The Historic Pacific Highway
in Washington
Man Who Lived In Hudson Bay Feudalism Is Elbowed Out For Democracy's Army
Man Who Lived In Hudson Bay Feudalism Is Elbowed Out For Democracy's Army
By Mabel Abbott
The Tacoma Times
August 4, 1917
From feudalism to democracy seems a far, far cry. But on the gravelly prairies at American Lake it is only a mile or so from where the stockades and bastions of Fort Nisqually, the last stronghold of the feudal old Hudson's Bay company in the northwest, stood, to where the barracks for the new American army of democracy are rising with magic swiftness; and from then to now is so short a time that the son of the last chief factor of the company is still living on the cantonment site; and he is not a very old man, either. His name is John W. Huggins. Saw Fur Traders.
Half a century ago, as a child,
Huggins saw the fur brigades come and go, bringing precious otter skins from as far away as Grays
Harbor, and great bales of pelts — 10,000 muskrat skins alone in one
shipment — from east of the mountains, all tributary to the lonely post at American Lake.
And then he saw the auction when the tools and equipment were sold and the company whose
word had once been law on the
prairie and far beyond it, left it forever. Now, he is moving out of the
way of the army of democracy.
Lived Lifetime There.
Huggins has lived on the prairie all his life. When the Hudson's Bay Co. left, his father, who had become an American citizen, refused a post it offered him in Canada, and took up the land with the fort buildings on it as a pre-emption claim under the U S. laws. Huggins has lived there ever since until 1907, when he sold the place to the Dupont's as part of their powder plant. The square-timbered, grizzled old granary is still standing. When Huggins sold the place, he did not go far—only to the end of Sequalitchew lake, near the pioneers' monument.
Doesn't go Far.
A few weeks ago, cantonment authorities began clearing the watershed of all residents, to pre vent any possible contamination of water. Huggins received notice to move. He is now at "the old Middleton place," between Cosgrove and Camp Lewis. There I saw him the other day - a lively, little old bachelor, "Judge" to all the neighborhood by virtue of past service as a Justice of the peace, and with a fund of shrewd philosophy that gives him a broad view of the changes that the swarming of the soldiers is bringing to the prairie.
"This sleepy old prairie has sure changed some," he observed unresentfully. "I've heard that before my day it was all grown up with grass knee-high; but the company bad thousands and thousands of sheep and other stock, and they grazed it down and the moss got a start and it's never grown up again. "I know myself the prairie didn't used to be timbered like it is now. It was all open. Mother used to stand in the door of the fort and see people coming five miles away.
These evergreens and oaks grow up awful fast, and they've just taken the prairie." But even as Huggins spoke, a roar like a cannonade shook the house. The contractors at the army post were blasting the stumps of the invading trees out of the way of the buildings that grow so much faster than they ever did. "I remember when the railroad came," Huggins went on. "I recollect driving over to see a train the first one I ever saw. "Then the country began to build up—little towns like Roy and Hillhurst and the rest. "And there's always been soldiers maneuvering around here more or less, at first only a few and then more and more, until now—•
Hasn't Seen Cantonments
"But except for people coming and going and dying and being born and so on, there wasn't so much change after all, until the army post came. Some new folks came and some old ones moved away, but some stayed right where their folks was in the early days. A good many of those that stayed voted against the post. Some's glad to get the chance to sell their land; but some don't want to leave the old places. "No, I haven't been over to see the work. It's right close, and I suppose I'll go and see it some day."
And Judge Huggins, who had walked down the road with me, waved goodbye and turned back before it led to the last and greatest change that has come to the prairie.