Told by the Pioneers - Washington Secretary of State

Told by the Pioneers
stabbed again and again until it died from loss of blood. Its cries and.
moans of pain were almost like those of an agonized human being.
The dead animal was kept afloat by the balloons and towed by canoes
as close as possible to shore, where it was carried by the incoming
tide, assisted by the entire village, to a point on the beach where receding
tides would permit the men and squaws to cut it up. Great
strips of blubber were cut off, some to be rendered into oil, some to be
smoked like bacon and preserved for winter use. The smoking meth~
od was evidently a thorough one, as this smoked blubber could be kept
for years. Probably, only a people who had developed a taste for
this food would find it palatable.
I am now one of the oldest Indians on the Makah reservation, and
have adopted most of the white man's ways. I held the contract for
carrying mail from Port Angeles to Pysht, Clallam Bay, Neah Bay,
and Tatoosh Island for many years-using at first a canoe and later
small steam vessels. Mv "Hunter No.5" which lies todav in the har-
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bor at Neah Bay, is a Diesel-powered 70-foot vessel of the type used
by salmon trollers; though seaworthy, it is seldom used now. I also
operated a gasoline service station, a garage and a dance hall.
Although I do not remember it from actual knowledge, the present
general store operated by Harry 'Vashburn is the outgrowth of the
original trading post operated in Neah Bay by Samuel Hancock, who
later retired to Whidby Island and the quiet life of a farmer.
Hancock was succeeded by two or three traders whose names are
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not now remembered; then by one Gallick, who came in 1881. Gallick
disposed of the store to Henry Lance, who operated it until the
coming of the Washburns forty years ago.
Neah Bay was for many years accessible only by water, all supplies
being carried there by boat. Mails were infrequent, and the arri'-al of
a mail boat meant that every person in the community quit work at
once and repaired to the post office, where they argued the questions
of the day ,,-hile awaiting the distribution of the mail.
ALEXANDER B. BRENDER
Chelan County
I was born in 1851 in \Vurtenberg, East Prussia. I was apprenticed
to a blacksmith and knew the trade when I was seventeen years
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old. At that time there was no fuhlre for me in Germany, so I came
to Kansas to visit an uncle.
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