E.A. Sisson Clippings

Transcription:

Well, it is down in this so
lovely Anacortes where live
the hero and heroine of a
series of Skagit county sketches,
with which I hope to fill this col-
umn for a week or so. I am
really plunging in where angels
would fear to tread since I am
woefully ignorant of my subject.
But for so long I've been hearing
about the old timers down in
Skagit and so many people were
interested in Mortimer Cook, who
was one of them that I'm plung-
ing anyhow.
- Anacortes wasn't the first town
in Skagit - or that portion of old
Whatcom county which is now
called Skagit. LaConner was that,
I believe. It is just that I hap-
pened first upon two delightful old
people who live in Anacortes that
I am beginning out on the nose
of Fidalgo island with my story.

If I had some Georgie Trebesch
letters written back when Skagit
county was as wil]d as the Mc-
Kenzie river country is now,
wouldn't we have a good time? I
have seen a twenty page letter
written by Colonel Ebey to his
family back home, but one letter
won't make a true picture of a
new land any more than one swal-

Transcription:

low makes a summer. But, boy,
that letter was a masterpiece! They
were having perfect climate in
Puget Sound back in the sixties,
or else the good colonel had to
be taken with a grain of salt or
else he came from a section whose
climate was very bad indeed. For
his praise of the land he had
found was masterpiece -of en-
thusiasm.
    But if I haven't letters - long,
juicy, glowing letters - at least I
have diary. And such a diary!
There are volumes and volumes
of it. Some of them are tiny slim
books made for the purpose back in
1872 and '73. Some are huge
leather bound ledgers converted
into diaries. All of them are full
of the doings, large and small, of
the young man who came to Skagit
in 1872. He is an old man now
and he spends his days in bed, but
he writes that diary yet! The
latest volume on the table beside
him. And he and his diminutive
wife can tell interesting stories by
the day-full.]
    Stories of the old days, of dances
and dikes and dam, of schools and
neighbors and Indians. Either they
didn't have any hard times back
in those days or else what was
hard then seems funny and de-
lightful now, for I have never yet
heard a single old time story from
anybody in which was any real
complaint of the hardships. Curi-
ious, when you come to
that. Makes you wonder if the
hard now-things won't soften up
with years and then you wonder
if, by taking thought, you can't
see the fun and romance in them
right now without waiting for the
years to do it for you.

   The diaries I have borrowed are
those of E. A. Sisson who, with his
two cousins, Whitney and Tilling-
hast, diked a thousand acres of the
LaConner flats back in the first
years. Mrs. Sisson was Ida Leamer,
whose mother brought so many
children into this fair world, tend-
ed so many of the sick in the
old days. Ida herself was a young
girl school teacher in the seventies.
    But I shall take this sixty years
long journal as it comes, let it tell
its own story for the most part
adding in the stories from other
sources as they seem to fit in.
Whoever can add to this picture of
early Skagit, send in your material
quickly.
  See you tomorrow, JUNE.

Transcription:

When young Ida Leamer
needed a teaching certificate,
she with her brother went
in an Indian paddled canoe three
days up the Stillaguamish river up
to the farm of Mr. Reeves, the Sno-
homish county school superintend-
ent. They got there at supper time,
had supper and the little girl took
her examinations and got her cer-
tificate then and there. (I'll bet if
the young lady had been less lovely!
the examinations might have been
more difficult!)
    The first teaching certificate from
her neck of the woods safe in her
hands, the party set out for home
that very night the Indians floating
the canoe back down the river while
Ida and her brother slept in the
bottom. Whereas it had taken them
three days to go up, it took them
just one to come down. She taught
her first school in Pleasant Ridge

Transcription:

in 1872. Whether that was the very
first school in what is now Skagit
county or whether Ida Lanning's
school began before that or whether
Mrs. William Dale taught the very
first one I don't believe anybody
knows.

Mrs. Rose Whitney, of LaConner,
niece of Mrs. Sisson, has done a lot
of digging into the old records and
papers and her report has been
taken as authority but transporta-
tion and news were both slow in
those days and it is simply not pos-
sible to be sure about any of the
first things in so scattered a settle-
ment. The Dwelly daughter and the
Cornelius baby and the Conner
daughter were all born within a few
hours of each other, or days at most.
Who knows which little warm, pink,
wrinkled pioneer got here first, I'm
sure I don't! Nor don't care much,
either. All the mothers faced death
and hardship with equal fortitude
I dare say and that is the important
thing. And it was certainly hard on
the doctor, if there had been a doc-
ae that they should all arrive so
close together!
    Young Ida Leamer and her
mother met Mrs. Judson one time
on the tri-weekly steamer which
stopped at LaConner. She is proud
of having known that grand old
lady as who wouldn't be? And they
often enjoyed the famous hospi-
tality of Mrs. J. S. Conner for whom
LaConner is named. That very little
woman, mother of nine children
kept open house, did all her own
work and was loved of every man,
woman and child in the whole
countryside. (Did you know that
the mother of LaConner still lives?
Lovely, charming old lady of 87 she
is now, living with four of her chil-
dren in what they facetiously call
the "old folks" home in Seattle. La-
Conner was named for her whose
name is Louisa Anne Conner. But
her husband didn't name it as most
people think.

