Pest Houses

 

Perhaps an unfortunate ancestor spent time in a pest house? Why? What were "pest houses" anyway? (The above image spotlights a YouTube video.)

"Pest House," is the sad term for an isolated hospital, often away from towns, often shoddily built and poorly maintained and the condition of those housed there was often quite awful. 

Back in the day, people with contagious or communicable diseases such as leprosy, TB, cholera, diphtheria, smallpox, typhus and many more, were shunted away from society for there was no effective treatment or cure. Such unfortunates were isolated until they either somehow recovered or died. "Municipalities in the day didn't want to waste county money on caring for the walking dead." (HereLiesAStory.com, 16 Jun 2023)

Arrival ocean ports often had quarantine areas...as did our own Washington:

(U.S. Marine Quarantine Hospital on Diamond Point, between Sequim and Port Townsend 1905.)

In the early 1900s, Spokane County had a "pest house" located in Riverside State Park, near the Bowl and Pitcher, to isolate those with contagious diseases.

Seattle's "pest house" was on Beacon Hill, a location chosen "due to its proximity to a town dump and a gully used for waste disposal." The description of this place reads like a horror movie script: "filthy floors, leaky roofs, lacking proper sanitation, totally dilapidated." (The place was destroyed by fire in 1914 and the site became a golf course. HistoryLink.org, #2157.)

Blessedly, the need for such places disappeared with the advent of vaccines to cure many diseases. Do watch that YouTube video.

 

Ode to Glass

 Disclaimer:  I snipped this from the James Bay Victoria Beacon newspaper in March 2025 when I visited Butchart Gardens. I thought it was SO GOOD that I had to share. Big thanks, Colin Couper.

Water is required to wipe away dirt, and to clean away the haze,

it only takes a little work and now I look on brighter days.

I can see right through you, I can see through your pane,

you're really quite special, when we all can see again.

From in the house, you protect me, shield me from the rain and cold,

in the mirror you reflect my image that shows me getting old.

You can totally change my outlook, spectacles correct my outward vision,

You're even on the Hubble telescope, where you're grounded to precision.

Now you can hold your liquor, lots of whiskey, wine and beer,

you can be molded in beauty and can be made crystal clear.

You are strong but also you are brittle, both at the same time,

and your character can be shattered, broken at the scene of crime.

As a windshield on the open highway, you keep debris from our eyes,

and sadly, we take you for granted, no longer a bright surprise.

You are truly a unique specimen in society a needed touch of class,

so, to you we raise our drinking vessels as we thank, and toast you, Mr. Glass.

Miscellaneous

 

Q: If your house was on fire, or if a wildfire was heading your way, and you only had time to save 5 things, what would they be??? Think about it. It could happen to YOU.

** Parmesan Ice Cream? An unusual flavor of ice cream graced spoons in the 1700s: parmesean. The first-ever recipe for Parmesean cheese ice cream was published in 1789. Would you like it?

**In Japan, various flavors of Kit-Kat candy bars are available. These include cough drop, rum raisin, melon with mascarpone, sake wasabi, matcha, strawberry and melty caramel. Which one would you try?

** In Thailand, folks can buy Oreo-flavored Coco-Cola and Coca-Cola flavored Oreos. Really!

** Petrichor is the word for the smell of rain. How would YOU describe the smell of rain?

** Brontology is not the study of brontosauers but is the study of thunder. File that in your "when-I-go-on-Jeopardy" file. 

** Spokane Daily Chronicle, Monday, April 4, 1949: Documents Indicate Woman Died at 117.  Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. "Sarah E. Moore of Rathdrum died there Saturday and her age was determined to have been 117. Mrs. A.A. Berges (Donna's note: her stepmother), with whom the widow of a Civil War veteran had lived, said today that papers among her effects showed conclusively that she was born in South Carolina on April 4, 1832. She had lived with Mrs. Berges for 20 years." Sarah rests in Forest Cemetery in Coeur d'Alene.

End of the Indian Wars, Part 3

 

 

The following article, The End of the Indian Wars, was published in The Cashmere Valley Record, Vol. 30, No. 8, on 20 February 1936. I share it with you because it was of interest to Washington history buffs. Part 3:

 Princess Angeline, Chief Seattle's daughter.

As to just how the warning reached the white people we do not know. You may have noticed when visiting Lakeview cemetery, Volunteer Park, in Seattle, that the grave of Princess Angeline is in a prominent location. Tradition has it that this girl, who was Seattle’s daughter, was the one that warned the whites of the impending attack. True or not, it is fitting, in view of other valued services to the white settlers on the part of Seattle and his family, that she should thus rest near the Carmack, Libby and Denny plots.

Only one more battle should be mentioned in this campaign. A detachment of soldiers was opening up a road from Puyallup to Muckilshoot Prairie. A group of Indians attacked them but were repulsed, the soldiers suffering only slight losses.

With only a few more skirmishes, the war was given up by the Indians. The whites had held Seattle, had built blockhouses on Whidbey Island, on the White River and at a dozen other places throughout the territory. The Indian cause was lost.

We can close this description of what, had we lived then, would have been a vivid and exciting time, but to read it is only one horror story after another by showing what grew out of the Indian Wars. The most important result was the ratification of Stevens’ Indian treaties which opened the territory to settlement. The department of Oregon Military Affairs was created which would give the settlers greater protection in the future.

Perhaps the greatest interest to us from this period is the series of names that are remembered in Washington geography: Wright, Seattle, Steptoe, Leschi and Klickitat. After all, that is one of the interesting things in any period of the past.

