Told by the Pioneers - Washington Secretary of State

Told by the Pioneers
off the table into her shawl and started to walk out. Just then Mr.
Gray returned for something and I told him what had occurred and he
immediately seized and then shook the squaw until she dropped our
dinner on the floor. The dinner was spoiled for us.
Big Dance for School
That winter Mr. Gray and I moved into our unfinished hotel building.
Earl.\- in 1879 a dance was g'iven in Glover's hall, over 'Varner
& Cannon's store, which was located in the building' which .Tim Glover
built on the southwest corner of Howard and Trent, where the Producers'
market is 1l0W. This dance was given for the benefit of the
first public school building then being erected in a little grove of pine
trees north of the Northern Pacific right of way, near the corner of
Post street and First avenue. Not everyone attended this dance, as
some of our neighbors were strict in such matters. The music was
furnished hy two fiddlers. In those days few people here danced anything
but the old-fashioned country square dances.
When I started to dress for the dance I found that the dress I wanted
to wear was frozen fast to the side of the house, and it took me
quite a while to thaw it loose with a hot iron. In moving into the hotel
I had hung my spare clothing on nails against the roug'h board sheeting
and moisture g'athering on the boards had frozen them tight to
the side of the house. Many of the dancers that night were from the
frontier army posts, others came from Deep Creek, :Yledical Lake,
Four Lakes, Spangle and the "lower country."
DaileI' First Waltz Here
One of the soldiers asked me if I would dance a waltz. I consented,
so he went to the fiddlers and persuaded them to playa waltz tune, and
we started dancing. After waltzing twice around the hall we noticed
no one else was dancing. I was satisfied that this soldier and I danced
the first waltz ever danced in Spokane.
Our dance netted quite a neat sum for the public school building.
Anna 'Vaterhouse was the first teacher and taught about six months.
She was succeeded by Mr. Chapman, whom J. J. Browne had brought
up from Portland. My youngest brother, "Billy" Smiley, and Jerome
Drumheller were, I believe, among the first scholars.
Shortly after this, the Rev. Dr. Nevins, the Episcopal Missionary
clergyman, who did so much constructive work in this section, induced
Bishop ?\IOITis of Portland to establish the Rodney l\Iorri s school, in
memory of his deceased son, in the little church that stood where the
Empire State building' is now located. Charles A. Absolom, a talented
English wanderer of unusual education and once a famous athlete,
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