It was named by a cousin, J.J.
Conner, who laid out the town and
later sold it to J. S. Conner. He
named it for Louisa because he
along with everybody else loved her
and he had then no wife of his own
to name it for. It was this cousin,
J. J. Conner, too, who kept the hotel
and bar and not J. S. Conner. The
latter made his money trading, buy-
ing and selling and with his general
merchandise store. I have this from
Herbert Conner, of Seattle, son of
Louisa. Some day I shall get the
full Conner story for you. Gentle,
quiet, merry old Louisa was not well
enough to talk when I went to see
her, but she sent her greetings to
all her old friends and promises to
reminisce all I want her to when
the summer time comes and her cold
is well.
  See you tomorrow. JUNE.

Transcription:

"There was no envy then."
When Mrs. Sisson said that
I thought of another lovely
saying: "There shall be no night
there." Of course she is mistaken.
That can't have been. But she
means that she felt none and felt
nobody envying her and it remem-
bers to her as a warm big-family,
simple, glowing time. Everybody
dressed alike, or nearly alike. The
Indians were kind and good to
them. When there was a dance
everybody came and stayed several
days with everybody else and there
was laughter and merrymaking to
fill any remembering heart with
nostalgia for the gone days.
    Ida rowed or sailed - her own
boat as young girls now drive their
own cars and fly their own planes.
She thought she had come to the
loveliest place in the world and
she meant to enjoy it.

Then, after she had been here
about year and a half, HE
came. Tall, slender, distinguished
young man of fine family he was.
He had been to Cornell university
with its first class - the same class,
with David Starr Jordan. He had
heard old Ezra Cornell make his
inaugural address but he had not
stayed to finish college.
    From the diaries I cannot make
out why young Edgar Sisson came
to Puget Sound. His family was
one of the oldest and best in all
the east if the published geneal-
ogies are accurate. His father was
well to do. Young Edgar kept his
diary even then and nowhere in it
is there a single word of complaint,
of restlessness, of craving for ad-
venture. He puts down the farm
chores every day - gathering apples
and taking them to the cider mill,
gathering tomatoes, potatoes, ber-
ries in season. Every Sunday he
goes to church and his brief com-
ments on the preachers give one
no clue.

  He mentions going to market
and, once, going to the polls to
vote for U. S. Grant for president.
He speaks of a $200 birthday gift!
from an aunt and a few pages
further on he says: "Went to
church in the evening. This is
my last day at home for some
time, a year at least." But I have
searched the little book of 1872
through without turning up a
single comment on why he came
out to the west. The entries fol-
low him through Buffalo, Spring-
field, Cleveland, Salt Lake City,
San Francisco. He boarded the
Idaho at San Francisco and he
recalls it a "poor stick." He was
mildly seasick on the way to Vic-
toria. Landed in Tacoma, went
to Seattle and at last on to La-
Conner, but never a single word
of enthusiasm or despair or home-
sickness or even of explanation.
Simply a chronicling of the main
events of the days.

   "Got up at 5:30, got breakfast
and took the steamer Libby for
LaConner. This will be the last
steamboat ride for awhile." Ap-
parently he was headed for La-
Conner all the time, but he never

Transcription:

says so. He saw Mr. Avery and
Mr. Carpenter in Tacoma, but I
have no clue as to What they
meant to him.
    Which is all very ike a thought-
less boy of twenty-three! How
was he to know that his diary
would be used in court to settle
dates and titles and in private
circles to settle disputes about the
weather in certain years or that
a columnist would want to borrow
it to try to wring from its bob-
tailed entries a picture of a young
man going west!
  See you Tuesday. JUNE.

Transcription:

PUBLISHED reports of local
ina t events in the seventies have
said that Edgar Sisson and
Rienzi Whitney came together to
the West. That is not accurate,
for the entry of December 17, 1872
marks the arrival of Sisson in La-
Conner. "Got some Indians to
canoe me to R. U. W.'s ranch."
Whitney was already here and had
a ranch.
   And that, of course, explains
to-why Edgar came. For Sisson and
Whitney and Tillinghast were all
cousins, all Baptists, I think, all of
good family and all from the same
corner of Pennsylvania. One of
those cousins was the adventurous
one - probably Whitney. He came
West and began to write glowing
letters back home, I fancy, and the
and other two cousins followed.

