Surrounded by salty ocean breezes, profound silence, and broad vistas of the Atlantic Ocean, John and Catherine MacLeod celebrated the birth of a baby boy in May 1815. Their thatched-roof home on Sithean or "Fairy Knoll" lay at the westernmost edge of Geàrrannan, a seaside village on the Scottish Isle of Lewis in the northern Hebrides. Christened John MacLeod, the baby became known as "Iain ‘an ‘ic ‘Iain," or "John the son of John the son of John." The baby’s father, John MacLeod Sr., a "crofter" or farmer by trade, toiled on acreage leased from others. As the MacLeod’s eldest son came of age, he too worked the land, managed the livestock (sheep and cattle), and fished commercially. These activities took precedence over an education. A contemporary referred to him as "a splendid looking man physically [and]…well behaved." His participation in local sports competitions earned him a reputation for strength and endurance.

But athletic events were not the only thing that gave John standing in the village. Private family whiskey stills were commonplace at the time and, on various occasions, John could be found jug in hand with "rosy cheeks and a ‘spur in the head.'" Keeping the stills hidden from the prying eyes and greedy pockets of tax collectors was practically impossible. In early spring of 1837, according to family lore, MacLeod

Fleeing to Stromness in the Orkney Islands, MacLeod needed to distance himself from the law. Once at the customs house, where the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) recruited employees, the 22-year-old Hebridean contracted his services for £16 per year for a five-year term beginning on May 27, 1837. Also signing that day were neighbors Donald MacDonald and Angus MacPhail. One month later all three set sail for North America aboard the ship Prince Rupert IV. After encountering bad weather in the North Atlantic and numerous delays, the vessel finally anchored off York Factory on Hudson Bay in August. There, the crofter from Lewis shortened his name to "John McLeod." He was quickly dispatched southward on the brigade trail to Manitoba where, according to family history, all were "caught by heavy snows, then a big freeze…it was the hardest winter he ever spent and would have starved if it weren’t for the buffalo they were able to kill, freezing the meat so it would keep. [John and others] also did some trapping of furs during the winter when weather permitted."

As the warmth of an 1838 spring thawed the great northern plains, McLeod, McPhail (who had also shortened his name), and dozens of others formed a brigade under HBC Chief Trader John Tod. Setting off from Fort Edmonton, the group meandered westward toward the Rocky Mountains. McLeod was considered the best packer on the trip-a testament to his strength and endurance.

Two priests, Modeste Demers and François Blanchet, joined the group toward the end of the voyage and related the events that then unfolded.

Having completed the traverse of goods to Boat Encampment by early October 1838, the brigade found that only two York boats were available for the party’s Columbia River descent. The HBC used these sturdy, clapboard-sided vessels to float some of the more challenging rivers in the region. While four vessels would have allowed the group to descend in relative safety, the decision was made to run the river with two. Chief Trader Tod, the two priests, Angus McPhail, other HBC officers, "and most of the voyageurs and freight" filled the first boat and departed. Seasoned French Canadian steersman André Chaulifoux, who had joined the brigade in Fort Edmonton, took charge of the second boat. John McLeod, several families, single men, and a newlywed couple (totaling 26 people) stowed their luggage tightly between the thwarts and took their seats. With the boat noticeably overloaded, the passengers expressed concern as Chaulifoux pushed off.

The Columbia River’s Rapids of the Dead, near present-day Revelstoke, British Columbia, was a two-tiered stretch of white water. The upper rapid develops quickly, followed by a swift but relatively horizontal section of river. A lower rapid then shifts the water into high gear once again, plummeting the less-prepared into swirling eddies and gaping whirlpools. Decades before McLeod’s passage, the grim title of Dalles des Mort had been affixed to this gauntlet due largely to its reputation for taking lives. As noted by historian J. A. Stevenson, the river’s spirited pathway presented a challenge to even the most seasoned voyageur:

As the dizzying vortex spun the boat’s occupants violently about, water poured freely over the gunwales. Simultaneously urging his oarsmen to free the boat while assuring his passengers that it would float even if fully swamped, Chaulifoux held his position at the rudder. However, as the icy water climbed up over the boat’s thwarts, panic ensued. "The men stood up and started to make their way forward so as to jump ashore," noted a witness, "but [Chaulifoux] roared at them to sit down. The women and children screamed with fright as the waters swirled around them." Passing by a low-lying rock formation, the newlywed couple ignored the steersman’s orders, stood, and leapt in tandem from the edge of the boat. When they fell short of the land, white water quickly swallowed the embracing couple. Now displaced by the lovers’ leap, the boat capsized, throwing all its remaining contents-including John McLeod-into the icy water.

