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Chief Si’ahl (Seattle) and Duwamish History (c.8000BCE-1851)

Chief Si’ahl (c. 1786-June7, 1866)

Over a million years ago, the Puget Sound was carved out by glaciers. Twenty-thousand years ago glaciers still covered everything between the Olympic and Cascade Mountains in a sheet of ice more than 5 Space Needles thick. When the ice finally retreated to the North, it left behind north-and-south oriented ridges including that on which the Phinney neighborhood sits and lower lying passages and bays including Lake Washington and the Puget Sound. Via a long-gone land bridge over the Bering Strait, Native American ancestors from the Altai region of Siberia trekked into the North American continent dispersing across the land mass. The Duwamish tribe, the indigenous people of metropolitan Seattle began living, hunting, and fishing in these environs by the end of the last glacial period, about 10,000 years prior to the first European contact.

Chief Si’ahl was the leader of the Duwamish tribe at the time of European Settlement of the Puget Sound. As a young boy he is reported to have seen the sails of the British Sponsored Vancouver Expedition in the Spring of 1792 from the shores of what would later be named Puget Sound. Born at his mother’s village on the Black River in what is now the city of Kent, he grew up speaking the Lushootseed dialects of two distinct Duwamish groups living in the Puget Sound Area: the People of the Inside (Elliott Bay), and the People of the Large Lake (Lake Washington). This language facility and his tall stature at nearly 6” positioned him well to become the respected leader that united these people. He pushed for a path of accommodation with the white settlers and formed a personal relationship with David Swinson “Doc” Maynard, one of the first inhabitants of European descent in Seattle.

Prior to white settlement there were thirteen prominent villages in what is now the city of Seattle. While there are no Native American settlements known to have existed directly on Green Lake or Phinney Ridge, there was a Duwamish settlement of at least 5 long houses to the southeast called ShLooweehL (Little canoe hole) at the site currently occupied by today’s University Village shopping mall. Green Lake, originally called dxWtLusH, a Lushootseed word of unknown meaning served as a fishing spot for this settlement. Indeed, the lake was known for suckers and perch as well as a salmon run at its original outlet, Ravenna Creek, on which the Duwamish operated a large fishing weir where it emptied into lake Washington.

Seattle’s Founding Fathers (1851-1855) Arthur A. Denny (June 20, 1822-January 9, 1899)12 David Swinson Maynard (March 22, 1808-March 13, 1873)13 Henry L. Yesler (December 2 1810-December 16, 1892)14

The Denny party, after a several month Conestoga wagon trek from Chicago to Portland and a sail on the schooner Exact up to Puget Sound, first landed at Alki Point November 13, 1851.15 Their express purpose in traveling to the Puget Sound was to found a town in a race against other homesteaders traveling to the area. This was in the spirit of Manifest Destiny and in the wake of the passage of the 1850 Donation Claims Act that promised 320 acres of free land (640 acres to couples) to anyone who arrived before 1855 to live in the newly minted Oregon Territory (The Oregon Territory was established in 1848. Washington became its own territory in 1853.).16 A year after arriving on Alki Point the Denny party moved their settlement, due to the better protected harbor, to the area of Seattle that now encompasses downtown, First Hill, and Pioneer square north of Yesler Way.

In the same year David Swinson “Doc” Maynard laid claim to 640-acres in what would become Pioneer square south of Yesler Way and the International District. Doc Maynard, a moderate Democrat who believed in the virtues of prostitution and drinking, did not always see eye with Arthur Denny, a Methodist teetotaler Republican.17 Their differences were reflected at the time in the character of their respective developing parts of town: Doc Maynard’s with bars and quarters for Chinese immigrant workers employed in the mills and Denny’s with the more wealthy restrained. Their differences remain to this day immortalized in the oddly intersecting streets at the border between their plats: Denny’s streets running parallel to the shore of Elliott Bay and Maynard’s streets running according to the cardinal directions.18

Henry Yesler also arrived in 1852 with plans to build a steam-powered mill. With the bargaining power of his mill, he wrangled a sliver of land between Yesler’s and Maynard’s plats leading up to a stand of virgin forest beyond First Hill.14 The street leading down to his mill, that stood on some of the only level land along the Elliott bay, served as a route for skidding logs that were turned into lumber and used to build Seattle, other fledgling Puget Sound towns, and the booming city of San Francisco. Originally called Skid Road and later corrupted to the infamous “Skid Row,” the name was later changed to Yesler Way in memory of this forward thinking pioneer that ultimately become Seattle’s most wealthy of founders.

