Ten who shaped Seattle: Arthur Denny was the leader of Seattle's founders

One evening in the winter of 1850, after struggling through a freezing blizzard to his home in Cherry Grove, Ill., a restless Arthur Denny studied the whirling flakes through the window, then turned to his wife and quietly asked, "Mary, will you go?"

"Yes, Arthur," she said, and her answer set into motion the founding of Seattle.

10 Who Shaped Seattle
Read profiles of our city's early movers and shakers

Arthur Armstrong Denny, leader of Seattle's founders, was born in Washington County, Ind., on June 20, 1822. He attended classes in a log schoolhouse, and as a youth worked part time while helping care for his invalid mother. In his late teens he learned surveying skills, useful later when he platted Seattle.

By age 21, he was official surveyor of Knox County, Ill. That same year, he wed Mary Ann Boren, and they settled in the small town of Cherry Grove.

During the next eight years, Denny would become fascinated with accounts of the Oregon Territory. His granddaughter, Sophie Frye Watt, in her book "The Story of Seattle," tells how her grandfather gathered the family around the fireplace to "read letters from venturesome souls who had gone out to Oregon to seek their fortunes." These letters described the vastness of the untouched forests, the fertile soil and the mild winters.

In his reminiscence, "Pioneer Days on Puget Sound," Denny reports their wagon train left Cherry Grove on April 10, 1851, bound for Oregon's Willamette Valley. As they reached Burnt River in Eastern Oregon, a man named Brock stopped to chat and suggested they inspect the Puget Sound region, a land of untouched forests, lakes and mountains.

After 108 days of wagon train travel, the exhausted Denny party reached Portland. Arthur wrote: "Soon after our arrival my wife, one child and myself were taken with ague (probably malaria) most effectually defeating all my plans for examination of the country."

When his younger brother, David, and John Low, who had joined the Denny wagon train midway across the plains, decided to drive Low's cattle north to winter range on the Chehalis River, Arthur Denny asked them to travel on to examine Puget Sound. They did so, and approved of what they found. John Low, eager to return to Portland for his family, hired David Denny and Terry to build him a cabin. He left carrying this message for Arthur Denny: "We have examined the valley of the Duwamish River and find it a fine country. There is plenty of room for one thousand settlers. Come on at once."

Arthur Denny arranged for the two-masted schooner Exact to carry the 12 adults and 12 children to Elliott Bay. On rainy, cold Nov. 13, 1851, these Seattle founders landed at Alki Point to find their only shelter was an unfinished log cabin. Grandma Fay, wife of the ship captain, later recalled: "I can't never forget when the folks landed at Alki Point. I was sorry for Mrs. Denny with her baby and the rest of the women. I remember it rained awful hard and the starch got took out of our bonnets and the wind blew, and when the women got into the rowboat to go ashore they were crying every one of 'em and their sun bonnets with the starch took out of them went flip flap, flip flap and the last glimpse I had of them was the women standing under the trees with their wet sun bonnets lopping down over their faces and their aprons to their eyes."

Within a couple of weeks, four cabins were completed, two of logs and two of planks that Indians demonstrated could be wedged from cedar trees. A few days later, the brigantine Leonesa appeared, its captain seeking pilings for San Francisco. In two weeks, the settlers filled the ship with 13,000 feet of pilings, and the captain sailed with a pocketful of their orders for provisions.

The Dennys and others had witnessed how land claims near potential town sites quickly appreciated in value and decided not to leave that opportunity to chance. Near the east shore of Elliott Bay they found water deep enough to float large vessels and most of the founders chose claims there. David Denny selected the north claim that today is marked by Denny Way. William Bell, who joined the Denny Party in Portland, selected the area known as Belltown. The claims of Arthur Denny's and his brother-in-law Carson Boren are now the commercial heart of Seattle.

The families had hardly occupied their claims when new faces appeared. Dr. David Maynard arrived hoping to preserve salmon in brine. He chose a waterfront site where Pioneer Square developed.

Henry Yesler appeared seeking a site for Puget Sound's first steam sawmill. The founders adjusted their claims to provide a mill site at the foot of Yesler Way. Thomas Mercer selected a claim marked by Mercer Street at the foot of Queen Anne Hill. Other settlers followed.

Arthur Denny was one of the village's first merchants. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer of April 9, 1899, reported:

"Vessels in the lumber trade all carried a stock of general merchandise, and from them the pioneers obtained supplies. The captains sold from their vessels while taking on cargo, and upon leaving turned over the remainder to Mr. Denny to sell on commission. Mr. Denny continued in the commission business until the fall of 1856, when he entered a co-partnership with Dexter Horton and David Phillips in a general merchandise business located on the corner of Commercial (First Avenue South) and Washington streets."

Arthur Denny served as a commissioner of huge Thurston County that later was broken into several counties, one being King County, where Denny also served as commissioner. In 1853, after Washington Territory was formed of northern Oregon, Arthur Denny served in nine sessions of the Territorial House. In 1855, this avid member of the Whig (later Republican) party was elected speaker. This prompted The Pioneer and Democrat newspaper to remark:

"Hon. A.A. Denny has been elected Speaker, and if a Democratic House must require the election of a Whig Speaker, we do not think they could have done better. If the Democratic House can stand it, we can."

During Denny's first session as speaker, Eastern Washington tribes attacked Puget Sound-area settlements, killing several settlers including two in Seattle.

On Dec. 3, 1855, he summed up the situation.

"We are assembled under the most discouraging circumstances. Our infant territory is now surrounded by hostile savages; our citizens murdered in our midst and our constituents looking to us in this hour of gloom to render every exertion, to make every effort in our power to secure assistance and insure protection."

The village survived and Arthur Denny continued his development efforts. During the 1860-61 legislative session, he and the Rev. Daniel Bagley submitted a bill to locate the territorial university in Seattle. Denny then donated most of the original 10-acre campus. The Four Seasons Olympic Hotel now occupies part of that site. When the university moved to its present campus in 1895, the first building erected was named Denny Hall, a name retained today.

As Denny aged he occasionally lost patience with newcomers.

In his memoirs he wrote: "All old settlers know that it is common for parties who arrived here in a railway palace car to be blindly unreasonable in their fault finding. Often not content with abusing just the country and climate, they heap abuse on those who used the old method that took ninety or a hundred days crossing the plains, as though we had sent for them and thus given them an undoubted right to abuse us for their lack of good sense. We all know too, that it has been a common occurrence for those same fault finders to leave, declaring that the country was not fit for civilized people to live in; and that the same parties often return shortly thereafter to settle down and commence praising the country and climate."

A typical message from outspoken Arthur Armstrong Denny, who led Seattle's founders to Puget Sound 150 years ago. By 1899, the year he died at age 77, he had seen forested hillsides replaced by the Northwest's largest city.

10 Who Shaped Seattle is a series of articles written for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer by leading Seattle historian James R. Warren profiling prominent people in early Seattle history. The stories will be published each Tuesday leading up to the 150th anniversary of the founding of Seattle on Nov. 13, 1851.

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