XIX. THE CENSUS OF 1880.

IN the fall of 1880 the government sent orders to the agent to take the census of all the Indians under him for the United States decennial census. To do so among the Clallams was the most difficult task, as they were scattered for a hundred and fifty miles, and the season of the year made it disagreeable, with a probability of its being dangerous on the waters of the lower sound in a canoe. I was then almost ready to start on a tour amongst a part of them and the agent offered to pay my expenses if I would combine this with my missionary work. He said that it was almost impossible for him to go; that none of the employees were acquainted either with the country or the large share of the Indians; that he should have to pay the expenses of some one; and that it would be a favor if I could do it. I consented, for it was a favor to me to have my expenses paid, while I should have an opportunity to visit all of the Indians; but it was December before I was fairly able to begin the work and it required four weeks.

In early life I had read a story about taking the census among some of the ignorant people of the Southern States and the superstitious fear that they had of it, and I thought that it would not be strange if the Indians should have the same fear. My previous acquaintance with them and especially the intimacy I had had with a few from nearly every settlement who had been brought to the reservation for drinking and had been with us some time and whose confidence I seemed to have gained, I found to be of great advantage in the work. Had it not been for these, I would have found it a very difficult task.

The questions to be asked were many—forty-eight in number, including their Indian as well as “Boston” names, the meaning of these, the age, and occupation; whether or not a full blood of the tribe; how long since they had habitually worn citizen’s dress; whether they had been vaccinated or not; whether or not they could read and write; the number of horses, cattle, sheep, swine, dogs, and fire-arms owned; the amount of land owned or occupied; the number of years they had been self-supporting, and the per cent. of support obtained from civilized industries and in other ways.

I began the work at Port Gamble one evening, and after much talk secured nineteen names, but the next forenoon I only obtained six. The men were at work in the mill, and the women, afraid, were not to be found. I then hired an interpreter, a boy who had been in school, and after talking a while had no more difficulty there. The best argument I could use why it was required was that some people said they were nothing but worthless Indians, and that it was useless to try to civilize them; that some of us thought differently and wished for facts to prove it, and when found, that they would be published to the world. And this I did in the Port Townsend Argus and American Antiquarian. One man refused to give me any information because that, years before, a census had been taken and soon after there had been much sickness, and he was afraid that if his name were written down he would die. But I easily obtained the information most needed from others. I was almost through, and was at Seabeck, the last town before reaching home, when I found the only one who was at all saucy. He gave me false names and false information generally, as I soon learned from another Indian present and it was afterward corrected. The ages of the older ones were all unknown, but the treaty with the tribe was made twenty-five years previous, and every man, woman, and child was present who possibly could be, and I could generally find out about how large they were then. When I asked the age of one man he said two years, but he said he had two hundred guns. He was about forty-three years old and had only one gun. To obtain the information about vaccination was the most difficult, as the instructions were that they should show me the scars on the arm if they had been vaccinated, and many of them were ashamed to do this. As far as I knew, none of them made a false statement. When about half-way through I met Mr. H. W. Henshaw, who had been sent from Washington to give general information about the work, and he absolved them from the requirement of showing the scar. He said that all that was needed was to satisfy myself on the point. On this coast, a dime is called a bit, although in reality a bit is half a quarter, and the Indians so understand it. In finding how nearly a pure Clallam one man was, I was informed that he was partly Clallam and partly of another tribe. But when I tried to find out how much of the other tribe I was told: “Not much; a bit, I guess.”

I was instructed to take the names of not only those who were at home, but of a number who were across the straits on the British side, whose residence might properly be said to be on this side. In asking about one man I was told that he had moved away a long time ago, very long, two thousand years, probably, and so was not a member of the tribe.