In the context of mounting conflict between European settlers and the Duwamish the Treaty of Point Elliott was signed in January of 1855 by Chief Si’ahl and Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens at Point Elliott (now Mukilteo, Washington).19 The treaty’s purpose was sadly to displace the Duwamish Tribe from 54,000 acres of their homeland in what would later become the cities of King County (Seattle, Renton, Tukwila, Bellevue, and Mercer Island). This was in exchange for guaranteed reservations and fishing rights. The treaty only served to further anger the Duwamish and sparked the Puget Sound War, a series of skirmishes that culminated in the battle of Seattle in 1856 and hanging of the Duwamish resistance leader, Chief Leschi.20

Chief Si’ahl took a position of accommodation of European settlement and Doc Maynard as a friend of the chief and advocate for the Duwamish would ultimately commemorate his friend. At his suggestion, the fledgling town of Duwamps officially changed its name to Seattle.

Arthur Denny21

David Maynard (Courtesy Museum of History and Industry)22

Henry Yesler23

The schooner Exact on which the Denny Party first arrived at Alki Point in 185. (Courtesy Museum of History and Industry)24

Henrey Yesler’s House in 1859. This is the oldest surviving picture of Seattle. The house stands in current day Pioneer Square. Sarah Yesler, Henry’s wife stands on the porch. (Courtesy Special Collections, University of Washington)25 Seattle map circa 1874 showing rough location of early claims.26

Green Lake’s Homesteaders and Speculators (1855-1887) Erhart Seifried (1832-1899)27 Charles A. Waters (1828-April 25, 1909)28

In the Summer and Fall of 1855 the untouched virgin forest surrounding Green Lake was surveyed by David L. Phillips for the United States General Surveyor.29 This was a necessary step before any private purchases could be made from the federal government. The area was first called Green Lake by Phillips after the green appearance of the glacial lake that was prone to algae blooms even before it’s feeding creek was later diverted.30

With the Homestead Act of 1862 signed into existence by Abraham Lincoln in the midst of the Civil War, surveyed land became available free to anyone willing to live on the land and improve it.31 From 1868 to 1873 there were 21 people that filed claim to Township 25, Range 4E containing Greenlake.27  While not the first to lay claim, Erhart Seifried (1832-1899), a German immigrant, was the first to set foot on his claim on the lake’s north east corner in 1869. Known to locals as “Green Lake John,” he homesteaded a 132-acre plot of land: clearing trees, building a small log cabin, and planting an orchard with his wife Theresa.32 Charles Waters, a wealthy speculator from Somerville, MA moved to Seattle in 1860. Unlike homesteaders that acquired land by living on it and improving it, speculators like Waters used the Land Act of 1820 to purchase land. On May 15, 1869 he purchased from the US government for the going rate of $1.25 an acre and the grand sum of $476.69, a 381.35-acre stand of fir and cedar at the southwest corner of the lake that would later become the Woodland Park Addition of Phinney Ridge.33(W1/2 NW1/4 & N1/2 of SW1/4 section 7, Township 25 N, Range 4E)

While the stand of trees in the future Woodland Park remained virtually untouched, the clearing of land around the eastern side of Green Lake was accelerated in the 1870’s when A.L Parker built a sawmill at the N.E. corner of the lake near the Cowen Creek outlet.32 A logging railway was also constructed connecting Green Lake to the downtown ports. A wagon road first reached the community in the 1880’s and soon after in 1889 the Green Lake Railway following the old logging railway route began service to North 70th. The 342 acres comprising the future Woodland Park was sold by Charles Waters to Guy Phinney in1887 for the grand sum of $10,000.34 This was a hefty profit compared to the $477 that he had originally invested in the property just 18 years earlier.

