Happy Throwback! For a deeper appreciation of our county’s history and its impact on the world, I once again switch from places to natives of Washington County. Allow me to introduce you to Arthur Armstrong Denny, born in between Salem and Kossuth in 1822.
His family & parents migrated here in 1815 from Kentucky and later left for Illinois in 1834, where they lived for 16 years. During that time, John Denny, the father of the subject of this throwback, formed a friendship with Abraham Lincoln. In 1851, Arthur A. Denny was appointed the leader of a group of immigrants who were migrating west across the Oregon Trail. They were known as the Denny Wagon Train and departed for the 108 day trip, from Cherry Grove, Illinois on April 10th, 1851. Arriving in Portland in late August, Arthur sent his brother, David & another settler, John Low, north to the present site of the Puget Sound to explore the possibility of settling next to deep water.
In November of that year, Arthur led a party of 12 adults and 12 children to settle the new frontier of Alki Point, the site of present day Seattle, Washington. In 1853, he was appointed the first postmaster and was the town’s leading merchant, he served from 1853 to 1857 in the Washington Territorial House of Representatives and was the President of the Seattle and Walla Walla Railroad. He became the richest man in the state of Washington and in 1864 was elected to the 39th US Congress. Many sites in and around the state of Washington are named in his honor, he died there in 1899.
You can read much more about this man in the next edition (winter) of The Historian magazine, which you can purchase at the Stevens Museum!
So yeah, Seattle, Washington,….you’re welcome! Washington County History is awesome!
Enjoy the day and make it Historic!
Jeremy Elliott, Stevens Memorial Museum