Observing his clan’s motto of "Hold fast," McLeod snagged a boat oar that had remained connected to the craft. Eventually, he and Chaulifoux crawled atop the capsized vessel, which drifted along for several miles before grounding in the shallows of Arrow Lake. Chaulifoux later recalled:

We thought we heard some noise inside the boat, and [McLeod went underneath] and soon, to my unexpected joy, appeared with my little [infant] daughter who almost miraculously had been preserved by being jammed in among the luggage, and supported by the small quantity of air which had been caught by the boat when she turned over.

When they realized what had happened, neighboring Indians began searching for the "wet, bedraggled survivors and took them into camp to dry out and share a meal," according to McLeod family lore. Having righted the boat and repaired the damage, some returned to the Dalles de Mort to gather the dead. As they straggled into Fort Colvile on November 6, Chief Trader Archibald McDonald labeled the accident "one of the most appalling calamities we have experienced in the Columbia, fertile in disasters as it has ever been." While the remainder of John McLeod’s Columbia River adventure went smoothly, the shock of losing a dozen traveling companions to "an untimely grave, beneath the raging waters of the Columbia," as one HBC correspondent put it, must have weighed heavily on the young crofter’s mind.

Fort Vancouver’s massive gates swung wide upon the brigade’s arrival in late November 1838. McLeod soon found himself facing William McNeill, master of the HBC’s steamship Beaver. Largely ignorant of the English language, John learned from other Scots that he and several brigade members would work aboard McNeill’s steamship, then at anchor in Puget Sound. With the brigade’s arrival delayed by "calamitous events," McNeill had grown anxious to get his vessel under way-which meant there would be little time to rest. On hearing that he would chop wood for a steamship’s hungry engine, McLeod likely smiled, recalling the Gaelic motto, "I birn quil I se," which means "I burn but I am not consumed." With the Beaver setting off for the Northwest Coast in early December 1838, John’s five-year stint in the company’s marine service began.

Supervised by Beaver engineer Peter Arthur, McLeod familiarized himself with the company’s establishments-particularly Fort Simpson in northern British Columbia, where he spent his first winter. As his English improved and his environment grew more familiar, old habits and the engineer’s influence came to bear. Describing Arthur, Chief Trader James Douglas noted, "He is well qualified and attentive to his duty; but his conduct, in other respects, has been improper, and his very intemperate habits detract considerably from his general merits." Though no official record mentions it, McLeod likely tipped more than a few glasses as a Beaver crewman.

On Puget Sound, Fort Nisqually had been established as the steamer’s southernmost anchorage. For the next two years, McLeod came ashore at Sequalitchew Creek where he familiarized himself with the Nisqually/Cowlitz Indians who populated the beachfront area. By early spring 1841, Arthur had been replaced by Joseph Carless as the Beaver’s engineer. Carless quickly determined that the Beaver’s large boilers were about to fail. Subsequently, the vessel was kept indefinitely at Nisqually until repairs could be addressed. During this lengthy delay, McLeod and his shipmates lived both at the fort and on board the Beaver. As the steamer’s furnace stood cold, McNeill tasked the crofter and his shipmates with various projects, including erecting a 30-by-60-foot beachfront storehouse for the Beaver’s use. Aside from construction projects, McLeod’s duties took him to Fort Vancouver with mail, and at one point he burned wood on the Nisqually plains to create coal reserves for the steamer’s next voyage.

In May 1841 the arrival of the United States Exploring Expedition, under the leadership of Commander Charles Wilkes, brought a heightened level of activity to the neighborhood. McLeod and his shipmates reveled in the feast given by Wilkes’s men at the famous Independence Day celebration. Weeks and months faded into years, and McLeod agreed to a second five-year contract. The movements of a particular Cowlitz Indian girl may have caught his eye at this time.

T’Lal-quo-dote S’Ka-ná-wuh was the youngest daughter of the influential Cowlitz Tyee Clapat S’Ka-ná-wuh. A man described by the HBC’s North American governor George Simpson as one of the region’s most powerful chiefs, S’Ka-ná-wuh lost his life to Snohomish raiders in 1828. His infant daughter, ransomed by her abductors, eventually became a ward of the HBC and thus received the anglicized name of "Mary" by the mid 1830s. The summer of 1843 found the 16-year-old girl taken in by Joseph and Marie Carless. Mary’s domestic situation (as either servant or ward of the Carless family) and her ongoing presence aboard the Beaver gave the teen various opportunities to interact with the 28-year-old crofter from Geàrrannan. Likely reassigned, McLeod moved back to Fort Vancouver for a short period but then returned to the steamer as stoker at the elevated wage of £30 per year. "John says that the steamer would use 30 cords of wood in making the passage between Nisqually and Victoria," noted one of his contemporaries. This period, however, marked the end of McLeod’s seafaring days.