It struck me that some pictures of myself, with descriptions of them would have adorned Harper’s Monthly as well as any of Porte Crayon’s sketches. With an old Indian man and his wife I sat on the beach in Port Discovery Bay all day waiting for the wind to die down, because it was unsafe to proceed in a canoe with the snow coming down constantly on one of the coldest days of the year, with a mat up on one side to keep a little of the wind off, and a small fire on the other side; and, at last, we had to give up and return to Port Discovery, as the wind would not die. I waked up one morning on the steamer Dispatch to have a drop of water come directly into my eye, for there was a hard rain, and the steamer overhead (not underneath) was leaky. I got up to find my shirt so wet that I dared not put it on, while the water in the state-room above me was half an inch deep and was shoveled out with a dust-pan. I walked from the west to the east end of Clallam Bay, only two miles, but while trying to find a log across the Clallam River I wandered about a long time in the woods and brush, wet with a heavy rain, and when I did find it it reached just not across the river, but within a few feet of the bank, and I stood deliberating whether it was safe or not to make the jump; trying to jump and not quite daring to run the risk of falling into the river, sticking my toes and fingers into the bank, and the like, but at last made the crossing safely. It took half a day to travel those two miles. I ate a Sunday dinner at Elkwa, between church-services, of some crumbs of sweet cake out of a fifty-pound flour-sack, so fine that I had to squeeze them up in my hands in order to get them into my mouth. An apple and a little jelly finished the repast—the last food I had. At Port Angeles I rode along the beach on horseback at high tide, and at one time in trying to ford a slough I found we were swimming in the water. I partly dried out at an Indian house near by, taking the census at the same time. Again, the steamer Dispatch rolled in a gale, while the water came over the gunwales, the food and plates slid off the tables, the milk spilt into gum boots, the wash-dish of water upset into a bed, and ten minutes after I left her at Dunginess the wind blew her ashore, dragging her anchors. But there were also some special providences on the trip. “He who will notice providences will have providences to notice,” some one has said, and I was reminded of this several times. I came in a canoe from Clallam Bay to Elkwa, the most dangerous part of the route, with the water so smooth that a small skiff would have safely rode the whole distance, thirty-five miles, to have a heavy storm come the next day, and a heavy gale, when I again went on the water, but then a steamer was ready to carry me. The last week, on coming from Jamestown home, in a canoe, I had pleasant weather and a fair north wind to blow me home the whole time, only to have it begin to rain an hour after I reached home, the commencement of a storm which lasted a week. Strange that a week’s north wind should bring a week’s rain. I have never noticed the fact at any other time.

But the most noticeable providence of all was as follows: On my way down, the good, kind people of Seabeck, where I occasionally preached, made me a present of forty dollars, and it was very acceptable, for my finances were low. At Port Gamble I spent it all and more, too, for our winter supplies, as I did not wish to carry the money all around with me, and, also, so that I might get at Port Townsend those things which I could not find at Port Gamble. I often did so, and ordered them to be kept there until my return. About three days later I heard that the store at Port Gamble was burned with about every thing in it, the loss being estimated at seventy-five thousand dollars. The thought came into my mind, Why was that money given to me to be lost so quickly? On my return I went to Port Gamble to see about the things and to my great surprise I found that only about two wheelbarrow loads of goods had been saved, and that mine were among them. They had been packed and placed at the back door. The fire began in the front part, so they broke open the back door, and took the first things of which they could lay hold, and they were mine, and but little else was saved.

When I arrived at Seabeck the kind ladies of the place presented my wife with a box containing over thirty dollars’ worth of things as a Christmas present. Among these was a cloak. During my absence she had been trying to make herself one, supposing that she had cloth enough, but when she began to cut it out to her dismay she found that with all the twisting, turning, and piecing that she could do, there was not cloth enough, so she had given it up and made a cloak for our little boy out of it. She naturally felt badly, as she did not know how she should then get one. “All these things are against me,” said Jacob, but he found that they were all for him. Others besides Jacob have found the same to be true.

