Transcript of article from The Seattle Times, Sunday June 10, 1945.

By Margaret Pitcairn Strachan

Since Seattle was a very small village, the wonders of the place have been extolled by its citizens. The remarkable climate, the beauties of Puget Sound, the marvelous vegetation - in short, everything provided by nature has been praised, as well as those extras which man himself has produced.

One might suppose that the hardships of the voyage from New York across the Isthmus of Panama to San Francisco, and finally on to Puget Sound, as well as the difficulties of pioneer life, would have dampened the ardor of men and women like Daniel Crane and his wife, Catherine Rogers Crane. Daniel brought his wife, his daughter, Laura, and her husband, Isaac Hall, west in 1864. Laura and Isaac stopped off in San Francisco, where they remained for about a year while Laura was having her first baby. Daniel and Catherine came as far as Port Townsend in a sailing vessel, although Daniel's funds were getting low, because money he had received from the sale of his Iowa farm depreciated in value. The ship stopped at Port Townsend for repairs, and Daniel persuaded the owner of a small schooner to bring them the rest of the way to Seattle for the last $7 he possessed.

Penniless, the couple walked about the town. At the corner of Fourth and Madison streets Daniel stopped beside a fir tree to gaze at the magnificent view spread before him. Then suddenly something prompted him to look down at his feet. There on the grass lay six silver half-dollars! This unexpected good fortune seemed like an omen and Daniel soon got a job as a turner in Yesler's Mill. Later he went back and purchased these northeast corner lots.

By 1866 Catherine and Daniel were comfortably settled in their new home, and Laura and her husband had come north to live with them. Catherine, Laura, and Daniel each sent a long letter to their relatives back in Iowa telling of the marvels of their newly adopted country.

Laura wrote, "Father says the farm may go to pot, he ain't going back, and I ain't either and neither is Mother. It is only a waste of words for you and Bell to be saying come back, for we ain't coming back. Goodness, if you could see the ground how it is covered with blackberry vines & those vines all covered over & over with blossoms & salmon berry & thimble berrys and huckle berries & I don't know what all. I've got to stop and get dinner. I believe I will have fried ham, mashed potatoes and some fritters & dried apples and peaches, there are a few green apples in town yet. I guess they will last untill apples come again. I have a nice snowball & a rose - some wild roses & other wild flowers in a boquet. The snowball is large & beautiful. Our garden looks schoocum."

Daniel's accompanying letter said: "Dear children & friends. I embrace this opprtunity of writing you a few lines to inform you that I enjoy good health. My rhumatism has all left me & I can't be still I can't sit down & reed but a very short time on Sunday or week days before my legs will cary me off some place out to the lake fishing. Down on the Dock to look at the Shiping or something of that sort. They all say times is very dull here at this time & yet common wages is $2 per day and mecanics from 3 to 5 dollars per day. I was very sorry to hear that the farm had fell back for too reasons it will set me back some & cause Bewel to have more cares on his mind however he must do the best he can with it & not make any calculation on my coming back to it for I say now as I have said before If you all was here I would rather be here without one cent than be back there as I was before the sale others might not like it but I do it is the place I Dreamed of the most beautiful sheat of water & surroundings. I will try to draw the shape of the bay and sound in sight from our house which is about one hundred feet above the bay & nearly the same above the town so we can look down on all that is going on see the vessels arrive & depart see the pile driver with a hammer weighing 1700 lbs. Driving piles. The banks is covered with timber Evergreen with some small clearings & buildings it is delightful to get up in the morning & see the ships & sloops & plungers & canoes & then the society is tip top well informed & none of your stuck ups all dress well. Yesterday there was a man an old sailor I giss got tight 2 men threw him down drug him under the pump & turned the water on his head & rite in his face. I thought they weould drown him They soon sobered him tho."