Transferred ashore by July 1844, McLeod began working for Fort Nisqually’s new manager, Dr. William Tolmie of Inverness, Scotland. Now communicating in English, Gaelic, and Chinook trade jargon, he assumed the duties of a general laborer/field hand at the rate of £17 per year. The establishment’s workforce faced major challenges as the old fort was slowly dismantled and carted piecemeal one mile inland to a new site. Nisqually’s farming enterprise (field crops and livestock) operated under an agrarian wing of the HBC called the Puget Sound Agricultural Company (PSAC). While his days were occupied with removing everything to the new site, the old fort continued to be his home. A clerk later recalled: "The [apple] seeds [planted in 1834] grew and some of the trees were planted near the [old] fort, and early in the [1840s] several were transplanted into the garden of the new fort. John McLeod…assisted at the removal of these trees." He also began actively courting Mary S’Ka-ná-wuh.

Small in stature with long, braided, jet-black hair that covered her aristocratically flattened head, Mary remained active even though one of her shoulders and an arm had been permanently damaged by a fall from a horse earlier in life. Though largely unrecognized by Euro-Americans, Mary’s aristocratic status made her a standout among her tribesmen. As a chief’s daughter, she was said to possessed a healer’s spirit power. Advised by Dr. Tolmie in the ways of Salish Indian culture, McLeod approached Mary’s family with a proposal of marriage in late 1844.

Indian protocol required Mary’s relatives, probably her mother Haidawuh, first cousin Lahalet (the local Nisqually chief) and perhaps older half-brother Elac-cac-ca (heir to Chief Ska-ná-wuh), to negotiate her bride price. A "simple ceremony" preceded a large feast and week-long celebration.

Joseph Heath, a "gentleman farmer" at Steilacoom Farm, a few miles north of Fort Nisqually, often mentions the McLeods in his diary. Though McLeod’s precise work location from late 1844 through spring 1845 remains uncertain, Fort Nisqually records suggest that he was engaged as a shepherd caring for flocks "parked" near the new fort. Heath affirmed this in March 1845. "I shall not have a white man nearer to me than the Fort," he bemoaned when neighbor John Edgar moved away for the summer. That same month, however, references to "McLeod’s place" began appearing in the fort’s records, signifying a residence some distance from the fort. By April, Tolmie committed laborers to build a house for McLeod "at the new station."

A contemporary noted that the crofter "performed the duties of a head shepherd, and was placed in charge of the Company’s station, or little farm, situated at the edge of Wyaatchee Lake. The buildings-house, barn, stables-were at the side of the present county road and contiguous to Gravelly or Quoi-quoi-aatche Lake." Whyatchie, as McLeod’s home was soon known, stood on the east side of present-day Steilacoom Lake, south of the spring that produces Ponce de Leon Creek and northwest of Clover Park High School.

Now comfortably housed and with crops in the ground, McLeod received a £3 "Gratuity as Assistant overseer Shepherd" for his management of flocks on the Paleilah and Puyallup plains. Four subordinate Indian shepherds cared for "three or four flocks of sheep" numbering about 1,000 head. Paleilah, the westernmost prairie under McLeod’s management, is crossed today by the upper Chambers, Leech, and Flett Creek watersheds. In terms of territory, Paleilah took in the southwest corner of present-day University Place and the Meadow Park, Oakbrook, and Steilacoom golf courses. McLeod’s easternmost herders wandered across the Puyallup Plain, an undulating tableland that arched from above Tacoma’s Old Town and Hilltop areas, down through Nalley Valley, south past Mount Tahoma High School, southeast to Wapato Lake, and to the ridge that overlooks the Puyallup Tribal Casino.

Mary became pregnant, and as November 1845 arrived she went into labor. Indian custom stipulated that she isolate herself-a cedar-bark and tule-reed mat lodge on Clover Creek had been prepared for this eventuality. Aided only by an elderly woman of the tribe (probably her mother or an older female cousin), Mary gave birth on November 6 to Catherine, or "Kitty," her only child.