Waters passed away 12 years later in 1909. His obituary reads “Wealthy Man Dies of Starvation.”28 His death was contemporary to the haunting medical practice of Linda Burfield Hazzard who would later become infamous for the deaths of at least 13 individuals.35  In 1907 she moved to Seattle, opened up a practice in Pioneer Square, and ran a full page add in the Seattle Sunday Times titled “Why I Believe in Starvation as a Cure all for Bodily Ills.”36  She would later write a book in 1908 titled “Fasting for the Cure of Disease.”  While not a doctor, a loophole in a licensing law grandfathered her into practice medicine in the state of Washington. In fact, history proved her to not only be a quack, but a serial killer who starved wealthy individuals to death, but not before collecting their valuables and in many cases having them sign over their power of attorney. At least 13 deaths have been attributed to her tactics including the death of Claire Williamson featured in Greg Olsen’s New York Times best seller “Starvation Heights” a historical account of her later established secluded sanatorium in Ollala, WA across the Puget Sound. At the time of Waters’ death he had $50,000 in remaining assets, a small fortune for the day but a fraction of the wealth that he once held in land, valued at the time of his death at $10,000,000.28,37 While his death occurred before Hazzard was exposed, it is tempting to speculate that she may have been behind his starvation and perhaps his shrunken fortune. Waters willed his remaining assets to his sister Elizabeth H. Waters, his only living relative, who was still residing in his home town Somerville, MA.28

Waters’ legacy continues in a neighborhood developed by him, Rainier Beach that contains a road of his namesake, Waters Avenue.38 Brighton Beach Neighborhood was also developed by Waters and originally called Somerville after his hometown but later changed to its current name by British immigrants.39

"Green Lake John’s” cabin on the NW corner of Green Lake circa 1870. Currently the site of Green Lake Bar and Grill. (Courtesy Special Collections, University of Washington)40

A.L. Parker’s saw mill water tower taken in 1897 from the current site of Super Jock n’ Jill. In the distance the unaltered stand of trees that would later become Woodland Park can be seen. (Courtesy Special Collections, University of Washington) 32 1856 Surveyor’s Map of Township 25. Earliest known map of Green Lake and its Environs.41 Guy Phinney and Woodland Park (1887-1893) Guy Carlton Phinney (May 30, 1852-September 12, 1893)42 Wife: Eleanor (Nellie) C. Wright (1867-November 25,1909)43 Son: William (Willie) Carleton Phinney (May 23, 1884-September 19, 1920)43 Son: Arthur Alexander Phinney (June 21, 1885-September 24, 1941)43

In April of 1887 Guy Phinney an eccentric Seattle real estate pioneer from Wilmot, Nova Scotia, filled a plat for plans to develop Woodland Park.44 In May of 1887 he put an advertisement in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer seeking bids to clear and grade Woodland Avenue.45  This road was to be laid around the perimeter of the only remaining tract of old growth forest on Green Lake. With dreams of the old English aristocracy, he had plans for turning this parcel of land into a country estate in the grand old style.46 This was fitting for a gentleman that could trace his routes back to his great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather John Finney who arrived in Plymouth, MA in 1637 only 17 years after the Pilgrims first set foot on Plymouth rock.47

Phinney was an icon of how energy, judgment, and unbounded faith in a fledgling city could lead to prosperity.48 He had arrived in Seattle in 1881 after a failed mining venture in British Columbia without a penny to his name and in his words “broke”.48 Spending a few months in San Francisco, he had taken passage as a crewmember on the ship Olympus which caught fire 600 miles off of the Columbia River en route to the Puget Sound.42  Phinney and 25 other passengers boarded a lifeboat and were rescued by the War Hawk that landed at Point Discovery in Seattle.42  Several years later the Seattle Post Intelligencer would report that a bottle “found by the Indians and brought to Port Townsend by Capt. Seofield” had washed up on a Seattle beach with a distress note penned by Phinney: “Ship Olympus, Capt. Edwards, bound from San Francisco to Puget Sound, on fire. Twenty six souls on board. God help us. (Signed.) G.C. Phinney”.49    Whether this was an advertising ploy to sell Phinney’s “Swamp Angel’s Rheumatic Cure” which strategically followed this alluring story, a snippet of truth, or both, it is a testament to Phinney’s resourcefulness and entrepreneurial spirit.

