| Summary: | In this paper, Dr. Bodemer gives an historical account of the early physicians of the Pacific Northwest. Physicians discussed include Dr. Marcus Whitman, Dr. Richard Landsdale, and Dr. David S. "Doc" Maynard. PIONEER PHYSICIANS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST Despite their explorations of the Pacific Northwest Coast during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Spanish did not exploit their early arrival until they began to fear Russian expansion southward from Alaska. By that time, England and the United States were disputing control of the Pacific Northwest, and this, rather than Spanish or Russian activities, shaped subsequent development of the region. It is true that in 1775 the Spanish made the first known landing in what is now Washington State. But the most portentous entry into harbors along the Pacific Northwest Coast was that of Captain James Cook three years later. As their ship progressed along the Coast, Cook's crew members acquired many sea-otter skins in trade with the Indians. Later, when the ship reached China, it was discovered that the Chinese would pay handsomely for these skins. This fact was reported when the ship returned to England, and soon the English were collecting furs from the Pacific Northwest Indians for profitable sale in the Orient. The maritime fur trade thus developed opened the Oregon country to both Europeans and Americans. Before the American Revolution the Americans had, as British subjects, traded largely with the West Indies. With the Revolution they lost George III and the benefit of trade relations with Britian, and they simultaneously acquired restrictions on commerce with the Indies and other English possessions. In the search for a new source of trade American traders turned to maritime trade with the Orient. The merchants were able to acquire Oriental silks, spices, tea and other luxury items. sll of which sold well in the United States, but the Asiatics had little desire for American products. The merchants realized that they needed a commodity desired by the Chinese as much as the Americans desired Oriental merchandise. Sea-otter furs, available for trinkets on the Northwest Coast, were just that commodity. Accordingly, an expedition under the command of Robert Gray departed Boston with cheap trade goods for the Indians, arriving at Nootka Sound off Vancouver Island, British Columbia in 1788. After a years* trading. Gray sailed to China, where he sold the furs and bought Oriental goods. Since his return voyage was via Africa and the Atlantic, Gray became the first American captain to sail a ship around the world. So many American fur traders followed Gray's lead that by 1812 British traders had virtually disappeared from the Pacific Northwest Coast. After the War of 1812, however, the British gained control of the Northwest country as a result of the overland fur trade. The overland fur traders entered the Oregon country from the East, just as the maritime fur traders had penetrated it on the West; and while sea-otter skins were prized by the coast traders, beaver skins were sought by the overland traders. Granted a monopoly on the fur trade by Charles II in 1670, the Hudson's Bay Company enjoyed such profits that they evinced no inclination to push into the Western wilderness. When France surrendered its Canadian holdings to England in 1763, independent British traders, in cooperation with French- Canadian trappers and boatmen, entered into the fur-trading business. A few years later these independent traders merged into the North West Company; and the Hudson's Bay Company now had formidable competition. The advantages of trading with the Indians in the interior rather than near Hudson Bay provided impetus to the North West Company to explore and establish posts in the Northwest. North West Company traders were concentrated in the Saskatchewan region until 1808, when Simon Fraser explored the river now bearing his name. The following year another member of the North West Company, David Thompson descended the Columbia River to trade with the Flathead Indians of Idaho. Returning East in 1810 Thompson learned that an American, John Jacob Astor was organizing an expedition to go by sea to the mouth of the Columbia River and establish a fur trading post. Thompson promptly attempted to reach the Pacific overland before Astor and persuade the Indians to trade only with the Canadian company. Various misfortunes caused Thompson to seek and find the Athabasca Pass,^-^ later the main route of the fur brigades from Hudson's Bay to the Columbia. Thompson proceeded down the Columbia to a site near the present Spokane, Washington, later a major fur trading post for both British and American fur traders. Proceeding thence along the Columbia, Thompson reached the mouth of the river in July, 1811 to find the Astor Sea Expedition well-settled in a post they named, after their sponsor, Astoria (now Astoria, Oregon). Thompson returned to Montreal, leaving the Oregon country for ever, but he continued to work on maps of the areas he had covered, maps of such accuracy that they were long the basis of