlers paid him any thing for the land upon which they built their shanties it must have been in whisky, for the Duke was lying drunk in his wigwam at the time of my visit. For the sake of morals, I regret to say that he had two wives, ambitiously named “Queen Victoria” and “Jenny Lind;” and for the good repute of Indian ladies of rank, it grieves me to add that the Queen and Jenny were also very tipsy, if not quite drunk, when I called to pay my respects.
The Duke was lying on a rough wooden bedstead, with a bullock’s hide stretched over it, enjoying his ease with the ladies of his household. When the agent informed him that a Hyas Tyee, or Big Chief, had called to see him with a message from the Great Chief of all the Indians, the Duke grunted significantly, as much as to say “that’s all right.” The Queen, who sat near him in the bed, gave him a few whacks to rouse him up, and by the aid of Jenny Lind succeeded, after a while, in getting him in an upright position. His costume consisted of a red shirt and nothing else, but neither of the royal ladies seemed at all put out by the scantiness of his wardrobe. There was something very amiable and jolly in the face of the old Duke, even stupefied as he was by whisky. He shook me by the hand in a friendly manner, and, patting his stomach, remarked, “Duke York belly good man!”
Of course I complimented him upon his general reputation as a good man, and proceeded to make the usual speech, derived from the official formula, about the Great Chief in Washington, whose children were as numerous as the leaves on the trees and the grass on the plains.
“Oh, dam!” said the Duke, impatiently; “him send any whisky?”
No; on the contrary, the Great Chief had heard with profound regret that the Indians of Puget’s Sound were addicted to the evil practice of drinking whisky, and it made his heart bleed to learn that it was killing them off rapidly, and was the principal cause of all their misery. It was very cruel and very wicked for white men to sell whisky to the Indians, and it was his earnest wish that the law against this illicit traffic might be enforced and the offenders punished.
“Oh, dam!” said the Duke, turning over on his bed, and contemptuously waving his hand in termination of the interview—“dis Tyee no ’count!”
While this wa-wa, or grand talk, was going on, the Queen put her arms affectionately around the Duke’s neck, and giggled with admiration at his eloquence. Jenny sat a little at one side, and seemed to be under the combined influence of whisky, jealousy, and a black eye. I was subsequently informed that the Duke was in the habit of beating both the Queen and Jenny for their repeated quarrels, and when unusually drunk was not particular about either the force or direction of his blows. This accounted for Jenny’s black eye and bruised features, and for the alleged absence of two of the Queen’s front teeth, which it was said were knocked out in a recent brawl.
Some months after my visit to Port Townsend, in writing a report on the Indians of Puget’s Sound, I took occasion to refer to the salient points of the above interview with the Duke of York, and to make a few remarks touching the degraded condition of himself and tribe, attributing it to the illegal practice on the part of the citizens of selling whisky to the Indians. I stated that his wigwam was situated between two whisky-shops, and that the Clallams would soon be reduced to the level of bad white men in Port Townsend, “which, to say the least of it, was a very benighted place.” The report was printed by order of Congress, though I was not aware of that fact till one day, sitting in my office in San Francisco, I received a copy of the “Olympia Democrat” (if I remember correctly), containing a series of grave charges against me, signed by the principal citizens of Port Townsend. I have lost the original documents, but shall endeavor to supply the deficiency as well as my memory serves. The letter was addressed to the “United States Special Agent,” and was substantially as follows:
“Sir,—The undersigned have read your official report relative to the Indians of Puget’s Sound, and regret that you have deemed it necessary to step so far aside from the line of your duty as to traduce our fair name and reputation as citizens of Port Townsend. You will pardon us for expressing the opinion that you might have spent your time with more credit to yourself and benefit to the government.
“Sir, it may be that on the occasion of your visit here the Duke of York and his wives were drunk; but the undersigned are satisfied, upon a personal examination, that neither Queen Victoria nor Jenny Lind suffered the loss of two front teeth, as you state in your report; and they are not aware that Jenny Lind’s eyes were ever blacked by the Duke of York, nor do they believe it, although you have thought proper to make that statement in your report.
“The undersigned do not pretend to say that there is no whisky sold in Port Townsend; but they deny, sir, that you ever saw any of them drunk, or that the citizens of Port Townsend, as a class, are at all intemperate. On the contrary, they claim to be as orderly, industrious, and law-abiding as the citizens of any other town on the Pacific coast or elsewhere.
“Sir, it is scarcely possible that you can have forgotten so soon the marked kindness and hospitality with which you were treated by the citizens of this place during your sojourn here; and now the return you make is to blacken the reputation of our thriving little town, and endeavor to destroy our future prospects. You are, of course, at liberty to choose your own line of travel, but if ever you visit Port Townsend again, we can assure you, sir, you will enjoy a very different reception. Had you confined your misstatements to the Indians, we might have excused it on the ground that it is not customary for public officers to adhere strictly to facts in their reports; but when you go entirely out of your way, and commit such an unprovoked attack upon our character, we feel bound to set ourselves right before the world.