  Young men don't just pick up
and leave home and familiar
scenes and a good farm and the
"girl I left behind me," for nothing.
Either they were burning with ad-
venturousness and restlessness or
else they are failures and want to
escape — themselves or they are
compelled to leave home or some-
thing. I prefer to believe that love
of adventure brought most of our
pioneers. I'd hate to think they
were ne'er-do-wells at home and
sort of drifted out here and got
rich because they couldn't help
themselves!
    To be restless is not blame-
worthy. Does not the poet speak
of "divine discontent"? From all
I have heard and read of Whitnev
I think it was probably he who
was filled with an urgent need to
be doing things - new things, big
things, thrilling things!  He was
the true pioneer type whom we can
honor in all sincerity as believing
his to have been deliberately, con-
sciously and purposefully after
something definite.

    I have no picture in my mind,
of Tillinghast, though he started
big things, too. But Edgar seems
to have been the serious steady
one of the three. He came, saw
beauty of the land, staked out his
claim, set to work, helped his
cousins achieve the big dream of
dyked lands and incredibly fertile

Transcription:

acres, found his girl, married and
prospered. He was not the pioneer
type as "types" go, but the calm,
conservative honorable gentleman
type who, once here, set. to work
to create a home and be an in-
fluential member of the new so-
ciety. I think if he had landed
in Africa he'd have enjoyed that,
too, and made money somehow
and have been quietly a power
among the savages there! (Now
isn't that a pretty to-do to sit
here describing my hero exactly
as if he were fictitious instead of
very real and able to talk back?
Well, but these diaries lift me out
of the here and now and set me
down into the past and nobody
talks back from the past).

    "Today went to Rienzy's claim
and laid a foundation. Came back
and made an oar. My first car-
penter job in Washington ter-
ritory." He is forever making oars.
And it was forever raining that
winter. Almost every other entry
chronicles rain. "Went to Mr.
Allen's to a Christmas dinner. Had
a good time and got home in good
season. Weather warm and rainy."
    "Pleasant day. Mercury at 32
this morning. Rienzi jumped in
the slough this morning. Not any
for me!" I fancy Rienzi was al-
ways jumping into things from the
ice cold slough to projects bigger
than most would have tackled.
    See you tomorrow. JUNE.

Transcription:

The journal of 1873 is full of
work for the young fellows.
The sky does nothing but
rain. - Every single entry of Jan-
uary mentions rain, and on into
the year it rained and rained. But
the young men cut logs for houses,
cattle stanchions, roads and "liz-
ards." They bought lumber and
poled it over the mudflats, inch at
a time. They decided on house lo-
cations and went to building bees
at their neighbors. The pages are
full of old Skagit county names.
    It kept on raining, and one day
the boy, Edgar, says in his dairy,
that he thinks he will not make
his home in Washington territory.
It kept on raining and they kept
on working, and one day he says
he thinks he will stay here for
good, and wonders when he will
see father again. There is a flash
of homesickness between the lines
and one of sudden boyish enthusi-
asm the line after. "Am full of
business now and belong to a firm
on Swinomish slough. Such is life."

    February 7, 1873 No rain today.
Went out and slashed on my claim.
Quite a pleasant day. Carried our
dinner with us. Am getting to be
a lusty chopper - Washington terri-
tory pioneer! Even in those days!
they knew they were making his-
tory. Self-conscious pioneers. No-
body can say they didn't know!
what they were about.
    Rain and work. Work and rain.
The diary sets down the activities
day after day, but forgets to say
when any certain job is done.
They built a lumber house and
painted it and it was known as,
the "white house," and the first
I know that it is finished is when
"Rienzi and I went to the White
House and stayed all night." I
never saw such a lad for taking it
all so matter-of-factly. I suppose,
that down underneath he hated
the rain sometimes with a poison-
ous, personal hatred and that on
those days the cousins quarreled.
I reckon he sometimes yelped for
pleasure when a sunny day came
and the boys would rig up a plan
for making a fortune day before
yesterday, or something. I dare
say that even as early as this
young Edgar know all about the,
lovely Ida Leamer and danced with
her, maybe, or had spoken to her
down at the station when the boats
came in. But nary a word of it in
the diary yet. I'm getting impa-
tient for some glimmer of a ro-
mance,

    "Wednesday, March 5. 1973 -
Slashed in the forenoon. Went to
the farmers' club meeting in the
afternoon in our shop. McClellan,
Smith, McNutt, Jennings. Siegfried,
Trimble, McCollum and Mrs. Allen
were present."
    Now, what do you know about
that! It is not much more than,
three months since the young fel-
low got here and this is what all
they have accomplished: The
White House built of 10,000 feet of
lumber dragged in with difficulty;
several log cabins, considerable
road, cattle buildings, henhouses,
log rollings for the neighbors, some
land cleared, a lot of slashing
done; a firm organized composed
of the three cousins; a shop built,
and now, to cap it all, they seem
to have a farmers' club! Why, we,
don't get that much done in three
years, let alone three months! No
wonder Mr. Sisson stays in bed all
the time nowadays - he is catching
up with the sleep he lost in those
three months!