End of the Indian Wars, Part 2

 

The following article, The End of the Indian Wars, was published in The Cashmere Valley Record, Vol. 30, No. 8, on 20 February 1936. I share it with you because it was of interest to Washington history buffs. Part 2:

But the sympathetic point of view held by Wright was later proved to be mistaken. No matter how we may feel personally, we must recognize the dangers and trails felt by the settlers and the responsibility placed on the shoulders of the military command. Accordingly, when a band of Palouses entered the Walla Walla Valley on a marauding expedition, the realization came that sympathy was not enough.

In April, 1857, Col. Steptoe notified his superior that a general expedition against the tribes north of Walla Walla seemed advisable. This was the start of the Steptoe-Wright campaign which lasted for the greater part of the two following hears. Only the barest outline of details need concern us here. The battle of Steptoe Butte and the battle of Spokane Plains were the two principle military events. The latter engagement was fought on the land where Fort George Wright had later been built. (Donna’s note: not so; that battle was fought miles west of where the fort was constructed on the western side of Spokane.)

But to retrace our steps to the Sound area for a time. The Indians continually invaded the settlements and burned farm homes almost at will. A blockhouse fort was built near where the Totem pole now stands on Yessler Way in Seattle and the settlers prepared themselves for a siege. The warship, Decatur, Capt. Guert Gransevoort commanding, was standing in the harbor ready to assist the settlers.

By some means, more or less in question, word reached the settlers of an intended attack. On January 26, 1856, the attack was made. All day volleys from the howitzer, which stood in front of Dexter Horton’s store, and the rifles and pistols of the men were answered from the woods. But at night the attack was finally repulsed. The town was safe.

(Copied from Wikipedia article on the Decatur: During the early 1850s, hostility grew between the Native peoples and the new settlers in the Puget Sound region. The "Decatur" and several other government ships were moved to the area to protect the settlers. On January 26, 1856, following word of a planned attack on Seattle, troops on the "Decatur" fired howitzers into the forest beyond Third Avenue where a group of Indigenous peoples had gathered. The Native peoples retreated, burning buildings as they went.)

Please stay tuned for Part 3 next time.

End of the Indian Wars, Part 1

 

The following article, The End of the Indian Wars, was published in The Cashmere Valley Record, Vol. 30, No. 8, on 20 February 1936. I share it with you because it was of interest to Washington history buffs.

 

The next time you drive from Spokane to Pullman and Lewiston, take particular notice of Steptoe Butte. If you have ever driven over this road you will remember it, for it is a landmark for miles around. It was a guide post for the gold seekers at Colville and Pierce and for missionaries, stockmen and homesteaders.

The hill was named for Lt. Col. Steptoe, one of Col. George Wright’s assistants in the Indian Wars of the ‘50s. During the summer of 1856, and throughout 1857 and 1858, the Indian troubles had continued on about the same three fronts as already noted: the Seattle-Puget Sound country, the Yakima Valley, and the Palouse-Walla Walla area. Col. Wright had wintered at Vancouver and had started upstream in March. Leaving the portage around the rapids in the Columbia, from which the city of The Dalles, Ore., takes its name, guarded by a handful of men, he pushed on, heading for Walla Walla and the upper country.

It was at this portage that the Indians resumed the war on March 26, 1856. An attack was made and several whites killed and scalped. Help arrived from Vancouver under Sheridan just in time to avoid a complete massacre. Thus the first state of the ’56 campaign ended in the whites’ favor. Col. Wright then crossed Simcoe Pass to the Yakima Country. Here Wright, who clung to the idea that the Indians had been wronged, spent several months in parleying for peace.

But the governor remembered well his experiences at the hands of the Nez Perces. They had saved his life…and he well knew it. He therefore determined to place a force at Walla Walla that would insure the fair treatment of his friends.

Col. Wright, avoided going to the “aid” of the Nez Perces, and sent Col. Steptoe instead. The Governor went himself to try and make another peace, but it fared little better than the big peace council formerly held there. The two factions had too many differences…there was too much involved. As a result of this 1856 failure, Gen. Wool, commanding the regular army regiments concerned, ordered the area vacated by all except soldiers and missionaries. And, too, Fort Walla Walla was built…just where the present city stands.

Please stay tuned for Part 2 next time.

 

Trivia Time

 Hopefully we're into the hottest days of summer, so tiz a good time for some genealogy and history trivia!

"In the 1800s the method of making one plank (long board cut from a log) was that a pit was dug. The tree was placed over the pit. Two men would go into the pit, and two men would be on top of the log and together they would handsaw each plank. The men down in the pit would get sawdust in their eyes and that was how the expression "it's the pits!" originated."  (Church of Our Lord tour guide, Victoria, BC)

In November, 1217, the 10-year-old King Henry III signed a charter giving England's common people some legal rights for the first time. One big provision is that the concept of "royal forests," where common folks could not hunt and poaching was a death sentence. This new rule reduced the size of these off-limits forests and restored ancient hunting rights. (History Magazine, from England, 2024)

Ever heard of Frozen Charlotte Dolls? Frozen Charlotte dolls are small, solid, porcelain or bisque dolls that were popular in the mid-1800s to early 1900s, particularly in Europe and the United States. They are named after a popular poem and song about a young woman named Charlotte who froze to death while refusing to bundle up for a winter carriage ride. The dolls were mass-produced in Germany and became a common bath toy and a relatively inexpensive children's toy.