- Henry Yesler was a middle-aged man when he arrived at Elliott Bay in October 1852 and quickly established himself as the most important resident of the rain-swept little spot that would soon become Seattle. He had the first steam-powered sawmill on Puget Sound up and running within months, and for several years he employed almost every male settler in Seattle and a considerable number of Native Americans. His mill was early Seattle’s only industry, and without it the town’s development would have been greatly delayed. For the first 40 years of Seattle’s existence Yesler, joined in 1858 by his wife, Sarah Burgert Yesler (1822-1887), played a part in nearly every important civic event and undertaking and held several public offices, although he was largely uninterested in politics. Known as both a generous benefactor and a litigious rascal, such was the respect granted him by contemporaries that his less-admirable traits were largely ignored by chroniclers of the city’s early history. Yesler’s sawmills were only sometimes profitable, and success in other industries and commerce usually eluded him, but by the time of his death his large property holdings in what had become the city’s commercial core made him wealthy beyond all expectations.