this region's cartography. While members of the North West Company were penetrating the Oregon country, American fur traders also wanted to establish an overland route to the Pacific. At the end of the eighteenth century, however, this was frustrated by the disposition of Spanish claims. Spain claimed central North America from the Mississippi to the Rockies, as well as the southern part of the section between the Rockies and the Pacifi and it disputed England's claim to the region between California and the Russian posts in Alaska. The Spanish were unwilling to let explorers or traders cross either the Mississippi-Missouri region or the Pacific borders; consequently Spanish possessions formed a barrier for any American overland route to the Pacific. Even before Thomas Jefferson was President of the United States, he was concerned over the exclusion of the Americans from the western beaver trade, and he tried to interest private organizations in sponsoring scientific excursions to the Oregon country. As President, Jefferson secretely planned an overland expedition to the West. Learning that France might be willing to sell the area between the Mississippi and the Rockies which it had acquired from Spain in 1800, Jefferson, in 1803 asked Congress to appropriate $2,500 for an expedition to the Pacific. The request was granted, the Louisiana Purchase was effected, and early in 1804, the Lewis and Clark Expedition started up the Missouri River in search of a useable route to the Pacific. The Lewis and Clark Expedi tion strengthened the United States' claim to the Oregon country and, importantly, it created an atmosphere of friendliness with the Indians west of the Rockies enabling American fur traders to exploit the Lewis and Clark route. The War of 1812 made exploitation of the Lewis and Clark route short-lived, just as it effected destruction of the Astor fur enterprises. The sale of Astoria to the North West Company ended American trade in the Oregon country for many years. Its main competition gone, the North West Company expanded its beaver trade in all directions, and the Spokane post became increasingly important. The Hudson's Bay Company, however, was aggressively asserting itself in Northwest Canada, and the resultant friction resulted in actual warfare between the two companies. The prolonged violence became destructive to the profits of both companies, and, with prodding from the British Government, the two companies merged in 1821, keeping the name Hudson's Bay Company in order to maintain the trade monopoly in the East. Upon merger of the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company, John Mc Loughlin was placed in charge of the fur trade in (3)0,0 the Oregon country. Bom into a poor Canadian family, Mc Loughlin was encouraged to enter medicine but, his imagination excited by the stories of his fur-trading uncles, he yearned for the adventure and ro mance of a fur-trader's life. He finally combined the two occupations by completing his medical education and then assuming the duties of post physician for the North West Company at Fort William on Lake Superior. He practiced his profession as little as possible, spending most of his time trading. It was because of his skill as a trader and manager that Mc Loughlin was sent to London by the North West Company to arrange the merger with the Hudson's Bay Company. The new manager of Hudson's Bay Company in the Oregon country arrived in Astoria in 1824. After exploring both sides of the Columbia River, Mc Loughlin decided to move the main post from Astoria to a site on the northern side of the river, now Vancouver, Washington. Several reasons underlay the decision. Britain was willing to sacrifice the rest of the Territory in order to seize title to the region north of the Columbia; and consequently, it was politic to locate the company's main post there. The location of Fort Vancouver satisfied all other purposes of a post, and also it was near rivers giving access to Puget Sound to the North, the Willamette Valley to the South and the fur country through which the Columbia and Snake Rivers flowed. Under Mc Loughlin*s direction Fort Vancouver developed into a large establishment of 500-700 residents The Fort Walls enclosed over 30 buildings including warehouses, carpenter and blacksmith shops, a bakery, a store, a schoolhouse, and a chapel. Rows of wooden houses outside the Fort housed the workmen, and many Indians usually camped there. The Indians respected the Hudson's Bay men because Mc Loughlin required that the Indians be treated with consideration, he kept his word, and they were eager enough for Mc Loughlin's trade goods to trap beavers as means of payment. Mc Loughlin served as administrator and the only physician at Fort Vancouver. His first duties were probably first aid and minor medical matters of this type. But then there were also various epidemics, such as that described by a resident of the Fort: In the fall of 1832 the fever and ague was very preva lent at Vancouver. At one time we had over 40 men laid up with it, and great numbers of Indians required applica tions of Medecine, as they called it. As