    "Thursday, March 13 - Planted the
hotbed and the plum and apple
seed. Raised the house in the af-
ternoon" - just like that! They are
building another house, this time
on Edgar's claim. It is made of
shakes.
    See you tomorrow. JUNE.

Transcription:

The month of April, 1873, was
full of springtime activities
for the three cousins. Now,
they are beginning really to set up
homey establishments. "Made a
gate and some chicken coops.
Twenty-two chickens hatched.
Worked on _ house, finished off
closet and hung doors." (I haven't
the least idea which house he is
talking about. They have built so
many in so short a time that to
save my life I can't keep up with
them. I ought to read this diary
with Mr. Sisson and get it straight.
He remembers it all without the
aid of these cryptic entries.)
    "T. received some Peerless pota-
toes, seed wheat and barley by
mail from Pennsylvania. Set a
hen on twelve eggs. Grass seed
coming up."
    "Wednesday, 4 April 9, 1873 - Warm

Transcription:

and pleasant. T. worked on the
marsh road and in the front yard.
I worked on privy and house.
Sowed some timothy seed on salt
marsh by the bridge. T. set a hen."

    And then, without any warning
or hint anywhere. he reports, on
April 13, that "Whitney and wife
went to the White House. Pleas-
ant but cool."
    When and where and why and
how did Whitney get married? I
have read in published articles
from Mr. Sisson's pen that his
partner went back East for his
young wife, but the diary itself
doesn't say so, apparently. I won-
der, now, if these pages are going
to cheat me altogether and say,
simply, one day in 1875, "Got mar-
ried today. Such is life."

    But if the young pioneer had no
time for elaborate details, we can
fill in with our imaginations and
what we know about the old days.
It is reasonable to assume that
pioneer Whitney was proud of that
painted lumber house and that, try
as hard as she might, to under-
stand and to appreciate, the bride
was aghast at it! I can hear her
now praising the closets, the rooms
and the finish - Ingering her Isaac.
But she was delicate and frail -
the first Mrs. Whitney died very
young - and one is very sure that
those great swamps, those un-
drained marshlands, the great dark
forests, the mud and isolation and.
lack of conveniences dismayed her
secret soul, conceal it though she
probably did.
    "Monday, April 14 - Very pleasant
and warm. Worked in the garden.
Sowed the grass plot, set out some
raspberries, lettuce, grape cuttings
and planted beets, cabbage, celery,
spinach. peas and onions. Got
some blackberries of McClellan.
Also some seed potatoes of M. E.
Shannon."

    Tuesday, April 15 - And here is
one of the most significant entries
ever made in any diary. anywhere,
anytime. Brief like all of them,
it yet says something of farflung
significance. This date marks, not
the very beginning, but almost the
beginning of the great diking proj-
ect of Skagit county: "Set out
a row of raspberries in the morn-
ing, then went with Trimble over
the marsh to view the sloughs and
place for dike. Came back at 3
p.m. Dug a ditch up through the
yard and commenced digging a
well. Warm and pleasant."
    It is the first mention I have
found of the diking project. Mr.
Sisson says the pioneer diker was
Sullivan. J. S. Conner's son, Her-
bert, says his father also had a
hand in it from the beginning.
But Whitney is said to have been
the real father of the LaConner
flats. He and his cousins diked a
thousand acres and more. Whit-
ney island was created by diking.
Of all that later.
    See you tomorrow. JUNE.

Transcription:

MERRY Christmas! This is the
third time I've shared Christ-
mas merriment with you - my
goodness, how the years lope off!
Somebody has been tinkering with
them, putting in new ball bearings
or something. They never used to
toboggan like this. Robin said the
other day that he wished Christmas
came every day. Well, it almost
does. One is hardly settled down to
enjoy the year, to fill it with beauty
and delight when the exasperating
unit of time is gone. Instead of
greasing the track down which time
travels, I wish they'd throw out
some sand or put on the brakes or
scotch the wheels somehow. I don't
know when we're going to get all the
living done we've planned if some-
body doesn't get time slowed up
somehow. But anyhow, merry
Christmas once more!]

At a meeting of the Pioneer
Daughters the other day at Mrs.
Henderson's, Mrs. Roth read a high-
ly interesting story about a Christ-
mas which she remembers from her
childhood. There was a masked ball
and people went to it in grand cos-
tumes brought from San Francisco.
They rode in sleighs and had sleigh-
bells as if this were a colder land
then than now. When little Lottie
Roth was all dressed up in minia-
ture grown-up costume to go to the
ball, her father looked at her and
remarked disapprovingly that little
girls didn't dress up like that in his
day nor go to balls. And, while he
was about it, he went on and said
that the boys worked harder, too,
when he was young. Heigho, for
the gone days! Aren't we funny?
    On December 25, 1873, one very
homesick young man wrote in his
diary: "This is Christmas in some
places. We fired trees, filed saws,
etc. T. & S. went down to McNutts
to get timber for an ox yoke."