At the time Phinney arrived, Seattle was a village of less than 4,000 inhabitants, but it was on the brink of its first housing boom with news that that the Northern Pacific Railroad would extend its tracks from Tacoma to Seattle.50 Phinney made Seattle his home and on May 20, 1884 married one of the most beautiful woman in town, Nellie Wright.51,52 She was the daughter of Mrs. Mary J. Wright, 53 a long time resident who had moved to Seattle from San Francisco in 1873 and owned a popular eating establishment called the Wright Restaurant. Phinney and Nellie built their home Carlton Cottage on the south east corner of Minor and James Street. 52 (Currently occupied by Broadway Apartments). They had two sons, Willie born in 1884 and Arthur born in 1885,42 both of whom went on to college at Stanford University. They ultimately returned to Seattle to go into the real estate business like their father and succeeded in developing the Mt Baker neighborhood among others.52

Having a Phillips Exeter Academy education and a law degree from McGill College, Phinney not only had the intellectual preparation, but also the forethought and luck to arrive in Seattle just before the housing boom. Shortly after his arrival, Phinney put his education to good use opening a law practice with another attorney Alfred H. Nelson in 1882. It was a short lived venture, and in that same year, Nelson and Phinney dissolved their partnership in light of the ill health of Nelson’s wife and his desire to return to California.54 Phinney, not the least bit discouraged, successfully continued the business alone and invested all of his earnings in real estate. In less than 8 years had built a real estate empire in Seattle as well as a reputation for philanthropy.48 He built the first sawmill on Lake Washington and played a key role in the city’s growth platting and developing the Central District and Columbia City.

Phinney was also one of the key proprietors that stepped forward to rebuild downtown after Seattle’s Great fire. The fire had begun on June 6, 1889 when a cabinet maker’s glue pot boiled over sometime around 2:30 PM.55 By 3:00 AM the next morning when the fire was extinguished, 25 city blocks and an estimated $8 million had gone up in smoke. Some credit the fire with Seattle’s ensuing prominence as a first rate city. Akin to a golden phoenix, Seattle rose proudly above the ashes as 600 of Seattle’s most prominent businessmen came together to rebuild their city. The plan included the use of fire retardant brick and stone rather than the wood structures that had so quickly burned. Phinney was responsible for rebuilding Butler Block in the form of a five-story brown stone building in Pioneer Square.48 While the majority of his building has since been demolished, its original first floor façade at the NW corner of Second and James remains preserved where it currently serves as parking structure.

Among Phinney’s many investments was a 342-acre tract of land bordering the southwest shore of Green Lake that he had bought from Charles Waters in 1887.34 180-acres of this land he developed into Woodland Park.56  Platted and filed with the recorders office in April 14, 1887,44 the park ultimately included his personal country residence, a house styled after an English manor and the Woodlands Hotel. There were extensive grounds including a formal rose garden, ballpark, bandstand, small zoo, and elaborate pathways that wound down through the woods to the shores of Green Lake. At Lower Woodland Park he built a bathing beach, boathouse, picnic area, and two ball fields. These grounds were generously open to the public so long as they obeyed his conspicuously posted rules permitting no foul language, firearms, or dogs, which would be “shot on sight.”34

In 1889 with the remaining 162-acres purchased from Waters, Phinney plotted the Woodland Park Addition to the North of the park.57 This housing development would later become a large section of the neighborhood named in his honor, Phinney Ridge. Streetcars were integral to the development of this community. In 1890 Phinney established the Woodland Park Streetcar servicing Woodland Park from Freement.58 The car nicknamed “The White Elephant,” brought passengers up the hill from Freemont to his estate. A year later in 1891 the Township of Green Lake and its surrounds including Woodland Park were annexed to the City of Seattle. 59

Phinney’s grand plans were sadly cut short by his untimely death in 1893 at the age of 41.42 Under the weight of her husband’s death and the financial hardship of the national economic panic of 1893, Phinney’s wife sold Woodland Park to the City of Seattle in 1899 for the grand sum of $100,000.60  The pending purchase had initially been unpopular among the public due to the park’s remote location and the extravagant cost. Initially vetoed by the mayor, the decision was ultimately overturned by the city council who had the foresight to realize the central importance to an aspiring metropolitan city of a civic greenspace. Mrs. Phinney was advanced $5000 and the remaining $95,000 was arranged to be paid in installments. In the same year as the purchase, the streetcar stopped operating and little in the way additional development happened in the new Woodland Park Addition for several years.