there was no physician at the Fort, Dr. Mc Loughlin himself had to officiate in that capacity, although he disliked it, as it greatly interferred with his other important duties, imtil he himself was attacked with this fever. Then he appointed me as his deputy, and I well remember my tramps through the men's house with my pockets lined with vials of quinine and making my report of the state of the patients to the doctor. It proved therefore a great relief to him and me when the annual ship arrived from London bringing out two young medical men. Doctors Gaimer and Tolmie, one of whom was immediately installed in office at Vancouver and the other dispatched to the Northwest Coast. Dr. Tolmie describes the medical headquarters he inherited: (3) Our apartment is 13 paces long by 7 broad. The roof is about 20 feet from floor supported by two rafters and by two transverse beams. In front is the door and a pretty large window, in the middle a large (stone) fire place without any grate. The walls are formed of rough, strong horizontal cleats attached at their extremities to perpendicular ones. Against the northern wall are placed bur bedsteads, between them a large chest and in front a small medicine shelf. Strong shelves of unplaned deal occupy the south wall, including the painted shelf on which we have today placed small quantities of medicines most frequently in use. The deals composing the floor are in some instances two or three inches distant from each other, thus leaving wide apertures. In the walls the chinks are numerous. Shall close all apertures with brown paper pasted or leather. A partition is to extend from my bed to the extremity of large shelves on the left, and the abutment in front is to be the surgery. The posterior is our bedroom. Filled some few 8 or 10 quart vials with few tinctures on hand and arranged them on front shelf. There is an excellent supply of surgical instrioments for amputation, two trephining, two eye instruments, a lithotomy, a capping case, besides two midwifery forcepts and a multitude of catheters, sounds, bandages, probings, 2 forceps, etc. not put in order. Following Tolmie's arrival Mc Loughlin virtually abandoned medicine and confined his activities to administration. Americans, some determined to set up a competitive fur trade, began arriving in increasingly large numbers in the Oregon country, and Mc Loughlin's generosity in meeting the needs of the immigrants eventually caused the Company to request his resignation. Thus, in 1846 he left Hudson's Bay Company and established a general merchandise store in Oregon City. Mc Loughlin had wisely laid claim to some fertile land in that area. Recognizing the land's value, some immigrants laid successful counterclaims, maintaining that Mc Loughlin as a Canadian was not entitled to the land. Thus John Mc Loughlin, whose labors enabled settlement of the Oregon country, who had helped many hungry and ragged settlers to survive, the first physician in the Pacific Northwest, and a man deemed by many as the father of Oregon, died in Oregon City in 1857, with few possessions and no land in his name. In 1831, as Mc Loughlin awaited the arrival of Dr. Tolmie in Vancouver, events determining the future of the Northwest were under way to the east. That year some Nez Perce Indians arrived at the home of William Clark in St. Louis. The Nez Perce considered Clark their friend on the basis of his visit in 1805, and they evidently wanted him to send men who could teach them the proper magic to secure the material things associated in their minds with white men. It is unlikely the Indians wanted missionaries in the Christian sense. Clark referred them to Roman Catholic priests, and the two Indians who survived the trip to St. Louis started homeward aboard a boat carrying an artist, George Catlin, who painted their portraits. It is not certain that the Nez Perce survived the return trip to the Northwest, but in St. Louis the effects of their visit were almost immediate. Told of their visit by Clark, an Indian agent published an article in an Eastern religious magazine proclaiming the eagerness of the Western Indians for Christianity. Some Eastern church members, believing that the Indians were concerned about their spiritual salvation and wanted Christian missionaries, determined to atone for their negligence immediately. The Methodists acted first, sending several missionaries to the Oregon country in 1834. Among the Protestant missionaries next to reach the Oregon country was a man of special interest to us. Dr. Marcus Whitman.