    But Christmas, 1874, was very dif-
ferent, thank goodness. "Whitney
and wife, T. & S. (Tillinghast and
Sisson I suppose he means) went to
Whatcom. Started at 11 o'clock and
arrived at 5 p.m. This was on the
24th. I suppose the young men
rowed but Mr. and Mrs. Whitney
went on the steamer.) Rained most
all day. Had a fair wind part of
the day. All went to Linden's ball
in the evening. (I wonder if this is
the same ball Mrs. Roth remem-
bers?) Stayed all night at the
Whatcom House."
    Friday the 25th. Christmas.  t
"Spent the day pleasantly. Took
dinner with Mr. Allen's folks at Mr.
Jordan's."
    Saturday the 26th. "All went to
Mr. Eldridges and took dinner and
spent the evening. Had a good
time."

    Sunday the 27th. "Spent the day
in various places and all spent the
evening at Mr. Fout's home."
    Monday the 2 28th. "Attended the
Whatcom Grange. Went to Eld-
ridge and got some seedling trees.
Took dinner at Mrs. Smith's and
went to a party at Mr. Jordan's in
the evening."
    Tuesday the 29th. "All went over
to Sehome and took dinner with Dr.
Barrow's folks. Went to the wharf
and saw the Germania land. Spent
the evening at the doctor's and then
to berths on the steamer Libby."
    Wednesday the 30th. "Reached

(Please Turn to Page 7, Column 8)

Transcription:

(From Page 6)

Fidalgo at daylight and took break-
fast with Mr. Best's folks, then
started for home where we arrived
a little after noon. S. (Does this
mean himself He seems to be keep-_
ing a journal for all of them and
speaks of himself no oftener than of
the others. For two years, now, he
has been calling himself S.!) S.
went to Balls after the mail."

And so that is how one set of
pioneers spent Christmas. Sounds
grand, doesn't it? Makes me home-
sick!

    See you tomorrow. JUNE.

Transcription:

WELL, now that Christmas is
over - the one in 1873 as well
as the one of 1931 - shall we
return to three very young men
from Pennsylvania busy building
roads and houses in a brand new
country? Mr. Sisson's diary is so,
full of interesting and significant
things that it is a temptation to go
through it copying it outright. But
I, reckon I'd better not, though
don't know why not, exactly, since
nothing could more concern us here.
    In Thursday's column there Was
the first entry about dykes. What
they decided at that dyke meeting
the journal doesn't say- whoever
said that brevity is the soul of wit
never tried to piece out a full story
from a Sisson diary! Some school
teacher certainly succeeded in per-
suading that young man that to be
brief is a virtue. Or maybe neces-
sity did it. If he had written it all
down he couldn't have got so much
else done, could he? Think how the
cousins would have ragged him for
writing all the time instead of
working! And if he had written
more he would have had less time
to write about. Hateful, perpetual
dilemma! )

    Meanwhile, after the dyke meet-
ing and before the work on the
dykes began, the three cousins were
kept busy digging wells, planting
gardens, setting hens, setting out
orchards, helping their neighbors,
pulling stumps, "drawing" rails with
the oxen, going out for the mail
once a week, building houses, fight-
ing mosquitoes, a going visiting
verv seldom.
    On Monday, April 28th, 1873
"S. went down to and measured dyke
site with Whitney and Allen. Came
up to the new house at night and

Transcription:

brought the organ up... Received
some plants from Pa. in cans...
Salmon berries in bloom."
    May 3rd "...measured sloughs
in afternoon." So you see the dyke
work is beginning. And gardens!
I never heard of such gardens. One
or the other of the three cousins is
forever ploughing or hoeing or har-
rowing a garden and planting
seeds. It is only early May and they
op have corn in and literally gallons
of other seeds. Make me hungry
just reading these gardening en-
tries. "Squashes coming up. First
strawberry bloom today. T. made a
pigpen. W. & S. went down to
Siegfred's and got a pig. W.
churned in the forenoon, slashed
the rest of the day." My word, was
churning a half day's job - then?
"W. helped wash in the afternoon."
Those little entries made a pretty
picture of a thoughtful young hus-
band helping a delicate wife. "Mos-
quitoes came 20,000 strong." "Had a
road meeting in the shop."
    Sunday, June 22, "Had strawber-
ries for dinner and chicken pie."
And that is what gave them the
energy and decisions to start dyking
next day!

Monday, June 23rd. "Started in
dyking this morning with six men.
Rainy, and the marsh wet." Next
day "Worked on the dyke. Tide
yey high."
    On Wednesday "Shut up the first
lagoon. High tide."
    "Friday "Put lumber in second
lagoon... Marsh very wet."
    Saturday "Put mud in lagoon all
day.
    Sunday, the 29th of June, "Had
strawberries and peas for dinner."
All that diligent early gardening is
bearing fruit. I shall start mine
early this year, too!
    Monday "Worked on the dyke as
usual. "
    Tuesday July 1st, "The carpenter
left, also the Welchman. Filled the
sloughs and built dyke."
    See you all tomorrow.    JUNE.

