North Cascades

SETTLEMENT PATTERNS IN THE NORTH CASCADES

CORRIDORS OF SETTLEMENT: CASCADE RIVER

Davis

The story of Mrs. Davis is closely interwoven with the history of the North Cascades. It survives today because of diaries, photographs, scrapbooks, and other materials she and her children kept over the years. Their time on the Cascade River marks only a short segment of their simple and rewarding life in the mountains. [30] Mrs. Lucinda J. Davis and her family came to the Cascade River in 1890 after learning of her brother George Leach's death. George and another brother, Will Leach, had arrived in the area in 1884, eventually taking claims along the river. George's claim encompassed 157 acres on the northern bank, and it was here that he cleared some land, made a few improvements, and lived until his death. Will Leach encouraged Lucinda to come and claim George's homestead and, in July of 1890, she and her three young children left their home in Denver, Colorado, bound for Seattle. Traveling by train, steamboat, stage coach, canoe, and ferry, the family finally reached their destination on foot. Shortly thereafter, they began to clear "quite a piece of ground," and to settle into their new home. [31]

Remarkably, within two years' time, the family had cleared enough land to plant a small garden of potatoes, alfalfa, oats, onions, peas, cabbage, popcorn, and beans. They also grew raspberries and picked other berries to supplement their garden produce, and had a cow for milk, and some chickens. [32]

The Davises' existence was typical of most early settlers'. Hard work was a way of life and concessions were constantly being made. On her son Frank's birthday on January 1, 1897, Lucinda wrote in her diary: "Frankie is 20 years old today and I have no present for him again. These are the days I get tired of poverty." [33]

Neighbors, though few and far between, interacted by providing both physical assistance and social distractions, as well as occasional conflict. Lucinda wrote in 1896, "During this week Barretts were mad and Taylor got mad about not being helped with potatoes, and Barretts and Davies quarreling and the neighborhood in a regular comotion [sic]." But community dances and other social activities helped dissipate bad feelings, and oftentimes at Christmas gifts were exchanged among the settlers. One year Lucinda received a wash bowl and fresh meat from a neighbor as a present. [34]

High hopes for improved conditions on the homestead were shattered in November 1897, when the Cascade River swelled to an unprecedented level, flooding out families along its banks. Anticipating a loss, the Davises worked quickly to move their household belongings to safer ground. The high waters completely destroyed the homestead, and their land was severely eroded. [35] Abandoning their efforts on the Cascade, the family headed up the Skagit River to Cedar Bar in 1898. This move was not unforeseen; since 1893 the family had spent summers operating a roadhouse along the Skagit River at the head of navigation, and they knew the upper Skagit country well. [36] It was here at Cedar Bar where the family settled in, establishing a business and way of life for themselves that they maintained until the late 1920s.