The statistical information obtained in this census is as follows:—

In the Clallam tribe there were then 158 men, 172 women, 86 boys, and 69 girls; a total of 485 persons. Six were on or near the reservation, 10 near Seabeck, 96 at Port Gamble, 6 at Port Ludlow, 22 at Port Discovery, 12 at Port Townsend, 18 at Sequim, 86 at Jamestown, 36 at or near Dunginess. (Those at Sequim and near Dunginess were all within six miles of Jamestown.) Fifty-seven at Port Angeles (but a large share of them were across the straits on the British side), 67 at Elkwa, 24 at Pyscht, and 49 at or near Clallam Bay. There were 290 full-blooded Clallams among them, and the rest were intermingled with 18 other tribes. Fifteen were part white. During the year previous to October 1, 1880, there had been 11 births and 9 deaths. Forty-one had been in school during the previous year, 49 could read and 42 write; 135 could talk English so as to be understood, of whom 69 were adults; 65 had no Indian name; 33 out of 123 couples had been legally married.

They owned 10 horses, 31 cattle, 5 sheep, 97 swine, 584 domestic fowls, and 137 guns and pistols, most of them being shot-guns. Thirty-four were laborers in saw-mills; 22 were farmers. There were 80 fishermen, 23 laborers, 17 sealers, 15 canoe-men, 6 canoe-makers, 6 hunters, 3 policemen, 11 medicine-men, 4 medicine-women, 1 carpenter, 2 wood-choppers, 1 blacksmith, and 40 of the women were mat and basket makers. Twenty-eight persons owned 576 acres of land with a patented title, four more owned 475 acres by homestead, and twenty-two persons, representing 104 persons in their families, cultivated 46 acres.

During the year they raised 2,036 bushels of potatoes, 14 tons of hay, 26 bushels of oats, 258 bushels of turnips, 148 bushels of wheat, 20 bushels of apples, 5 of plums, and 4 of small fruit. They had 113 frame-houses, valued by estimate at $5,650, four log-houses, worth $100, twenty-nine out-houses, as barns, chicken-houses, and canoe-houses, two jails, and two churches. They cut 250 cords of wood; received $1,994 for sealing, $646 for salmon, and $1,000 for work in the Port Discovery mill. I was not able to learn what they had earned at the Seabeck and Port Gamble saw-mills. Two hundred and eleven of them were out of the smoke when at home. I estimated that on an average they obtained seventy-two per cent. of their living from civilized food, the extremes being fifty and one hundred per cent.

Twana Indians.—This census was taken by government employees mainly, and some of the estimates differed considerably from what I should have made. Probably hardly two persons could be found who would estimate alike on some points. They numbered 245 persons, of whom there were 70 men, 84 women, 41 boys, and 47 girls. The residence of 49 was in the region of Seabeck, and of the rest on the Skokomish Reservation. There were only 20 full-blooded Twanas, the rest being intermingled with 15 other tribes; 24 were partly white. During the year there were 8 births and 3 deaths. Twenty-nine had been in school during the previous year; 35 could read, and 30 could write; 68 could talk English; 37 had no Indian name. Out of 67 couples 23 had been legally married. They owned 80 horses, 88 cattle, 44 domestic fowls, and 36 guns. There were 42 farmers, 4 carpenters, 2 blacksmiths, 4 laborers, 7 hunters, 20 fishermen, 21 lumbermen and loggers, 1 interpreter, 1 policeman, 6 medicine-men, 7 washer-women, 6 mat and basket makers, and 1 assistant matron. Forty-seven of them, representing all except about 40 of the tribe, held 2,599 acres of unpatented land, all but 40 of which was on the reservation. They raised 80 tons of hay and 450 bushels of potatoes during the year. They owned 60 frame-houses valued at $3,000. All but 25 were off of the ground and out of the smoke. It was estimated that on an average they obtained 78 per cent. of their subsistence from civilized food, the extremes being 25 and 100 per cent., but these estimates were made by two different persons who differed widely in their calculations.