Transcription:

WEDNESDAY, July 2nd, 1873.
"Built about sixteen rods of dyke."
    Saturday, July 5th. "All worked
on the dyke all day; it is going live-
ly. Warm and dry. Have nine men
now dyking .. very mosquitoey."
    And so that is how the wide, low,
level beautiful LaConner flats were
dyked. They would build a tide
gate which worked automatically.
At low tide the water would run out
of a slough and couldn't back in
when the tide rose because the gate
would close when the water began
to press against it. From the trend
of these entries I suppose they filled
in the sloughs when they were
empty though that sounds an im-
possible job. They built walls of !
earth to hold back the water, dams,
gates and bridges. It wasn't play re-
claiming those vast expanses of salt
marsh and M. J. Sullivan who first
did it certainly had courage.

    It is these dykes which holds the
sea off the land yet, you know. Or
maybe you didn't know that. I
didn't. It was all a sort of fairy
story to me till I began piecing it
together from the Sisson diaries.
Those dykes had to be built foot at
a time by sweating men. The mos-
quitoes were thick and cruel then,
and a hundred other things were
waiting to be done while the dyking
was going on. But the magic oat
harvest of Sullivan held them all to
their purpose so that, little by little,
the dykes and dams and gates and
bridges got themselves achieved
somehow.
    Saturday, July 12. "Out off the
big lagoon this week."

    Sunday. "T. & S. went over to

Transcription:

Fidalgo island. Saw some nice fruit
and grain. Twenty six of Marche's
strawberries — weighed — a pound.
Whitney found a stool of oats con-
taining fifty heads. One head had
348 grains . . . measured timothy
stock 6 ft. 2 in., head 8 1/2 inches.
Sullivan oats and barley on land
dyked last season and plowed last
fall and winter will make a good
crop. He thinks his grain is the best.
he has seen. Oats are too thick."
    Saturday 19. "Got through hay-
ing, McNutt has worked 8 days.
Bill $18. Fine weather ... all went
up to see McClellan's hay."

    But nearly all the entries are of
work on the dykes with other jobs
done between times. By July 29
they had finished up "this Side of
Allen slough. Trimble came home
from Olympia with a title to his
land ... Commenced dyking on the
south side of Whitney's claim...
Put in one mud sill . . . Tomatoes
about an inch in diameter. Cabbage
not heading much yet."
    August 23. "Worked on sloughs
dykes as usual. Have ten tents
for second slough." Now what on
earth were the tents for? "Had all
the men working on the slough to-
day. Planked up half of it."
    By just such casual matter-of-fact
notes does one with difficulty piece
together the way that momentous
dyking was done. I'm afraid I'm not
engineer enough to understand it all
but maybe you will.
    "Had the first ripe tomatoes Sep-
tember 1."
    September 3. "Commenced lay-
ing the bottom and fixed the barrow
road on the second slough ... fixed
the box in and got ready to cut off
the slough ... September 5. Shut
up the two sloughs and stopped the
tide for the first time. Success is
evident."
    There! They've boxed in, filled in
the slough, locked out the tide and
next year or the year after oats and
barley will wave o'er these acres!

    See you tomorrow.     JUNE.

Transcription:

SATURDAY, November 8, 1873.
"The '130' slough went out. The
neighbors worked all afternoon
and until 4 o'clock in the morning
stopping the hole. Succeeded."
    When I was a child no story
thrilled me more than that one.
of the little Dutch boy who, with
his small finger, stopped a tiny
hole in a Holland dyke until help
came. Well he knew what a big
hole would mean and how quickly
a little hole could become a big
one. I can see the picture of that
little figure yet huddled there
against the earthen bank holding
back the ocean with his finger.
I never thought then that some
day I'd live in a land where dykes
had been thrown up: where they
could break to let the sea come!
in: where a mighty area would
depend on the security of those
dykes. It is still thrilling and
strange to me that it is so.

    November 9th. "Went down to
the slough. Found it all right.
Came up to eat breakfast and
while doing so the fatal slough
went out again. A very blue day
on the ridge. Cloudy and rainy."
This is the first time any men-
tion has ever been made of the
writer's close personal feelings. I
should think it might have been
a "blue" day on the ridge! No-
body's finger stopped that leak nor
many another one like it.
    "Up at 2 a. m. and went to work
on the busted slough. Made a R
R. and put in mud till 2 p. m."

The entries for the rest of No-
vember are mostly a record of
wheeling mud into the slough.
"Fine occupation." the young man
called it.
    On November 28th the temper-
ature was 28 degrees with a snow-
storm and frozen ground a day
later. On the 2nd of December
it was down to 15 degrees ...
"tide one foot over the marsh."
    But the dyking is nearly finished.
At least for this year. They kept
having repairs and mud-wheeling
to do. In an article published in
the Puget Sound Mail written by
Mr. Sisson, he gave the man-cost
for that work as $40 to $50 a
month and board.

