Pioneer Days on Puget Sound Quotes

“The man who had the best stock of health and the most faith and pluck, was the most wealthy, for we were all capitalists in those days. Each one expected to help himself, and as a rule all went to work with energy to open up the country and make homes for themselves, and at the same time they were ever ready to help each other in case of need or misfortune, and I will presume to say that if the people now possessed more of the spirit that then actuated the “old moss backs,” as some reproachfully style the old settlers, we would hear less about a conflict between labor and capital, which in truth is largely a conflict between labor and laziness. We had no eight hour, nor even ten hour days then, and I never heard of any one striking, not even an Indian”
― Arthur A. Denny, Pioneer Days on Puget Sound

“The object of all who came to Oregon in early times was to avail themselves of the privilege of a donation claim, and my opinion to-day is that every man and woman fully earned and merited all they got, but we have a small class of very small people here now who have no good word for the old settler that so bravely met every danger and privation, and by hard toil acquired, and careful economy, saved the means to make them comfortable during the decline of life. These, however are degenerate scrubs, too cowardly to face the same dangers that our pioneer men and women did, and too lazy to perform an honest day’s work if it would procure them a homestead in paradise. They would want the day reduced to eight hours and board thrown in.”
― Arthur A. Denny, Pioneer Days on Puget Sound

“The first religious service in Seattle was by Bishop Demers, a Catholic, in 1852. The next was by Rev. Benjamin F. Close, a Methodist, who came to Olympia in the spring or early summer of 1853, and made several visits to Seattle during the summer and fall, and the same season Rev. J. F. DeVore located at Steilacoom. C. D. Boren donated two lots for a Methodist Episcopal church, and in November, 1853, Rev. D. E. Blaine and wife arrived.”
― Arthur A. Denny, Pioneer Days on Puget Sound