alleged killer of Judah Church (archive.org)

TODO

Identify this Hancock from Port Townsend

accusation of

Sla-hai

note

Elsehwere Kautz uses the spelling Sla-hai.

on this day

May 29th [of 1853]. The doctor [John Miller Haden] and I, piloted by Col. Eby, tramped to a little settlement on Penn’s cove, called Coveland. Here Capt. Boscoe and Dr. Lansdale were holding claims preparatory to the inauguration of a big city, which, however, can only be realized after they have provided a water supply for the future occupants. Dr. Lansdale lives in a little hut on the edge of the prairie at the head of the cove. Capt. Boscoe was building a trading store.
Old Maj. Snow had a store, which we visited and where we met a Dr. Vincent and a Mr. Howe. Their trade supplies, however, came from the mainland, which can only be reached by boat. The [Penn] cove is a deep indentation in the [Whidbey] island, about two miles wide and six miles long. It is a beautiful bay and thoroughly protected, but it can only be approached by large ships from the south around Skagit head, a circumlocution of great length.

random

snippet of

I was obliged to discharge the guide I had obtained at New York [Alki], as I had found him gambling in the Suqualmish camp and he had shown himself worthless in other respects. An Indian loitered about our camp for two days, offering to inform against the murderer of [Judah] Church, if he were paid for it. I put him off, and on the evening of the 29th, Hancock came over from Port Townsend and told me that the Indians had told him that one Sla-kai, a Skagit Indian, had killed Church. The next day [May 30, 1853] a man named Martin Tafster agreed to get the Indian if the matter were kept quiet. So I decided to visit Dungeness and return on the east side of Whidby island through Deception passage, where it was said that the Indian could be found.

tags

when

1853-05-29