Henry A. Smith

Dr. Henry A. Smith (1830-August 16, 1915) was a physician, poet, legislator and early settler of Seattle, best known today for his flowery translation of a speech by Chief Seattle (or Sealth) that is still in print.cite web
url=http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=3418
title=Seattle Neighborhoods: Interbay -- Thumbnail History
date=July 2, 2001
author=Wilma, David
accessdate=July 01|accessyear=2007
publisher=HistoryLink] Infobox Person
name = Henry A. Smith


image_size =
caption = Smith circa 1890
birth_date = 1830
birth_place =
death_date = August 16, 1915
death_place = Seattle, Washington, United States
education =
occupation = Physician
spouse = Mary (Phelan) Smith
parents =
children = Lulu, Luma, Maude, Laurene, Ralph Waldo, May, LillianIn 1852, Dr. Smith traveled from Wooster, Ohio to Portland, Oregon Territory in a wagon train with his mother (Abigail Teaff Smith, b. 1792) and sister. In 1853, he settled at the north end of Elliot Bay, at what came to be known as "Smith's Cove"cite book
author=Sale, Roger
title=Seattle Past to Present
publisher=University of Washington Press
edition=paperback, with corrections
year=1978|id=ISBN 0-295-95616-1] (later Smith Cove, deciding that it was a likely spot for docks and that the flat area was a natural for the terminus of the perennially rumored transcontinental railroad. The next claim north was staked out by his mother. Smith built a cabin and, the next year, an infirmary at what is today Grand Boulevard (Dravus Street) and 15th Avenue W.

Seattle was at the time hilly and heavily forested; the only route to the main settlement was by small boat or canoe until Smith cut a trail through the woods. He is said to have known the local Indians well and had some command of local language. At the time of the Battle of Seattle (1856), the Smith Cove settlers fled for the safety of Seattle's block house. Their homes was burned and stock taken, except, according to some accounts, for Dr. Smith's cabin, apparently a result of his friendship with the locals.

Smith joined the Territorial Legislature as a Republican, and lobbied for a railroad. He farmed, invested in a general store, logging camps, and fruit orchards, and developed in land as far north as Smith Island, at the mouth of the Snohomish River. He made house calls throughout most of the Puget Sound area, often by canoe, and was appointed official physician for the Tulalip Indian Reservation.

In 1862, Smith married Mary Phelan; they had seven children. She died in 1880.

In 1887, with the arrival of the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway Company, Smith sold most of his land, including about convert|1000|acre|km2 near Queen Anne Hill, and invested in buildings such as the London Hotel at the foot of Pike Street, and the Smith block (the 1900 block of 1st Avenue; not to be confused with Seattle's Smith Tower). He also served as the first superintendent of King County public schools.

In the 1890s, Smith's railroad dreams bore fruit when the Great Northern Railroad built a depot at Smith's Cove. Seattle's Pier 91 and related facilities now cover Smith's Cove. Wealth from this and other ventures made Smith at one time King County's largest taxpayer.

He died in 1915, in the company of his five surviving daughters.

The Speech Controversy

There is a controversy about a speech whose purported text Smith printed.

The date and location of the speech has been disputed, but the most common version is that on March 11, 1854, Sealth gave a speech at a large outdoor gathering in Seattle. The meeting had been called by Governor Isaac Ingalls Stevens to discuss the surrender or sale of native land to white settlers. No-one alive today knows what Sealth said, since he spoke in the Lushootseed language, someone translated his words into Chinook Indian trade language, and a third persons translated that into English.

About thirty years later, the "Seattle Sunday Star" published Smith's rendition of the speech, based on notes he took at the timecite web
url=http://www.suquamish.nsn.us/chief.htm
title=Chief Seattle's 1854 Speech
date=October 29, 1887
author=Smith, Dr Henry A.
accessdate=August 18|accessyear=2007
publisher=Seattle Star] . In flowery language, Sealth purportedly thanked the white people for their generosity, demanded that any treaty guarantee access to Native burial grounds, and made a contrast between the God of the white people and that of his own. Smith noted that he had recorded "...but a fragment of his Chief Sealth's speech".

In 1891, Frederick James Grant's History of Seattle, Washington reprinted Smith's version. In 1929, Clarence B. Bagley's History of King County, Washington reprinted Grant's version with some additions. In 1931, John M. Rich reprinted the Bagley version in "Chief Seattle's Unanswered Challenge"cite book
author=John M. Rich
title=Chief Seattle's Unanswered Challenge
publisher=Glen Adams
edition=paperback reprint
year=1977|ISBN=978-0877700722 ] . The speech forms the basis of a popular children's book, "Brother Eagle, Sister Sky: A Message from Chief Seattle"cite book
author=Susan Jeffers
title=Brother Eagle, Sister Sky: A Message from Chief Seattle
publisher=Dutton Books
edition=paperback reprint
year=1993|id=ISBN 978-0140545142 ] .

Notes

References

* BOLA Architecture + Planning & Northwest Archaeological Associates, Inc., [http://www.portseattle.org/downloads/business/realestate/development/northbay/Appendix_I_Historic_Cultural.pdf Port of Seattle North Bay Project DEIS: Historic and Cultural Resources] , Port of Seattle, April 5, 2005. Accessed online 25 July 2008. Especially p. 11 (p. 13 of the PDF).