In January, 1874, three of the

Transcription:

biggest dams were destroyed by a
high tide. They were repaired the
following summer. In January of
this same year the thermometer
went as low as three degrees above
zero and the snow lay on the
ground a foot deep.
    New names have crept into the
journal. O'Loughlin, Ball, Jenkins,
Upson, Stevens, Cornelius, Matson,
Best, Andrews, Sufred's point, Bel-
lew, Anderson, Howard, Bob Wil-
liams, Welcher, Dodge, White. No-
where does the journal set its
stage, listing all the people and
their whereabouts. He mentions
them as they happen along into
his daily life, and so little by
little one finds out who was there.
  On the day of that great tide
which washed out the three big
dams, the entry is characteristic-
ally simple and brief, but one can
see tragedy through its cracks be-
tween the words: "Tide nearly
three feet — over the marsh this
morning. McClellan's dyke, Sieg-
fred's dyke and the two largest
sloughs went out and our farm is
covered with salt water. Lumber
lost and scow also, etc , etc. Spent
the day looking after lost lumber."
The men of the neighborhood had
built that scow during the fall
and now it was gone, but of course
they will recover it. Scows don't
get far when they run away from
home. In fact the entry of Jan-
uary 23rd says: "Heard that the
Indians had the scow at Samish
island." Later: "Indians brought
scow home. Charged $1,500 for
'mannock' "!
    See you tomorrow.    JUNE.

Transcription:

WEDNESDAY, January 26th,
1874. Worked around the
house and took care of the
baby!" Now, I ask you, if that's
fair? Obviously the Whitney baby.
But to spring it on us like that
without a single word of warning!
There was an entry a few pages
back, "W. worked in the shop on
his crib," but I thought it was
some sort of a corn crib. Why
couldn't a young pioneer say it was
a crib for the first baby born to
any of the cousins up in that white
house where lived the frail girl and
her always-thoughtful husband?
And I hope it wasn't the night
that baby was born that the dam
took its notion to go out, I dare
say Mrs. Leamer was there—she
of the gentle hands and the willing
strength.
   The journal is full of testimony
that a woman of gentle breeding
is somewhere about. The men
spend many a day in the shop,
making now a secretary, now a
bureau, picture frames, bookcases,
and so on. That shop is the scene
of a great deal of interesting pio-
neer activity. I wonder where
those hand-fashioned bureaus and
secretaries are now? There ought
to be a law ...!

March 11, 1874 - "Heard the first
frog of the season." And from now
on for pages and pages the diary
is full of gardening. It is the time
of the year its author liked best,
I think. He almost breaks out of
his brevity in the spring. Twice
he mentions the songs of the frogs.
And once he speaks of a party at
Darcy's from which they got home
at daylight, but not yet has he
mentioned the name of the woman
he is to marry. I am beginning to,
believe he is going to leave me
high and dry, there. A young
woman, now, would have had a
book full of the blue eyes of her
sweetheart and only the briefest
mention of the troublesome dikes!
    Orchards and picket fences;
pruning and grafting and planting;
mangels and turnips, and Whit-
ney's new atlas from San Fran-
cisco; rain, radishes and roads.
Tillinghast elected roadmaster.

    Oh, here it is! Here begins the
romance: "April 8 - Mrs. Leamer
and son came visiting today." I'll
bet a dollar young Edgar danced
so often with Ida at the Darcy's
the other night that Ida's mother
and brother are here today to see
what the fellow is like. But he
doesn't say so. He only says "S
mixed paint and made moulding
W. dug ditch. Trimble had the
oxen to harrow his garden."
   But on Sunday everybody went
to Trimble's for dinner. "The
whole Ridge was there," the jour-
nal says. Which means that Ida
was there, too, doesn't it?
    The men are painting the inside
of the Whitney house, papering it,
laying carpet and doing spring re-
decorating in general. What proud
folk they were to demand so much
of themselves when there was plen-
ty of excuse to stop with a shack
while the land was being got ready
for seeds. The orchards and gar-
dens and painted, carpeted, fur-
nished house are themselves suf-
ficient commentary on what man-
ner of people these were. They
do not say, "See, these are affluent
folk," but, rather, "See what in-
dustrious, prideful, gently-bred ones
these are." For, after all, it was
work and a high standard which
created those homes and not
money.
    "August 5, 1874 - Whitney, Sisson
& Company had another addition.
to their family today in the shape
of a tenas man (a little boy)... Not
named yet." I do believe the lad
is getting civilized! He begins to.
tell the personal and therefore
most interesting things!
    See you tomorrow.      JUNE.

Transcription:

I DON'T know how much longer
diking entries are going to fill
these Sisson journals with which
we are so intimately concerned. But
you and I might as well clear them
all up today, flood them out again
every few years until the great flood
of 1888, mend them in three or four
words and at last see our lands ly-
ing fair and green and secure -
hold your breath! There might be
another flood any old day, you know
-all in the space of a paragraph.
    It didn't happen so easily for the
cousins, though. I am beginning to
catch a glimmer of what an engi-
neering feat that diking was. They
seem to have actually filled in some
of the sloughs with wheelbarrow,
loads of mud got, perhaps, from
the mud flats at low tide.

