Lore - Episode 98: Never Alone

Episode Date: October 15, 2018

When tragedy strikes and poor choices haunt us, sometimes the only thing we can do is move on and build on the ashes of the past. But there are places where that hasn’t worked out so well. In fact, sometimes the worst thing we can do to history is bury it.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com Access premium content!: https://www.lorepodcast.com/support See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

He had wanted to escape the throng of busy New England, and it's hard to blame him. In fact, when he moved west in 1874, he wasn't alone. Countless others made the same decision to leave it all behind and build a new life as far from the East Coast as they could. Many of these settlers found themselves in the Pacific Northwest. Joshua arrived when Seattle was just a sawmill town, still an infant compared to the great cities of the East. Despite that, it was still a bit too crowded for his taste, so instead of settling down

with all the others, he states claim to a plot of land to the west of town, out where there were more trees than people. But the stories tell us that Joshua wasn't the most fortunate of settlers. On more than one occasion, he would pay a visit to his closest neighbors, arriving just after sundown with a panicked expression on his face, asking for shelter for the night. After a few of these visits, the neighbors eventually convinced Joshua to explain what his troubles were. His answer was simple.

Ghosts. Every night, he claimed, he was being visited by invisible spirits, sounds in the rafters of his cabin, or footsteps outside his front door. He told them he could hear voices in his house, and it had all become too much to deal with alone. The legend goes on to tell us that those neighbors eventually noticed that Joshua had stopped coming around, and after a while, they decided to go find out why. When they stepped inside his little house down the road, they were shocked to find Joshua's

body in a heap on the floor, cold and dead, his face painted with an expression of utter horror. It turns out history might hold an answer to the mystery. Joshua's land was secluded, sure, but it was also sacred. In fact, the location of his new cabin had long been used by the local Native Americans as a burial ground. Some believe that the residents there were disturbed by his arrival, disturbed enough to make his life a living nightmare.

That's the trouble with history. It's a deep, dark soil that's filled with everything a city needs to grow. The culture and events there act like nutrients, helping to move a place forward, allowing it to thrive and spread. History provides every city with roots. Most places, though, have something else. Nothing less appealing, but no less memorable, because history is also filled with tragedy and suffering and pain.

And if Joshua Winfield's story teaches us anything, it's that there's darkness buried beneath the streets of Seattle. And if the stories are true, it's never really gone away. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore. Seattle is a relatively young metropolis compared to other parts of America. The descendants of the Pilgrims had lived in their Massachusetts community of Plymouth for nearly two centuries before George Vancouver sailed into the Puget Sound in 1792. He became the first European to visit the land that would one day be home to the city

we know today, but it would take another six decades before settlers decided to give the land there a try. And when they arrived in 1851, they were led by a man named Arthur Denny. But of course, they weren't the first people to live there. In fact, archaeologists believe that humans have lived along the Puget Sound for at least 4,000 years. When Denny and his group of settlers arrived, the Native American people known as the Duwamish were already there.

And for a brief moment, it seemed that these two distinct cultures were going to get along. Instead, land got in the way. The U.S. government had begun to offer settlers free plots of land if they would transplant themselves to the northwest. In fact, each person had 320 acres of land waiting for them, free of charge, and double that for married couples. But the best of that land, the land that had already been cleared of trees and prepared for farming, already belonged to the Native Americans.

That never stopped white Europeans before, though. So true to the rest of history around the country, Denny and his friends began to slowly take that land for themselves. At first, the Duwamish people, under the rule of Chief Seattle, were accommodating and generous. But that quickly changed. Those early prominent settlers, men like Arthur Denny, Henry Yesler, and Doc Maynard, were on such good terms with Chief Seattle that they eventually named the settlement in his honor.

But as the slow trickle of settlers transformed into a flood, the culture began to shift. The newest of settlers weren't as friendly toward the Duwamish people and began to lobby their leadership for a change. What happened next is one of the darkest marks on the history of the community there. Believing themselves to be morally, culturally, and intellectually superior to the Native peoples, the settlers began to enact laws and regulations that limited their freedoms. Henry Yesler and others warned the newcomers that restrictions like that would be taken as a declaration of war, but few listened to him.

