Told by the Pioneers - Washington Secretary of State

Told by the Pioneers
for making pillows and bed ticks. As the country settled, there was
a good demand for them, and father bought all he could get from the
Indians, who killed ducks then as much for their feathers as for food.
They were usually brought in in bales, and were not closely inspected.
So after a time the Indians began to put into the bales almost any foreign
substance they could pick up pieces of rope, grass and ferns,
etc. Our store was filled with flying feathers one day when, after
having had complaints about poor quality feathers, father insisted on
inspecting one bale bronght in by an Indian. It proved to be less than
one-half feathers, the remainder being a combination of all sorts of
junk. The Indian was so enraged that he kicked the opened bundle
fiercely, and the feathers flew in all directions, settling down all over
the store. The Indian then insisted that father must pay for the
feathers, even if he rejected the other stuff, and father told him if he
would gather up all the feathers and bale them, he'd pay. Bnt it was
too much of a job for the Indian, and he left. It was weeks before
the feathers were brushed out of our stock and swept out of doors.
"Another water fowl, the brandt, which, though edible, was not considered
as good for food as the mallard ducks, was often caught in
fishing seines. The brandt would settle by thousands on the Sound
at a point where the tide met the outflow of the Snohomish river. The
Indians, in canoes, would surround a flock of them and throw their
fishing nets over the flock. The brandt could stick their heads through
the net but could not spread their wings to fly. By drawing in the
seine the Indians easily caught and killed them.
"Mukilteo had the first fish cannery on Puget Sound. At first the
salmon were either salted and packed in casks or were smoked and
packed for shipment. And they were well smoked, too. Smoked until
the meat shrank to resemble the present-day chipped beef-not
merely colored a little as is done today. It was far more delicious, too.
"Later Mr. George Myers came here and started a real cannery,
packing the salmon in tin cans as is done today. In his factory I got
my first job at regular wages. I was taught to do the soldering that
closed the cans after the cooking.
Substitutes
"This new knowledge was valuable to me in many ways. On one
occasion ,when in the evening my father was using the only available
kerosene lamp in our house, and I could not get close enough to it to
read, I resolved to have a lamp of my own. The next day, during the
lunch hour at the cannery, I made a lamp bowl of two bright new tin
salmon cans, soldering them together and screwing into the top a neW
brass burner from mv father's stock. ·With small shells and bright
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