    The channels or sloughs which
were left unfilled had to be rigged
up with tide gates so that drainage
water from a hundred ditches could
flow out at low tide while the sea
could not enter at high tide. Dams
across the mouths of the drainage
sloughs and bridges over these with
the tide gates set within the dams
under the bridges; digging mud
out of these open sloughs to fill
in the others and to raise the
whole level of the surrounding
land; laying plank railroads, so to
speak, to easen the labor of the
men with wheelbarrows; digging
the drainage ditches to empty into
the open sloughs; walling up the
inner banks of the drainage sloughs
so as to prevent their melting down
again; grading the banks of the
sloughs and leveling them off with
the new level of the reclaimed
acres; mending and forever re-
mending washed-out banks, dams,
bridges, gates, boxes, railroads - I
think it is necessary to our under-
standing and appreciation of our
land to understand something of
what all that labor meant to the
early settlers of Skagit county.
Pioneers of the tall timber had
laboriously to clear their acres of
giant trees which had to be burned
inch at a time. They had to dig
out stumps and open up their dark,
close acres. Theirs was gruelling
labor, too.

    But, somehow, those few vision-
aries - Mike Sullivan the first, J.
S. Conner, Whitney, Tillinghast,
Sisson and others close after Sul-
livan—they seem to me to have

Transcription:

undertaken the impossible. That
they achieved it is one of the,
things about which later Puget
Sounders can go on boasting
to the end of time.
    I shall never again drive along
any of the roads around LaConner.
Bay View, Edison, Padilla, Whit-
ney, Fredonia, Fir, Skagit, Mill-
town without thinking of men with
wheelbarrows literally raising the
level of the earth, reclaiming it
from the sea, walling in acres in-
finitely fertile, creating wealth out
of the whole cloth.

    Nothing in Puget Sound seems
to me more significant and inter-
esting than those diking projects.
Think how interesting it would be
to have a coast and geodedic sur-
vey map of Skagit county before
1874 and another of later date to
show the difference in the coast-
line!
    Only that land was diked which
grew salt vegetation. Except, of
course, the Skagit river overflow
lands which grew marvelous hay in
summer and needed only to be
drained and protected from floods
to become the richest grain and
garden lands in the country. All
of it was rich beyond anything
young farmers had known back
home. Deeper down than any of
them ested, I dare say, it was top-
soil washed down from the hills
since the time of man. No wonder
Tillinghast conceived the notion
that this would become the world's
seed garden.
    See you tomorrow.    JUNE.

Transcription:

THE last days of 1874: "Sunday
--All went to LaConner. W.
and wife read temperance to
the natives." "Monday. Dug a hill
of Swinomish blue potatoes which
weighted 26 pounds. Eight pota-
toes weighed a pound each ...
averaged 480 bushels per acre."
    "Some wild animal carried off
a calf last night . . . W. worked
on the baby's crib. S. made
shingles and worked in the shop.
T. cut wood. McNutt was_here.
Also Harry on his way to What-
com with election returns . . .
Ball's pigs very troublesome. Trim-
ble and Cashing have gone deer
hunting on Fidalgo."

    "January, 1875. _ S. went up to
Trimble's and got his hair cut,
then went on to the Frenchman's
and took dinner."
    Snow lay a foot deep on the
ground during January, 1875, and
the mercury went as low as three
degrees, keeping around ten and
fifteen degrees for nearly two
weeks. "Killed the hog. He weigh-
ed 300 pounds. Edward called on
us and gave up a piece of elk."
    They are making rails by the
hundreds and thousands.  When-
ever there aren't dyke holes to be
stopped, gardening or harvesting
to be done, or when the weather
is too bad to do other things,
the men work at getting out rails.
Young Edgar set down the num-
ber for each day in the margin
of his diary.

    "February, 1875. - Frenchman's
house burned. ... Mrs. Canfield
died. ...Mr. J. S. Conner and his
wife and Mrs. O'Laughlin came
and stayed all night."
    Sisson is making a harrow.
He finishes and paints it and
makes a roller. They found Nona,
with a new calf and a sow with
six little pigs. . . . "Sheriff
Allen stayed all night with us."
    "Road meeting at Trimble's.
Elected Highbarger road master."
    April again begins the heavy
gardening, I've read through three
years of these journals and three
times have - they gone around the
cycles of the seasons. Gardening
begins early every year and the
harvests are early - earlier than
nowadays. I wonder why?

Plowing, harrowing, rolling, man-
uring, planting. Potatoes, onions,
beets, turnips peas, lettuce and
so on go into the ground very
early - some of them in February,
many in March, nearly all of them
in April. He planted sweet corn