For the next two years the McLeods thrived as their young daughter grew. Mary became accomplished at needlepoint and fashioned "elaborately beaded and fringed" moccasins, jackets, and shirts out of buckskin. Like other laborers within the HBC, John often sought recreation through inebriation. On New Year’s Day in 1847, Heath noted that McLeod and John Montgomery (another PSAC employee) paid him a visit and "left with their eyes sparkling and not sitting very straight upon their horses." As John’s engagement with the HBC/PSAC expired in February 1847, Heath observed: "Visit in the evening from Edgar and McLeod. The last came to say goodbye, as he is leaving the country." Departing the next day for Fort Vancouver with all his belongings, John McLeod abandoned his Indian family, apparently with the intention of starting anew elsewhere.

Fidgeting under the judgmental glances of Chief Factors James Douglas and Peter Skene Ogden at Fort Vancouver, the crofter stood, hat in hand, with his simple request to quit the service. Theoretically, this meeting took place on McLeod’s arrival at Vancouver. Chief Factor Douglas had been conducting exit interviews of this sort since the mid 1830s when "it had been resolved, to prevent the departure of any Parent, from the Country, unaccompanied by his children." Retiring servants with infants (such as daughter Kitty) were routinely "asked" to reengage until their young were old enough to travel. McLeod no doubt had heard that his superiors could be very persuasive, resorting to imprisonment, flogging, or other corporeal punishment when verbal negotiations broke down. Conceding to the inevitable, he accepted his third contract-likely insisting that it only be for two years rather than five-and returned to his wife and child at Fort Nisqually by early April 1847.

As the next few years unfolded, the couple remained at Whyatchie, managing a growing number of Indian and Hawaiian shepherds while producing potatoes and oats. Matthew Nelson was sent out in 1847 to assist McLeod with several of the outlying sheep parks and to act as cook. Together, the McLeods visited the nearby farms of John Edgar and Joseph Heath. Mary’s half-brother Elac-cac-ca (now going by the name of Klapat) and cousin Hky-you-yah (now going by Tom) worked for Heath. The visits kept John apprised of the happenings in distant ports while providing opportunities for Mary to catch up on family news.

During a visit in late 1848, Heath likely told McLeod something he mentioned in his memoirs, "about [Sutter’s] California gold mine, which is said to cover a space of 60 miles square and must be of enormous value, requiring but little labor to obtain the gold. Many are said to have obtained large fortunes already." McLeod, whose contract ran through spring 1849, still possessed the adventurous yearnings of youth. California’s gold strikes definitely caught his attention. Instead of leaving, however, John reengaged for a fourth term, though the occasion went unnoticed in the official records. Fort Nisqually’s "Journal of Occurrences" states that McLeod reengaged with the company in September 1849 yet left with several coworkers for the California goldfields.

McLeod presumably had every intention of returning, for while passing through Portland he stopped briefly at the District Court of Clackamas County and declared his intention to become a United States citizen. As the men hoofed it south, Mary and Kitty drew in close to relatives living near the fort. A period of time passed before distressing rumors began filtering back to Puget Sound detailing John’s alleged death "somewhere in the gold fields." Uncertainty now shrouded Mary’s future. A good deal of time having passed without word from her husband, Mary’s relatives concluded that he was dead and they quietly arranged her marriage to a wealthy old Indian chief of the Humptulips tribe.

John McLeod was not dead, however. In fact, the crofter’s California adventure had turned a profit. According to descendants, whether by digging for others, running a whiskey still, or through some other means, he eventually amassed $1,000 "in gold, and three little Chinese chests for which the Indians would pay a fortune in furs." By early December 1850, McLeod had returned to Oregon and obtained his U.S. citizenship. "The balance of wages (amounting to £86.6.1) due John McLeod "was this afternoon paid into his hands by Dr. Tolmie," noted the fort’s journal in early February 1851.

No doubt his arrival caught Mary and her relatives by surprise. However, she had already remarried, so John began living with Kival-a-hu-la, a Puyallup Indian woman, on upper Muck Creek Prairie in southeastern Pierce County. There he staked out an illegitimate claim of 320 acres on HBC/PSAC property. Immediately branded a squatter and trespasser by Tolmie, McLeod received various warnings outlining the invalid nature of his claim.

McLeod and Kival-a-hu-la, who bore him sons John Jr. and Edwin, quietly farmed their claim in the years prior to the territory’s Indian Wars of 1855-56. McLeod’s one-room cabin, built on the outer rim of the PSAC’s lands, was a primitive affair of logs covered over with cedar shakes. Chickens, ducks, sheep, a milk cow named Blossom, a team of horses, and a wagon occupied his barnyard. Oats, wheat, and potatoes were his primary crops.