“In charity, we can only suppose that you have been grossly deceived in your sources of information; yet, when you profess to have witnessed personally the evil effects of whisky in Port Townsend, and go so far as to pronounce it ‘a benighted place,’ we can not evade the conclusion that you must have had some experience in what you say you witnessed; either that, or you deliberately committed a base slander upon the citizens of this place. Although the undersigned consider themselves included in your sweeping assertion, it can not have escaped your memory, sir, that on the occasion of your visit to Port Townsend you found them engaged in their peaceful avocations as useful and respectable members of society; and they positively deny that any of them have ever sold whisky to the Indians, or committed the crime of murder.
“Sir, the undersigned have made inquiry into that portion of your report in which you state that no less than six murders were committed here during the past year, and can only find that two were committed, and neither of them by citizens of this place. The conclusion, therefore, to which the undersigned are forced, is, that you were at a loss for something to say, and invented at least four murders for the purpose of contributing to the interest of your report.
“Sir, when a respectable community are engaged in trying to make an honest living, we think it hardly fair that you, as a government agent, should come among them, and, without cause or provocation, slander their character and injure their reputation. We therefore enter our solemn protest against the unfounded charges made in your report, and respectfully recommend that in future you confine yourself to your official duties.
“(Signed), J. Hodges, B. Punch, T. Thatcher, B. Fletcher, Warren Hastings, Wm. Pitt, J. Fox, E. Burke, and eleven others.”
Here was a serious business. I can assure the reader that the sensations experienced in the perusal of such a document, when addressed to one’s self through a public newspaper, and signed by fifteen or twenty responsible persons, are peculiar and by no means agreeable. For a moment I really began to think I was a very bad man, and that there must be something uncommonly reprehensible in my conduct.
Upon the whole, I felt that I was a little in fault, and had better apologize. There was no particular necessity for introducing Queen Victoria’s front teeth and Jenny Lind’s black eye to Congress; and, to confess the truth, it was really going a little beyond the usual limits of official etiquette to “ring in” a public town possessing some valuable political influence.
I therefore prepared and published in the newspapers an Apology, which it seemed to me ought to be satisfactory. The following is as close a copy of the original as I can now write out from memory:
“San Francisco, Cal., April 1st, 1858.
“To Messrs. J. Hodges, B. Punch, T. Thatcher, B. Fletcher, Warren Hastings, Wm. Pitt, J. Fox, E. Burke, and eleven others, citizens, Port Townsend, W. T.:
“Gentlemen,—I have read with surprise and regret your letter of the 10th ult., in which you make several very serious charges against me in reference to certain statements contained in my report on the Indians of Puget’s Sound. Not the least important of these charges is that I stepped aside from the line of my duty to traduce your fair name and reputation as citizens of Port Townsend. You entertain the opinion that I might have been better employed—an opinion in which I would cheerfully concur if it were not based upon erroneous premises. I have not the slightest recollection of having traduced ‘your fair name and reputation,’ or made any reference to you whatever in my report. When I alluded to the ‘beach-combers, rowdies, and other bad characters’ in Port Townsend, I had no idea that respectable gentlemen like yourselves would take it as personal. Of course, as none of you ever sold whisky to the Indians or committed murder, you do great injustice to your own reputation in supposing that the public at large would attribute these crimes to you because I mentioned them in my report.
“You deny positively that either Queen Victoria or Jenny Lind had her front teeth knocked out by the Duke of York. Well, I take that back, for I certainly did not examine their mouths as closely as you seem to have done. But when you deny that Jenny Lind’s eye was black, you do me great injustice. I shall insist upon it to the latest hour of my existence that it was black—deeply, darkly, beautifully black, with a prismatic circle of pink, blue, and yellow in the immediate vicinity. I cheerfully retract the teeth, but, gentlemen, I hold on to the eye. Depend upon it, I shall stand by that eye as long as the flag of freedom waves over this glorious republic! You will admit, at all events, that Jenny had a drop in her eye.
“While you do not pretend to say that there is no whisky sold in Port Townsend, you do insist upon it that I never saw any of you drunk. Of course not, gentlemen. There are several of you that I do not recollect having ever seen, either drunk or sober. If I did see any of you under the influence of intoxicating spirits, the disguise was certainly effectual, for I am now entirely unable to say which of you it was. Besides, I never said I saw any of you drunk. It requires a great deal of whisky to intoxicate some people, and I should be sorry to hazard a conjecture as to the gauge of any citizen of Port Townsend. I do not believe you habitually drink whisky as a beverage—certainly not Port Townsend whisky, for that would kill the strongest man that ever lived in less than six months, if he drank nothing else. Many of you, no doubt, use tea or coffee at breakfast, and it is quite possible that some of you occasionally venture upon water.
“Gentlemen, you were pleased to call my attention to certain custom-house claims, Indian claims, and pre-emption claims when I was at Port Townsend; but when you ‘claim to be as orderly, industrious, and law-abiding as the citizens of any other town on the Pacific coast or elsewhere,’ you go altogether beyond my official jurisdiction. I think you had better send that claim to Congress.