Guy C. Phinney52 Nellie Phinney52 William and Arthur Phinney52

Guy Phinney’s private streetcar nicknamed, “The White Elephant”. Established in 1890 it brought Seattleites from Freemont up to his Woodland Park Estate. (Courtesy Special Collections University of Washington)25

Guy Phinney’s English Style Manner called the Hunting Lodge taken in 1891. This was Phinney’s personal country residence. It sat close to the Freemont Avenue entrance to Woodland Park. The two children on the right of the road are Phinney’s children Arthur and Walter. The Woodlands Hotel can be seen in the distance. (Courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives, 30710)61

The Woodlands Hotel in Woodland Park c. 1890. (Courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives, 30709) 61

The original plat of the Woodland Park Addition including the property 412 N 62nd St signed by Guy Phinney and his wife in 1889. Note that 62nd street was originally called Stanford Street.57

A 1938 map of Seattle showing Green Lake and Woodland Park annexed to the City of Seattle in 1891.62

Woodland Park, The Gold Rush, and Taming of The Wild West (1893-1907)

While little real estate development happened in Woodland Park at the turn of the century, the history of the park was all but dull. The park played a little known but important role in the Alaskan Klondike Gold Rush. In 1897 the steamship Portland docked in Seattle carrying 58 prospectors and “a ton of gold.”63 The news got out quickly and before long tens of thousands of prospectors with visions of striking it rich arrived in Seattle and stocked up on wares before departing by ship for Alaska. Woodland Park entered into this story as part of the government sponsored Reindeer Project. This was a relief effort to introduce reindeer husbandry and provide reindeer as pack animals and food to the many less than fortunate American miners that, much short of gold, had only discovered cold weather and starving conditions in the Yukon Territory.

In February of 1898 113 Sami people from Lapland Norway, 539 reindeer, and 500 tons of reindeer moss embarked on a trip across the Atlantic and across the American continent eventually bound for Seattle.64 In Seattle they were delayed for ten days while waiting for their boat and final passage to Alaska. With moss dwindling, the reindeer were left to graze at Woodland Park where they and their Sami herdsman, dressed in their native exotic fur coats and moccasins, became quite the spectacle to the unaccustomed city folk. While popular among Seattleites, the delay proved tragic for the reindeer that had already eaten all their reindeer moss and were unable to digest the grass at the park. By the time the reindeer arrived in Alaska and were reintroduced to fresh moss only 152 of the 539 reindeer survived.64 Despite the tragic loss of many of the original animals, reindeer herds remain to this day in Alaska and descendants of the Sami people can be found among the current inhabitants of Alaska and Seattle.

Woodland Park proved to be a more hospital grazing grounds for horses in 1899 when five troops of the third US Cavalry were housed at Camp Robinson Woodland Park as a resting point en route from Fort Hood, Texas to the Philippines. The camp had been named in honor of Captain W.W. Robinson who served as assistant quartermaster overseeing camp construction.65 The US had won the war of 1898 against Spain, but the Philippine unrest ensued in reaction to American occupation.66 In all, 970 men and 1100 horses descended upon the park in August of 1899.67  They stayed for a couple of weeks, and in their neatly buttoned blue uniforms were the talk of the town, before being given a well attended farewell as they boarded transport steamships bound for Manilla. In the southwest corner of the park there remains to this day a War Garden that commemorates the Spanish American and Philippine American Wars. A statue erected in 1924 called “The Hiker” stands triumphantly above a placard made from scrap metal from the U.S.S. Maine. A state of the art floating arsenal in its day, the ship exploded in Havana Harbor in 1898 due to the detonation of powder charges in its forward hull. The cause was unclear but the news none-the-less rallied the American public, and through propaganda served to help “spark” the war against Spain.68