Sure enough, in early 1856, a Duwamish raiding party headed toward the town to reclaim what had been taken from them. The U.S. naval vessel, the Decatur, bombarded the Native Americans from the water, and the battle for Seattle was brought to an end. Less than a decade later, the city passed an ordinance to prohibit all Native people from its borders. While some people on both sides of the division chose to ignore the rule, it stayed on the books for many years, and sadly, it wouldn't be the last of its kind.

In 1886, when the arrival of the railroad brought an influx of hundreds of Chinese immigrants, angry mobs drove them down to the docks and onto ships bound for San Francisco. Those same docks had already become central to the economy of Seattle. Something that happened in the community, from the cutting of timber to the sawmills that reduced it to lumber, all of it ended up down by the water, where ships waited to take it all away. All of that industry needed workers, and so the land south of Henry Yesler's sawmill became a busy, crowded, unsanitary downtown.

There are stories of disease and pestilence filling in the narrow gaps between the cramped buildings, of rats and sewage problems, of makeshift homes built too close to the water. The entire district took on a sort of darkness, broken here and there by the red lights used by its inhabitants. In fact, looking down toward the docks at night, visitors were so struck by the red glow that they began to call that part of town the lava beds. Then on June 6th of 1889, that metaphor became a little too accurate. That's the day a fire broke out in the basement workshop of a cabinetmaker named Victor Claremont.

Fueled by the glue and wood shavings that filled his space, the blaze quickly expanded outward. As the story goes, the shop above his was a paint store filled with highly flammable chemicals, and across the street was a massive warehouse with hundreds of cases of whiskey. Add to this the fact that the city hadn't seen rain in a very long time, and they had the perfect recipe for a disaster. Less than an hour later, the fire had spread to cover multiple blocks of the downtown area, feeding off the wooden structures that line the streets.

When it was finally over, nearly three dozen blocks of the city had been burned to the ground. Businesses and homes were gone, and the shipping industry ground to a halt. Nearly 40 years of downtown growth had been reduced to ash in a single day. Seattle would rebuild, but in the process they would make a unique decision. Rather than removing the darkness of the past to start fresh with a clean slate, they decided to do something dangerous. They would rebuild their lives right on top of the past.

Seattle's great fire of 1889 is something of an anomaly in American history. Yes, many other cities have experienced their own devastating fires, but in almost all of those cases, it was the fire that created the tragedy. The loss of lives on a grand scale always has a way of casting shadows across the rest of a city's history. But Seattle was different. Not a single casualty was reported in the aftermath of the fire, so while the loss of homes and businesses was tremendous, there was no cloud of grief or loss hanging over

the survivors. They had been kicked to the ground, but had the hope to stand back up and rebuild. And that's where things get interesting, because the city planners and politicians saw the charred remains of the city as their chance to improve Seattle. They decided to elevate the entire downtown above the waterline, a full story higher than the previous buildings. Rather than clear the ground and start from scratch, they chose to simply build on top of the wreckage.

Tons of earth, gathered from the eastern edges of the city, were hauled in and used to fill in the streets and spaces between the remaining buildings. Archways were built over the old sidewalks. Ladders were installed to allow customers to climb down to the few remaining businesses that had survived the fire. And when they were done, they had built a new downtown on top of the old one, without destroying what was beneath. This new Seattle underground was quickly condemned by city officials, making it clear that no

one was supposed to live and work there. But humans have a knack for disobeying rules that are a bit too inconvenient. Instead, those dark spaces and tunnels became home to the less savory portions of the city's economic life. The gambling and prostitution. Above it all, of course, Seattle continued to grow. In the decade that followed, waves of prospectors passed through on their way north to Alaska and British Columbia, seeking their fortunes in the rivers and mines of the Yukon.