Mary’s second husband passed away shortly after McLeod’s return, but she did not return to her first husband’s side for some time to come. While family oral traditions persist that Mary and Kitty came to live on McLeod’s Muck Creek claim just prior to the Indian War, records show that only Kitty returned, joining her father, Kival-a-hu-la and the boys. Mishandled treaty negotiations aroused a warlike response from within the neighboring tribes-including Mary’s people. Soon, white settlers were dying, but Euro-Americans with close ties to the Nisqually, Cowlitz, or the HBC carried on business as usual. Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens grew suspicious of Dr. Tolmie, the HBC, McLeod, and his Canadian neighbors-all of whom had Indian or Métis wives. As the newspaper in Olympia put it, "grave…serious-and as is supposed-well-founded suspicions were entertained…that certain persons in the county of Pierce, had been engaged in aiding and abetting the [Indian] enemy, contrary to the rules and articles of war."

Stevens’s orders to report to American authorities never reached McLeod at his Muck Creek homestead, nor did he learn that martial law had been declared. Nevertheless, the court of public opinion viewed McLeod and his neighbors as a threat, so militiamen were dispatched to capture the traitors in the interest of "public safety and self-preservation."

Seized unexpectedly on a lonely stretch of road as he hauled "a load of grain and potatoes destined to feed the U.S. Army troops at Fort Steilacoom," McLeod was roughly handled, shackled, and thrown into Fort Steilacoom’s guardhouse, according to PSAC agent Edward Huggins. Kival-a-hu-la and her two sons were likely interned on Squaxin Island, where Mary-according to family lore-had gone to attend a sick Indian. Now, with most of his family in confinement, McLeod fretted over his 11-year-old daughter Catherine, who endured the next 24 hours alone at the farm.

Catherine eventually made it to Fort Nisqually, whence Dr. Tolmie and his wife Jane sent the young girl to Fort Victoria where she came under the protection of Reverend Edward and Mary Cridge. As the war cycled down in May 1856, McLeod and the others were tried for high treason, but legal maneuvering on behalf of Fort Steilacoom’s army officers, Governor Stevens, the militia’s officers, and Judge Edward Lander brought about their acquittal of all charges.

Reoccupying their Muck Creek claim, the crofter and his extended family returned to raising oats, potatoes, cattle, and sheep. McLeod and Kival-a-hu-la had a third son, George, sometime in the late 1850s. Now a literate teen, Catherine read and wrote for her father. During this period, a letter from Geàrrannan arrived revealing that John’s supposed murder victim had eventually "recovered after the village women treated his burns with strips of cloth coated in butter." This revelation brought about further correspondence between McLeod and his Scottish siblings, letter writing that would carry on until his death.

McLeod "turned off" his Puyallup wife and exchanged vows with Englishwoman Emma Kedge in February 1861. Within six months she had abandoned him, and their divorce was finalized in 1862. Kival-a-hu-la, who resided on the Puyallup Indian Reservation with her boys, kept the "McCloud" name but did not return to Muck Creek. That summer John was nearly beaten to death with a rock by a man named Jim Riley. Family legend has it that Mary attended the barely conscious McLeod, likely saving his life. The two were never parted again.

Mary, who spoke little English and largely communicated in the Salish Lushootseed language, called her husband "Oleman." Her shaman’s work continued, as did her manufacturing of "frontier" clothing for tourists. McLeod descendant Ruby McAllister explained:

Catherine McLeod received a good education and spent time with relatives on the newly established Nisqually Indian Reservation, which was then managed by agent Daniel Mounts. The attractive 15-year-old girl eventually married the Indian War veteran in a "custom of the country" ceremony in early May 1860.

By 1862, McLeod had amassed a fairly large herd of sheep and cattle. Mother Nature, unfortunately, dismissed the crofter’s labors by plunging the territory into a series of severe snowstorms. His livestock bore the brunt of the storm damage.

In 1889, at the approximate age of 62, Kiyah Mary, daughter of Chief S’Ka-ná-wuh, Princess T’lal-quo-dote of the Cowlitz, passed away. Del McBride, a descendant, captured these memories:

John began splitting his time between his daughter’s home on Nisqually Bottoms and his own-which he now shared with grandson John Mounts. Surrounded by his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, the old crofter became a prominent fixture on the prairies of south-central Pierce County. He died at age 89 on his Muck Creek claim on April 29, 1905.

A Washington native, author, and historian, Steve A. Anderson has been writing local history, particularly on Puget Sound’s fur-trade era, for the past quarter century. This essay is dedicated to Del McBride (1920-1996), former curator of the State Capital Museum in Olympia and a McLeod descendant.