<1)3: In 1834 Whitman was 32 years old and practicing medicine in Wheeler, New York, where the Reverend Samuel Parker came to recruit missionaries for the Far Western Indians. Whitman had previously been rejected as a medi cal missionary because of ill health, but Parker recommended him to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. The Board, representing the Presbyterian, Congregational and Dutch Reform Churchs, appointed Whitman as a missionary to the Indians of the Oregon country. In a neighboring village Parker encountered Narcissa Prentice, a young woman interested in missionary work among the Indians. Parker believed that she would be an outstanding missionary, but the Board did not appoint unmarried women, and, in fact, opposed appointing xmmarried men as mission aries, since they wished to establish white settlements among the Indians. The obvious solution to this difficulty resided in Parker's suggestion that Whitman visit Miss Prentice. In any case Marcus did visit Narcissa to intro duce himself, and within days, with true missionary zeal, she agreed to marry and accompany him to the Oregon country. Parker and Whitman set out immediately to determine whether the Indians west of the Rockies were indeed eager for missionaries. They went 10 under the protection of some fur traders who were less than delighted to have such upright men in their company. Whitman was a man of great physical strength, and he did more than his share of the heavy work; when cholera struck, his medical knowledge and dedication to the care of the traders was of great benefit to them and that, at least, blunted their animosity. At a rendevouz with Flatheads and Nez Perce at the Green River Whitman was easily convinced that the Indians desired Christian teachers, and without further investigation, he returned East and married Narcissa. The following year, 1836, they established a station among the Cayuse Indians at (§)3 Waillatpu (Place of the Rye Grass), near Walla Walla, Washington. Whitman practiced much medicine and considerable dentistry at his mission. He was always busy treating the sick, and, constantly on call to treat the Indian sick, he competed with their medicine man. This posed certain pro blems. The shaman refused to accept what he considered incurable cases, but Whitman considered it un-Christian to refuse help, thus providing the more suspicious Indians ample opportunity for suspecting his motives or skill. In 1840, the first immigrant wagon reached Waillatpu with a small group of American settlers. The following year 24 people arrived, and in 1842, 114 immigrants stopped at the station. Waillatpu was a rest stop for the immigrants who usually arrived exhausted and without food. Thus it dis turbed Whitman to learn in 1842, that the American Board intended to close the station. He therefore went East to attempt to dissuade the Board. He succeeded in convincing them that the station was essential to immigrants, who were, in turn, vital to transmission of white Christian civilization to the Indians. Whitman then went to Westport, Missouri where the 1843 migration was assembling. There he gathered about one thousand people into a train bound for Oregon. Although one might disagree with enthusiasts who maintain that Oregon would have remained in British hands permanently if Whitman had not brought the huge group to the Territory in 1843, it is undeniable that this migration opened the Oregon Trail. ®ic During Whitman*s absence in 1842 things were not well at Waillatpu. Fearing the future as increasing numbers of whites appeared, the Indians had become hostile, and it was rumored among the Cayuse that Whitman would return with army troops. Furthermore, the Cayuse, especially, were angered by an agreement of the Nez Perce permitting enforcement of the white man's laws within the tribe. When Whitman reached Waillatpu without troops but in the company of a thousand white settlers, resentment increased to a high degree. The fate of the Pacific Northwest, the Far Western Indians and <Du Marcus Whitman were shaped by the concept of Manifest Destiny. The map of the United States at mid-century looked incomplete to many Americans. This disquiet, the easy availability of land, and official encouragement to settle the wilderness, combined to provide philosophical justification for the Westward movement. As a newspaper editorial of 1846 put it, the massive migration and occupation of the West . . . seems to be completing a more universal design of Providence by extending the power and intelligence of an advanced civilized nation over the whole face of the earth, by penetrating into those regions which seem fated to immobility, and by breaking down the barriers of the future progress of knowledge of the sciences and arts. To the Nez Perce and Cayuse near Waillatpu the concept of Manifest Destiny was quite manifest in a flood of white immigrants. They watched in dismay 11 12 and then in rage as 1500 people arrived at Waillatpu in 1844, and twice that number appeared the following year. In 1846 the 49th parrallel was established as the boundary between Western Canada and the United States. A government could not be established in Oregon, however, because southern congressmen opposed the admission of Oregon as a Territory until the question of free and slave territories was resolved. Whitman, the Waillatpu station, and disease contributed to the action finally taken upon admission of the Oregon Territory to the Union. The story begins in 1844 when a group of Cayuse Indians went to California to secure cattle. One of the party, a boy, son of a chief, was killed by a white man while the party was in California. The group returned to Waillatpu asking for justice. When no action