Arthur A. Denny

Arthur Armstrong Denny (June 20, 1822 – January 9, 1899) was one of the founders of Seattle, Washington, [http://www.washingtonhistory.org/wshs/research/finding_aids.htm Finding Aid: Arthur Armstrong Denny] , Special Collections, Washington State Historical Society (WSHS). Accessed online 8 March 2008.] the acknowledged leader of the pioneer Denny Party,Junius Rochester, [http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=921 Denny, Arthur Armstrong (1822-1899)] , HistoryLink, October 28, 1998. Accessed online 8 March 2008.] and later the city's wealthiest citizen and a 9-term member of the territorial legislature. Seattle's former Denny Hill was named after him; it was flattened in a series of regrading projects and its former site is now known as the Denny Regrade. [Russ Heinl, "Seattle from the Air" (2002), Graphic Arts Center Publishing Co., ISBN 1558686886, p. 23.] The city's Denny Way, however, is named not after Arthur Denny, but after his younger brother David Denny. [Junius Rochester, [http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=1936 Boren, Carson Dobbins (1824-1912)] , HistoryLink, October 31, 1998. Accessed online 8 March 2008.]

Indiana, Illinois, and the way West

Denny was born near Salem Washington County, Indiana; by the time he was attending school his family had settled in Knox County, Illinois. Both his parents were of Irish descent. [Harvnb|Jones|1972|p=36] His father John Denny (1793-1875), fought in the western battles of the War of 1812 and later served in the Illinois state legislature, elected as a Whig. (He eventually traveled west with the Denny Party, but stayed on in Oregon's Willamette River Valley when Arthur and several others moved north to Puget Sound.) [Dorothea Nordstrand, [http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=5647 Denny Party on the Oregon Trail] , HistoryLink, February 15, 2004. Accessed online 10 March 2008.] Denny did not have an easy childhood. He cared for his invalid mother while attending half-days in a log schoolhouse. He learned carpentry, taught school, studied surveying, and became a civil engineer and Knox County surveyor starting in 1843. In 1843, he married Mary Ann Boren; they were to have six children: Louisa Catherine Frye, Margaret Leona Denny, Rolland Herschell Denny, Orion Orvil Denny, Arthur Wilson Denny, and Charles Latimer Denny.

In 1851 he led the Denny Party west. Leaving Illinois in April, they arrived in Portland, Oregon on August 23. In November, he sailed on to Puget Sound, arriving at Alki Point on Elliot Bay on November 13, 1851. It soon became clear that Alki was not the best spot for a settlement. The Denny Party soon relocated to the east shore of Elliott Bay, near what is now Pioneer Square, the original heart of what soon became the city of Seattle.

Career

On February 15, 1852, Denny and others filed their claims. Denny soon established himself selling cargo on commission for ship captains. In 1854 when he began a general merchandise partnership with Dexter Horton and David Phillips. In 1855, he volunteered to serve in the Indian War then taking place in Washington Territory. He served in several political offices. He was a county commissioner first for Thurston County (in what was then still part of the Oregon Territory), and then, after Washington became a separate territory, for King County, where Seattle is located.

He also served as Seattle's first postmaster and in the territorial House of Representatives for nine consecutive terms, including serving a term as speaker. From 1861 to 1865 he was registrar of the General Land Office. He served as territorial delegate to the thirty-ninth United States Congress.

Denny soon turned from politics to business. He returned to being a partner with Horton and Phillips, this time by taking a half interest in Dexter Horton and Co., the bank founded by Horton and Phillips in 1870, which would eventually become Seafirst Bank, eventually absorbed by the Bank of America. [Bill Virgin, [http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/seaf24.shtml Come Monday, Seafirst name is history] , "Seattle Post-Intelligencer] , September 24, 1999. Accessed online 8 March 2008.] He was president of the Seattle and Walla Walla Railroad Company. Later in life, he was active in Society of Washington Pioneers and wrote a memoir, "Pioneer Days in Puget Sound."

Among his other achievements, he was involved in founding the University of Washington and donated much of the land for its original site.Debera Carlton Harrell, [http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/145102_cdenny23.html Getting to know the real Denny] , "Seattle Post-Intelligencer", October 23, 2003. Accessed online 8 March 2008.] On the current U.W. campus, Denny Hall, the former administration building (built 1895) is named in his honor. [ [http://content.lib.washington.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/uwcampus&CISOPTR=1506&CISOBOX=1&REC=2 Administration Building (now Denny Hall) exterior showing northeast side, University of Washington, ca. 1897] (photo and caption), University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections. Accessed online 10 March 2008.]

Personality and politics

Denny was an ascetic,Roger Sale, "Seattle, Past to Present", University of Washington Press, 1978, ISBN 0295956151, p. 25.] a devout Christian (conservative in his religion to the point of opposing a divorce law), and a lifelong teetotaler. Indeed, he was teetotal to the point where he had the customers of his store buy their liquor direct from visiting ship captains so that he would not be involved in the transactions. He was a political conservative, and a cautious and conservative businessman and investor. Denny, in his memoir, described his decision to head north from Portland to Puget Sound as a "desperate venture". Lorraine McConaghy, historian at Seattle's Museum of History and Industry, agrees, but characterizes it further as "the only one he ever undertook."

This dour man is nonetheless remembered for at least one example of his wit. Also in his memoir, recounting his failure in 1853 to reach agreement with David Swinson "Doc" Maynard over what was intended to be a joint plat of the town of Seattle, he wrote, "it was found that the doctor, who occasionally stimulated a little, had that day taken enough to cause him to feel that he was not only monarch of all he surveyed, but what Boren and I had surveyed as well." [Arthur Denny, " [http://www.geocities.com/elechtle/texts/Denny-Pioneer_Days.txt Pioneer Days in Puget Sound] " (1888). Accessed online 8 March 2008.]

Works

* "Pioneer Days in Puget Sound" (1888). ( [http://www.geocities.com/elechtle/texts/Denny-Pioneer_Days.txt Text online] )

Notes

References

* Citation
last =Jones
first =Nard
author-link =Nard Jones
year = 1972
title =Seattle
place =Garden City, New York
publisher =Doubleday
isbn =0385018754