A good picture of life in Seattle in 1866 is given in Catherine's letter, written shortly after the arrival of the Mercer Girls. It reads: "10 oclock the work done up and a long chapter of some of the voyage of those New England Ladies I think that you will get the history of the same in the Puget Sound Weekely the authorist lives cloce to us I hope she with all the Ladies will pay all of the expence it caust him (Mr.Merser) to get the Ladys hear there is a piece in the Chichago Tribune that speeks very disrespecful of Mr. Mersers expadition but such is the way of the World. I wish Ema was hear to be under some of their instruction. I think they would be good company for her Laura has an invitation to join the Singers this morning and it is time to fix for church. Pa says he will stay with the children this time for it is not fashionable to take the children to church hear We all went to the dedication of the Protestant Methodist last Sabath the Bell has not rung yet so I will continue to write… Mrs. Ammon said she would like to know how much it cost us to get hear it cost us visiting and all togather 800 Just hear that bell I asked your Father how far it can be heard he said 20 miles for it is heard on Black River and that is 20 miles We are back from church we had good singing and good Sermon and we had a site of all the new comers we could tell them in one moment for they were badly tanned or sunburnt I had an introduction to several they all have traids or educated as teachers one of the Ladies were offered 4 Dolars and her Board to come and be governess in his familey but she declined I cant say whether she will be beter herself or not there is 15 boarding at the house where I stoped with that sick child that Lady gave me 10 to do. Just for nine days I shook hands with her today I think without any exception she is the sweetest Lady I was ever acquainted with and all of her neighbors speek in high prais of her her sweet little baby died the Bell is toling every 60 seconds there is a funeral procesion the child is brought from Port Madison they have buried 3 hear befor them children get to a certain age then die there is not one sick in Seattle as I know of and the wether is most delightful Dora is getting as fleshy as she was before she had the hooping cough Franke looks a littl worsted but he can walk all over."

Another section of the letter explains that Catherine is staying at home sewing for " a Lady that is going to Portland Oregon this is a fast country they are all like birds fly and then lite then rise and fly again and light in some other place so if you should hear of us arising and liting don’t be scairt if I thought we could be as nicely fixed in Cal as we are hear it would cost us less for us to go back than for you all to come hear we might look for months to find us a plesant place then that would cost more than it would cost to go back but with the exception of the Golden Gate and its surroundings I saw nothing to compare there is an Island close to San Francisco that has a States prison and is covered with Buildings the Island looks like a large rock but there is sheep and cattle on it when we came in site of the Gate the Ship stoped then they fired off 2 cannon and then there was a man come out - examined the ship to see that everything was right & then we sailed in. There was no part of California that could compare with the scenery hear when we were in Cal it was called winter or the rainey season and the ground was gray and vair but the grass began to grow before we left I did not fall in love with Cal but I did with some of the fruit and some of the tables we saw for the fruit and vegitables that were on them. We will miss the grapes hear I am afraid but I think that from the prospect for fruit I think we wont suffer on that Score Come hear and by 6 acres that lie cloce behind our 2 lots it can be easly cleared and you can have all that this country does produce and it would be all we could want to eat grapes excepted I cant tell what it could be got for but it would cost some Dora and I have just come in ffom a walk Sarah you remember when we went to Wintonset we gathered goos berrys well there is thousands of such bushes just close behind our lots for we live close and on the same street with the University but not in town the ground is literly strewed with vines that is with white blossoms for you know that it is still May the goos berrys are small yet but I think they will be as large by the 12 of June as those were that we pict if not larger then there is a little plant that is all over the ground that looks a little like strawberry with one blosom just in the senter they say it is the most delacut berry in this country there was a Lady said they were as long as the end of her finger and when you pict them we must eat them a mediately or they would melt that will suit me very well Dora and I can go not ten rods from the dore and see thousands of floweres I wish that little Walter was with me and he should go and pick some two."

Daniel returned in 1870 to Iowa, after the building of the Union Pacific Railroad, and brought the rest of his family back to Seattle. His daughter, Sarah, had married Walter Buel Hall, the brother of Isaac. Laura and Isaac in the meanwhile had built their own home on the present Y. M. C. A. property.

Finding they had outgrown the tiny house on Madsion Street, the Cranes built two larger houses on Fourth Street in the same block sometime in the 1870's. The other half of the block between Madison and Spring Streets was bought by James McNaught, who built his mansion there in 1883 as described in the article on the McNaught family. Matt Kell, the druggist, had his residence on Fifth Street in the same block, and there was another house on Spring near the Fifth Street corner. All these dwellings were removed when the Seattle Public Library was built.

Daniel Crane died in Seattle April 5, 1887. He had been born in Indiana, March 7, 1810. His wife died March 5, 1882. At Daniel's death Sarah Crane Hall inherited 40 acres of land, and on this property about 1896, the Halls built a large home, which is standing today at 318 15^th Ave.

It is 79 years since Daniel, Catherine and Laura wrote to their family, praising the beauties of the Northwest and refusing to return to their Iowa farm. Such vivid descriptions of the country must have been written by many Seattle pioneers to loved ones back East. Ths helped bring more and more people to Puget Sound, and thus the Hamlet on Elliott Bay grew into a town and then into a city.

Daniel would find the view form Fourth Avenue and Madison Street quite different today and would look in vain for Yesler's Mill. Caterine could no longer step 10 rods from her door to pick wild flowers! The old fir tree where Daniel found his six silver half-dollars disappeared long ago. But newcomers to the city still are writing letters praising the scenery!

Submitted by Stacey Davis November 3, 2000

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