followed, an Indian war party left for California to find and kill the boy's murderer. En route almost 30 of the party died from measles. The survivors returned in the summer of 1847, and all the tribes in the Waillatpu region were furious. The Hudson's Bay Company men warned Whitman that, since the Indians had not avenged the murder as required by their customs, they might kill him as a substitute. Whitman, however, refused to leave. An unusually severe measles epidemic, commencing with the arrival of the 1847 migration, sealed Whitman's fate. Noticing that most of the whites recovered from the measles and most of the afflicted Indians died, the Indians concluded that Whitman was poisoning them. Thus it was that on 29 November, 1847 a large group of Indians gathered at the station, presumably to watch beef being cut up. The Whitmans were in the dining room of the mission house caring for the sick. Two Indians entered the house; one struck Whitman with a tomahawk, the other shot him. A general Indian attack began with the shots, and the remaining 14 whites were killed. 13 The Mission stations of the American Board were abandoned permanently after the Whitman masacre, and the missionary period in Northwest history came to a close. One might argue the effect of Whitman*s and other Pro testant missions upon the Indians. There is little doubt, however, about the effects Whitman's aid to the American immigrants or the encouragement provided the westward movement by his demonstration that families could reach Oregon overland. Whitman's death, too, had its effect. Reaction to the Whitman Massacre of 1847 was highly instrumental in activating the deadlocked Congress to creation of the Oregon Territory in 1848. Among the immigrants arriving in the Oregon Territory in 1844 was a black man from Missouri, George Washington Bush. Bush soon learned that the Oregon provisional government had enacted a law excluding blacks from its jurisdiction. Therefore, Bush and the wagon train leader. Colonel Michael Simmons, with assistance from McLoughlin, crossed the Columbia River to settle in Tumwater and begin settlement of what is now Washington State. It was lonely for a while. The Whitman Massacre in 1847 and the discovery of gold in California in 1848 interrupted the flow of settlers northward, so that in 1849 only 304 white people resided north of the Columbia. Later that year, however, unsuccessful prospectors returning from California told of the great need for lumber and food in the Gold Fields. People then began to hurry to the Puget Sound region, in such numbers that the census for 1850 showed 1,049 white inhabitants north of the Columbia. A physician contributed directly to encouragement of the northward movement. An Ohioan, Richard Landsdale, caught "Oregon Fever", and after a year in the California Gold Fields in 1849, he crossed the Columbia River, bought 160 acres and platted the town of Vancouver, Washington, selling the lots and opening an office for the practice of medicine. Landsdale was the first postmaster and the first auditor north of the Columbia. With Vancouver established, Landsdale journeyed 250 miles northward to repeat his performance in the Puget Sound region, there engaging in general practice until 1854, when he was appointed the Indian Agent by President Pierce. Landsdale went East on government business in 1861, and while negotiating a financial settlement he attended lectures at the City College of New York, receiving there the M.D. Degree, an item he had lacked during his 30 years of medical practice. Landsdale eventually retired from medical practice to manage his substantial amount of real estate holdings, a good example of the physician-entrepreneur whose intelligence, energy and lust for profit gave spirit to the immigration patterns and the early organization of the Far West. In autumn, 1851, a party of seven built the foundation of a house on the east shore of Puget Sound, optimistically christening their efforts, the beginning of the city of New York-Alki (New York by and by). The settlers soon found that it was difficult to get the logs they cut for ships bound for San Francisco, to water, and they sought a new harbor. They subsequently moved their claims to what is now the waterfront of Seattle, Washington. On April Fools Day, 1852 they were joined by David Maynard, one of the most colorful and important physicians in the history of the Pacific Northwest. Maynard was a Vermonter, born and raised. Already licensed to practice medicine, Maynard used his marriage in 1828 as a signal to move to Cleveland, then a city of 5,000. Intelligent and energetic, Maynard 14 was susceptible to grand schemes and financial enterprises, including the establishment of a medical school in Ohio. The financial crash of 1837 caused closure of many banks, created bad trade conditions, a lack of confidence, and a shortage of money. These conditions were unfortunate enough for most people; but for men like Maynard, free and open-hearted, helpful to others, and rather careless of the morrow, it was catastrophic. Maynard had, typically, endorsed another man's business enterprise to the