Artifact
Image by A.Davey
The label accompanying this trophy at the Westport Maritime Museum says:
– – ———————————— – 1860———————————— – –
Unearthed at Old Fort Chehalis, Westport, Washington.
Top loading wood stove.
This pencil sketch gives a pretty good idea of how this stove looked in 1860 at Old Fort Chehalis. Evidence from the recovered top tells that it turned sideways to put in more wood and that there was no end door. The top exhibited here was exhumed from the sand dunes at the Old Fort site and must have been buried for more than 100 years. It was badly rusted and no other parts were recovered.
Fort Chehalis was established to protect the citizens from Indian attacks. During the Fort’s existence, not a single shot was fired at the hostile Indians.
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There are several topics to comment on here.
The first is the way this object is displayed. The other is the so-called "hostile Indians" referred to on the label
Currently, the stove lid is not just an artifact. The fancy carpentry on the frame and the gold paint convert the old stove lid into a piece of local-historical-society kitsch. The finders were thrilled about their discovery, which was obviously a prize, and they wanted a display equal to the excitement of that special moment when they first spied a piece of rusty metal at the site of the Old Fort.
As for the paint, it too is part of the kitsch. Black would have been more authentic but less special. However, the designs do stand out more against gold than black.
In the end, it’s better off like this than if it were still sitting in its oxidized state at the back of a lower shelf of a dimly lighted display case.
The other topic is Old Fort Chehalis and the "hostile" Indians mentioned on the stove lid’s label.
Here’s one version of the story, found on a non-objective memorial marker:
"This tablet was placed by Robert Gray Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution June 1929 to mark the site of Fort Chehalis which was established in 1860 for the protection of white settlers."
This is all very John Wayne.
Now, for the real story. The Thumbnail History of Westport provides some context:
Chehalis Tribal peoples initially populated the area now known as Westport. The Chehalis ate fish as a diet staple, and constructed longhouses with one end open to the water for easy salmon collection.
When non-Indians started arriving, diseases such as smallpox and malaria spread. But it wasn’t until 1853 — and the landed settlement of the new arrivals — that disease truly devastated the Chehalis Tribe. A smallpox outbreak originating from a boat in Neah Bay was referred to as the Big Sick. Thousands of Chehalis died, and the village was all but abandoned.
/ / /
The new arrivals made themselves at home while the remaining Chehalis found themselves pushed out. In 1855 on behalf of the United States government, Isaac Stevens (1818-1862) asked the Quinault, Queets, Cowlitz, Shoalwater, and Chehalis tribes to cede rights to their land and settle onto a reservation. The "offer" contained a serious caveat that the reservation wasn’t guaranteed location on their native land. The Chehalis refused, and were labeled a "non-treaty" tribe, meaning that non-Indian settlers continued claiming Chehalis land, and the Indians received no compensation from the government. The Chehalis were eventually granted a parcel of land in the southeastern corner of what is now Grays Harbor County.
www.historylink.org/File/10723
www.historicalmarkerproject.com/markers/HM1XVA_fort-cheha…
Next, let’s see what a real history book says about the relations between settlers and Native Americans at Gray’s Harbor:
"ln 1860 the army arrived at Westport in the form of Captain Maurice Maloney, Mrs. Maloney, and 60 troopers from Fort Steilacoom."
"Ostensibly they came to Point Chehalis to protect settlers from local natives, although tribal resistance to white encroachment actually had ended four years earlier in western Wash-ington and two years earlier east of the moun-tains."
"Some speculated that the ‘danger’ was concocted by Captain Thomas Wright, owner of a steamboat, who wanted to enhance his business. Wright brought the Chehalis River its first stern-whee ler in 1859, the 115-foot, open- hulled Enterprise."
"The previous year he had plied it to great advantage on British Columbia ‘s Fraser River during the gold rush there. On the Chehalis River, however, he hit snags and shoals and, before the first season was out, tied the vesse l to a tree and went out on foot to Olympia."
"Few actual functions were performed at Fort Chehalis (at the sandy point just ins ide today’s Westport harbor ) other than Captain Maloney’s attempts to enforce laws against selling liquor to native people."
"In June 1861 troops were ordered East to fight in the Civil War, and the fort fell silent . Settlers bought most of the buildings and moved them to various sites around the harbor."
Source: Exploring Washington’s Past: A Road Guide to History. Carmela Alexander and Ruth Kirk. University of Washington Press; 2 edition (December 1, 1995)
books.google.com/books?id=BNAYPXb22sYC&pg=PA461&l…
In conclusion, the Westport Maritime Museum would do its visitors and the surviving Chehalis people a service by removing the reference to "hostile Indians" or posting a label explaining that resistance to White encroachment had ended by the time the fort was established, and that the label on the stove-lid display reflects the ignorant and racist attitudes towards Native Americans at the time the display and the original label were created.
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