“That ‘it is not customary for public officers to adhere strictly to facts for their reports’ is a melancholy truth. You have me there, gentlemen. Truth is very scarce in official documents. It is not expected by the public, and it would be utterly thrown away upon Congress. Besides, the truth is the last thing that would serve your purpose as claimants for public money.
“You are charitable enough to suppose that I may have been grossly deceived in my sources of information. Well, you ought to know all about that, for I got most of the information from yourselves. As to my remark that Port Townsend is ‘a benighted place,’ I am astonished that you did not see into the true meaning of that expression. It was merely a jocular allusion to the absence of lamps in the public streets at night.
“You do not think it can possibly have escaped my memory that I found you engaged in your peaceful avocations as useful and respectable members of society on the occasion of my visit to Port Townsend. Now, upon my honor, I can not remember who it was particularly that I saw engaged in peaceful avocations, but I certainly saw a good many white men lying about in sunny places fast asleep, and a good many more sitting on logs of wood whittling small sticks, and apparently waiting for somebody to invite them into the nearest saloon; others I saw playing billiards, and some few standing about the corners of the streets, waiting for the houses to grow—all of which were unquestionably peaceful, if not strictly useful avocations. I have no recollection of having seen any person engaged in the performance of any labor calculated to strain his vertebræ.
“The result of your inquiries on the subject of murder appears to be that only two murders were committed in Port Townsend during the past year, instead of six, as stated in my report. Well, gentlemen, I was not present, and did not participate in any of these alleged murders, and cheerfully admit that your sheriff, who gave me the information, and whose name is appended to your letter, may not have counted them accurately. At all events, I take four of them back, and place them to the credit of Port Townsend for the ensuing year. I utterly disclaim having invented them, though I would at any time much rather invent four murders than commit one. Nor can I admit that I was at a loss for something to say. There was abundance of fictitious material presented in the course of my official investigations, without rendering it at all necessary for me to resort to imaginary murders. And I farther insist upon it that, if I did not personally witness the violent death of six men in Port Townsend, I heard the king’s English most cruelly murdered there on at least six different occasions. Gentlemen, you need not take any farther trouble about ‘setting yourselves right before the world.’ I trust you will admit that you are all right now, since I have duly made the amende honorable.
“Wishing you success in your ‘peaceful avocations,’ and exemption from all future anxiety relative to the price of lots in Port Townsend, I remain, very respectfully, your obedient servant,” etc.
Strange to say, so far from being satisfied with this apology, the citizens of Port Townsend were enraged to a degree bordering on insanity. The mayor, upon the reception of the mail containing the fatal document, called the Town Council together, and the schoolmaster read it to the Town Council, and the Town Council deliberated over it for three days, and then unanimously resolved that the author was a “Vile Kalumater, unworthy of further Atension, and had beter stere cleer of Port Townsend for the Future!” For two years they did nothing else, in an official point of view, but write letters to the San Francisco papers denouncing the author of this Vile Kalumy, and assuring the public that his description of Port Townsend was wholly unworthy of credit; that Port Townsend was the neatest, cleanest, most orderly, and most flourishing little town on the Pacific coast. By the time the Frazer River excitement broke out, the people of California were well acquainted, through the newspapers, with at least one town on Puget’s Sound. If they knew nothing of Whatcomb, Squill-Chuck, and other rival places that aspired to popular favor, they were no strangers to the reputation of Port Townsend. Thousands, who had no particular business there, went to take a look at this wonderful town, which had given rise to so much controversy. The citizens were soon forced to build a fine hotel. Many visitors liked the society, and concluded to remain. Others thought it would soon be the great centre of commerce for all the shipping that would be drawn thither by the mineral wealth of Frazer River, and bought city lots on speculation. Traders came there and set up stores; new whisky saloons were built; customers crowded in from all parts; in short, it became a gay and dashing sort of place, and very soon had quite the appearance of a city. When the Frazer River bubble burst, nobody was killed at Port Townsend, because it had a strong reputation, and could still persuade people that it was bound to be a great city at some future period.
During the following year I made bold to pay my old friends a visit. A delegation of the Common Council met me on the wharf. There were no hacks yet introduced, but any number of horses were placed at my disposal. The greeting was cordial and impressive. A most complimentary address was read to me by the mayor of the city, in which it was fully and frankly acknowledged that I was the means of building up the fortunes of Port Townsend. After the address, the citizens with one accord rushed to me, and, grasping me warmly by the hand, at once retracted their injurious imputations. These gratifying public demonstrations over, we adjourned to the nearest saloon, and buried the hatchet forever in an ocean of the best Port Townsend whisky. It is due to the citizens to say that not one of them went beyond reasonable bounds on this joyous occasion, by which I do not mean to intimate that they were accustomed to the beverage referred to. At all events, I think it has been clearly demonstrated by these authentic documents that “whisky built a great city.”