amount of $30,000. The failure of this business ruined Maynard financially, and he looked toward California as a region of hope and future wealth. His desire to move westward was fortified by what he deemed the increasingly shrewish behavior of his wife. Thus, in April, 1850, Maynard, with a rifle, a mule, a buffalo robe, a few medicines, his surgical instruments and some books, left Ohio alone, planning to work his way across the continent to California. The trans-continental journey was a difficult one for everyone. There was constant suffering, dirt, sickness and disease everywhere; there was warranted and unwarranted fear of the Indians and the Mormons, rivers to ford, mountains to climb, and often starvation. Maynard, 42 years old at the time, bore the five-month trip well indeed. But instead of arriving in California as he had originally intended, Maynard ended up in the extreme _ 'o Northwest, at the southern tip of Puget Sound. His diary does not state why he changed course, but several entries provide a splendid clue; June 6: Start at 9:00. Unship our load and cross the creek. One death, a Missourian, from cholera. Go 18 miles. Passed four graves in one place. Two more of the same train are ready to die. Got a pint and a half of Brandy, earned $2.20. Left Grill with a dying friend. 15 June 7: Start late. Find plenty of doctoring to do. Stop at noon to attend some persons sick with cholera. One was dead before I got there and two died before the next morning. They paid me $8.75. The deceased were named Israel Broshears and William Broshears and Mrs. Martin Thornton, last being mother to the grieved widow of Israel Broshears. We are 85 or 90 miles east of Fort Keamy. June 8: Left the camp of Distress at half past 4 in the morning. The widow was ill, both in body and mind. I gave them slight encouragement by promising to return and assist them along. I overtook our company at noon 20 miles away, went back and met the others in trouble enough. I traveled with them until night. Again over took our company 3 miles ahead, made my arrangements to be ready to shift my duds to the widow*s wagon when they come up in the morning. Interestingly, the destination of the Widow Broshears to whose wagon he shifted his duds, was Tumwater, Washington, where she intended to join her brother. Colonel Michael Simmons, the gentleman we last encountered crossing the Columbia in company with George Bush. When the wagon train separated into northbound and southbound contingents. Dr. Maynard joined the Widow's wagon train, rather than the one destined for the California Gold Fields. Maynard's acquaintance with wagon trains was measured in months, and he had never handled a cow in his life, but he now became wagonmaster of the northbound train, accompanying the Widow Broshears 16 17 in her wagon to the Simmon's farm in Tumwater. Colonel Simmons was less than pleased with Maynard's attentions to the Widow Broshears, and after a few days he intimated that perhaps the good doctor should seek his fortunes somewhere distant from the Simmons farm and the Widow. Gold had been reported on the Steilaguamish River in the northern Puget Sound region; Patkamin, Chief of the Snoqualmie Indians was upon the scene; hence Maynard accepted the Colonel's suggestion, and he, Patkamin and five other Indians went north by canoe to search for gold. They found coal, and Maynard, with out any means, returned to the lower Puget Sound, removed his shirt, and cut wood through the summer of 1851. By autumn, he had 400 cords of wood piled on the beach, and the next ship bound for San Francisco had Maynard and his wood aboard. After selling the wood in San Francisco Maynard bought damaged goods at auction. On Puget Sound at that time, brooms cost $1, calico was $1 a yard, sugar $1 a pound. Maynard cleaned up his goods, returned to Tumwater and sold them at half rates. His price scale and habit of giving away his goods toward the end of the day, when the effects of the grape were upon him, did not endear him to competing merchants. They were delighted, therefore, when Maynard accepted the offer of Seattle, Chief of the Middle cf)p Sound Indians, to direct him northward to a promising harbor and potential trading center. In March 1852, Ma3mard, accompanied by Chief Seattle went north, four days later joining the New York-Alki settlement, just then moving to the very area Seattle had recommended to Maynard. Within a week, Majmard had built a house and was selling goods and practicing medicine among the whites and Indians. He soon undertook to supply San Francisco with Puget Sound fish. Employing the services of 50 Indians throughout the summer, Maynard had ICQ barrels of salmon packed and shipped to San Francisco. They were, however, badly spoiled when they reached their destination. This venture gives Maynard the distinction of being the first salmon packer and the first business failure in the northern Puget Sound. In 1852 there was pronounced agitation in the Puget Sound country for a new territory apart from Oregon. A convention was called, and Maynard was happy to be a delegate. He had been a delegate to the earlier conventions, where