Not long after the cavalry had departed, Woodland Park bore witness to domestic unrest in 1902 when the infamous fugitive Harry Tracey surfaced at a Woodland Park residence after escaping from the Oregon State Penitentiary.69 Harry Tracey had run with Butch Cassidy and the Hole in the Wall Gang and had been convicted of robbery and theft. His bloody escape from the Oregon State Penitentiary involving the shooting and killing three correction officers and three civilians and his repeated evasion of the law enforcement officials captured the minds of the American public. It was a story that epitomized the Wild West and indeed two Hollywood films have been made of his exploits. Upon arrival in Seattle he found his way to the home of Mrs. R. H. Van Horne at the S.W. corner of the Woodland Park (5011 Phinney Avenue),70 where he is reported to have conducted himself with wit, intelligence, and courtesy. A fugitive on the run, he was looking for a quick meal and some clothes, which Mrs. Van Horne obliged him. Shortly thereafter a grocery delivery boy arrived at the front door and was alerted by Mrs. Van Horne to his presence. He ran down to Freement the Freemont sheriff’s office and a posse was quickly formed. When they arrived at the house a shoot out ensued killing two of the posse members before Tracey escaped once again and fled Seattle for Bothell. Amazingly, the house at 5011 Phinney Avenue remained intact for exactly100 years until 2002 when it was torn down to make way for an apartment building.

While the park served as a refuge to pack animals, soldiers, and outlaws during these Wild West years, it was eventually tamed by the Olmstead brothers as part of their 1903-1910 master plan to provide a comprehensive park system for Seattlites.71 The Olmstead Brothers (Frederick and John) of Brookline, MA operated a famous architectural landscaping firm inherited from their father Frederick Law Olmstead, designer of Central Park, New York. John Olmstead was the principle designer and he laid out a 20-mile-long system of interconnected parkways that linked parks, playfields, greenways, natural lakes, and waterways. The plan called for lowering of the Green Lake to afford an additional 100 acres of dry parkland and augmenting Woodland Park’s zoo with the construction of such exhibits as the bear cages and a collection of “hearty wild animals.” The Olmstead remodel of the park was begun in 1910 and completed by 1914.72  With 19 entrances and roads open to traffic, the Woodland Park Zoo became a popular city attraction. It remained easily accessible and free to the public until 1977 when an admission price of a $1.50 was charged for the first time.34

The natural beauty of the park and lake attracted Seattleites to the country for weekend picnics, but it was ultimately public infrastructure and utilities that established Woodland Park as a viable neighborhood. The newly incorporated Seattle Electric Company reestablished the Freemont streetcar route up to Woodland Park in 1906, and by 1907 the Phinney Avenue line extended to N 68th St. City water began flowing to homes in 1901 allowing them to have sanitary water closets in place of outdoor privies and built-in bathtubs in place of portable steel washtubs.50 Seattle City light began supplying power to homes in 1905 allowing electric light fixtures in place of kerosene lamps.50  With these advancements and people arriving by railroad to the city by the hundreds every month, the community was poised for a rapid expansion.

The Reindeer Project in August 1898. Sami heardsmen from Norway and their reindeer at the entrance to Woodland Park. Note the Woodland Park Greenhouse in the background (Courtesy of Ballad History)73 Officers of the 3rd U.S. Cavalry at Woodland Park Seattle in August1899. (Courtesy of The Museum of History and Industry)74 Horses of the Third U.S. Cavalry watering at Green Lake in August 1899. (Courtesy of the Museum of History and Industry)75 Horses and tents of the Third U.S. Cavalry at Woodland Park in August 1899. (Courtesy of the Museum of History and Industry)76

Harry Tracy’s mug shot from Oregon State Penitentiary in 1901. (Courtesy of Wikipedia)77 1902 picture of Mrs. R. H. Van Horne’s house at 5011 Phinney Avenue at the S.W. corner of the Woodland Park. The “X” marks the spot of where a policeman and posse member lost their lives to fugitive Harry Tracy in a Wild West Shootout fit for Hollywood film (Courtesy of Google Books)78

The relatively developed foreground of this photo in the North End of Greenlake in 1903. Much housing development had already happened at this end of the lake. Looking into the background in the left upper portion of this photo, notice a stand of trees evidencing the old growth forest representing the completely undeveloped Woodland Park on Phinney Ridge in 1903. (Courtesy Special Collections, University of Washington, 14542)79

A map of the Olmstead plan for Woodland Park drafted by the Olmstead brothers as part of their master park plan for Seattle developed from 1903-1910. The original zoo can be found in the southwest corner of the park complete with bear exhibit, seals, and exotic birds. Roads open to traffic and free access to the zoo remained one of its hallmarks until 1977 when admission in the amount of $1.50 was charged for the first time.80