it was he who introduced a motion calling "for the formation of a constitution preparatory to asking admission into the Union as one of the states". Also, the Widow Broshears in the wings, Maynard was anxious to relieve himself of a wife in Ohio. The convention called for a Territory containing all the land north of Oregon and west of the Columbia River. Maynard was designated to proceed thence to Salem, Oregon, to present this proposal to the Legislature in December 1852. While there, he introduced his bill for divorce. The Territory of Washington and its counties were created. Maynard was named Auditor and Notary Public of King County, his land claim in Seattle was made the county seat, and his house was selected as the place for the next election. Thus, invested with new offices and duly divested of his wife, he returned to Puget Sound, stopping at Tumwater to visit the Widow Broshears. He and the Widow were married within days. After their return to Seattle, Maynard, also Justice of the Peace, performed the first marriage in that city, and began to occupy himself with prosecutions, trials, various legislative administrative activities, managing a store, practicing medicine, and operating a hospital. In 1853 the city was named Seattle, and Maynard filed a plat of 58 blocks. From the beginning, he sold of gave away his lots very rapidly, and, consequently, Seattle orginally developed on the Maynard claim. Maynard*s transactions were, however, seldom profitable to him. Consider 18 the blacksmith shop. With characteristic assurance, Maynard thought his experience on the plains qualified him not only as a teamster but also as a blacksmith. When no one opened a smithy in Seattle, he purchased an installed a bellows, anvil and tools, and began to shoe draft animals for the neighboring farmers. While engaged in shoeing a horse one day, a newcomer, watching Maynard struggle, commented favorably upon his skill as a physician. Maynard replied that he was not shoeing animals because he liked it, and, being informed that the young man was a blacksmith, he gave him the shop, its contents, and the land on which it stood for $10 retiring from the blacksmith trade in minutes. By a treaty of 1855 the Puget Sound Indians relinquished land along the Sound, accepting reservations in its stead. In addition they were to receive instruction in construction, farming and carpentry; they were to be provided with $15,000 to improve the reservations, and for 20 years they were to receive blankets, cloth and other materials in the amount of $7,500 per year. The good relations Maynard had always enjoyed with the Indians was a great influence in negotiating the treaty, and Maynard was made United States Commissioner in 1856. Typically, this appointment provided Maynard with nothing but more financial loss. Ratification of the treaty was delayed and the promised benefactions did not reach the Indians. In his desire to keep faith. Agent Maynard bought $1,300 worth of goods and distributed them amongst the natives as though they were part of the promised government bounty. Since this was not in accordance with regulations, Washington never found a way for settling his claim and Maynard lost the whole amount. The Indian War occupied 1855-56. Camps were established to separate the hostile from the friendly Indians, the intention being to place them under the care of agents, feeding them and keeping them as far as possible 19 20 from emissaries of the enemy. Discrete Indian Agents were sought, and, as one of those selected, Maynard was placed in charge of the Indians near Seattle. For the almost two years he provided, among other things, medical care for several thousand Indians, and while so engaged answered professional calls from his neighbors and attended to his duties as an officer of the court. The War changed conditions. Most farms had been destroyed, and many people had left or were preparing to leave the Puget So\md area. The population was much reduced, and there was no demand for lots. Maynard*s thoughts turned to the soil, and he began talk of the pleasant life close to the land. Trading his claim, he moved out of Seattle to become a gentleman farmer. As a farmer, Maynard was a good blacksmith, and thus within months he was back in Seattle practicing medicine and running the re-opened hospital. The hospital took up only two rooms in the small, two-story frame building he lived in. Mrs. Maynard, who lacked formal training of any variety, was put in charge of the lying-in ward. Another room was set aside as a drugstore and notions counter. Maynard*s hospital did not thrive, perhaps because the doctor persisted in treating not only whites, but Indians, such as the aged Seattle, who always came to Maynard for treat ment. Maynard couldn't concentrate, and things were difficult: one of the few bright spots was his official speech of welcome to the first contingent of Mercer Girls from the East in 1864. Two years after opening his hospital Maynard hung out his shingle as a lawyer. He had been admitted to the bar by an act of the legislature in 1856, but had never practiced. As a physician Maynard had at least the 21 recommendation of his won good health; as a lawyer, his personal affairs should have been as helpful as a quarantine sign: they were in a mess. Most of Maynard's legal troubles grew out of his switch of wives and his casual conviction that, since his first wife had never lived on the land he registered in her name, he could transfer it to the present Mrs. Maynard. When the ex-Mrs. Maynard learned that she had not only been divorced but had been divested of a considerable portion of downtown Seattle, she started West. Maynard, hearing one day that she was to arrive in Seattle on the afternoon steamer, entered a barber shop requesting the deluxe treatment. When the barber inquired as to the cause of such tonsorial conceit, Maynard replied, "I'm going to give the people here a sight they have never had before and may never have again. I'm going to show them a man walking up the street with a wife on each arm." When the steamer arrived, Maynard and the second Mrs. Maynard met the first Mrs. Maynard and together they went to Maynard's house, there establishing an apparently harmonious menage a trois until arrangements were completed for the legal business. Things turned out badly for all concerned. After interminable litigation, the Court ruled that the second Mrs. Maynard had not lived on the land in time to claim it. Her half of the Maynard property would therefore have to be returned to the government. That raised new problems and started more law suits. Hundreds were vitally interested in the decision, because Maynard had disposed of most of his land; whichever way the ruling went, a considerable portion of Seattle's property owners were going to be without valid title to their land. But to Maynard it no longer made much difference. The few lots he still held title to were so scattered that no matter how the lines were drawn he would lose a number of them. He resigned himself to their loss. Liquor became for Maynard less a stimulant than a consolation. He drank more than ever, but as he became an alcoholic he kept his popularity. "Old Doc Maynard is a better doctor drunk than the rest of them are sober," the people said. But still he did not prosper as a physician; he hated to send bills. One of Maynard's last acts was to deed to the Seattle Masons one of the few pieces of property to which he still held clear title. The Masons were raising funds for a new cemetery and Maynard thought the project worthwhile. He was on the committee that selected the stie of the graveyard. And, after he died a few months later, in. 1873, his was the first body buried in the new cemetery. A contemporary said Seattle had no better physician than Maynard at the time. Faint praise indeed, but probably true. Maynard could lance an infection, deliver a baby, or set a bone, although only under trying circumstances would he perform amputations. For the more complicated complaints he relied upon the patient's belief in the curative powers of colored water and pink or blue pills and upon his own belief in the beneficent effects of staying in bed in a warm, sunny room. For the Indians this type of treatment was especially effective, since it kept them away from the sweat lodge, a Turkish-bath treatment the Salish considered a remedy for everything from impure thoughts to smallpox. Maynard's therapeutics had their limitations, but they were an improvement over the medicine man. His importance to the Pacific Northwest is less as a physician than as a man of vision, and enterprise, willing to make personal sacrifices in behalf of an emerging area. His dedication to the sick and his humanitarian attitudes created good will among the Indians, and their respect for and trust in Maynard was frequently vital in the development of the Puget Sound country and Seattle. 22 23 We have considered at length the activities of several physicians who influenced the development of the Pacific Northwest without saying much about medicine. This is not without significance. One can easily question the medical abilities, perhaps even the medical interests, of the physicians who pioneered in this undeveloped and often hostile environment. But at a time of flourishing proprietary schools and diploma mills, when commiinities welcomed with equal enthusiasm - or lack of enthusiasm - the physician and surgeon, the osteopath, the chiropractor, electrotherapist, magnetic healer, mechanical therapist, mental scientist, naturopath, suggestive therapist, and a variety of traveling medicine shows peddling elixirs of untold potency, the McLoughlins, Whitmans, and Maynards at least posed a minimal threat to the lives of their patients. Their role was greater than that of healer. They brought to the emerging frontier intelligence, energy, leadership and vision. The fact that their species will not be seen again is scarcely a mortal blow to medi cal science. And, yet, their total contribution was such as to suggest paraphrasing the words spoken at the funeral of Doc Maynard: "Without them the Northwest will not be the same; without them the Northwest would not be the same; indeed, without them the Northwest might not be."
|
|---|