When they struck it rich, they would pass back through Seattle, spending their fortune on everything the city had to offer. For many, it was all about investment. Large quantities of gold bullion were stored in bank vaults, where it awaited purchase by the U.S. government. And those same banks figured out a system for advancing money to those prospectors to tide them over until the sale went through. Which meant that Seattle was flush with rough men, untethered to the responsibilities of

family or employment, and with pockets full of cash. And they knew just how to spend it. Where there is demand, enterprising individuals always seem to step forward and help. In those early years, a number of brothels and gambling joints were set up, and they made their owners lots and lots of money. But the most powerful of them all was Lou Graham. And Lou was unlike any of the others for one simple reason. Lou was a woman.

Lou was actually a German immigrant named Dorothea Georgine Emily Obann. There in Seattle, she was just the queen. While others were running filthy disease-ridden dens of prostitution, Lou aimed for the upscale market. And it worked so well that her clientele included not just traveling prospectors with cash to burn, but also powerful local city officials. In the aftermath of the fire, Lou Graham decided to put her immense fortune to work and built a massive new home for her empire.

But it wasn't just money that flowed into her hands. Operating a network of brothels that served the city's elite also earned her influence and access. All of a sudden, she was more than wealthy. She was powerful. By the time Lou Graham died in 1903, she had become the richest woman in America. But she also died with no husband or children to inherit that fortune. So she willed it to her relatives back in Germany.

The city of Seattle didn't care for that decision, though. Her wealth had been gleaned from the community there, and they felt that it should stay. Instead, they ignored her will and used the money to fund the city's public school system. In the past, even the darker bits of it would continue to have an influence over the present. And nowhere else is that more evident today than the darkness of the underground. Because while no one lives there anymore, it's clearly inhabited by something. Being born of the past and reluctant to leave. Today, visitors to Seattle can take guided tours of the underground and literally stand

on the walkways that were used by pedestrians before the fire of 1889. But along with views of long-forgotten buildings, many visitors have experienced a closer brush with the past. Some people, you see, claim to have seen ghosts. Many stories are centered around the pub built by Doc Maynard in the early days of the city, a space that is now located beneath the street along Pioneer Square. It's been home to a gambling den, a large brothel, and countless bars. People who have visited the space claim to have noticed the overwhelming scent of alcohol,

as well as objects that move on their own, and a spirit that has interacted with tourists. In another underground location, visitors to an abandoned bank have seen an elderly man in 19th-century clothing standing outside. His appearance has been so powerful and realistic that most tourists have assumed he's just an actor helping the tour company with their performance, but he often vanishes before anyone can speak with him. Whether it's the distant sound of an old piano, or the echo of spirited laughter in loud conversation, the spaces beneath the streets of Seattle seem to be home to more

than just the remnants of another age. The past, as is so often the case, has refused to fade away. One of the oldest neighborhoods in Seattle is actually a short distance away from the new downtown and its dark underground. The Georgetown neighborhood sits on the eastern banks of the Duwamish River, and is filled with old homes and older stories, and the most prominent of them is about the castle. In the heyday of prostitution and gambling, one of the busiest hotspots in Pioneer Square was the central saloon, which was a good thing for the man who built the place, Peter Gesner,

because the entire enterprise had been a gamble. But then again, gambling was something that Peter was very, very good at. And that's how he started out in the late 1800s. While the early settlers of Seattle, folks like Arthur Denny and Doc Maynard, had gambled their lives on a fresh start in a new place, Peter Gesner was the more typical kind of gambler. He took advantage of the many gambling dens and managed to beat the odds more than they beat him.

In fact, by 1901, Peter had enough money to buy one of the downtown businesses that competed with Doc Maynard's pub. It was a building in Pioneer Square that housed the Watson Brothers famous restaurant on the ground level, and a hotel on the floors above. Peter combined those two businesses into one that he called the central saloon. And it's still there, by the way, and it's been a powerful music venue for decades. In fact, in the 1980s, the central was the launchpad for a number of bands that would go on to transform the music scene forever.

Soundgarden, Mudhoney, and Green River all called the central their home. And true to the spirit of Seattle, Pearl Jam was a band rebuilt from the ashes of Mother Lovebone, and they're still going strong today. Buying the tavern was a gamble for Gesner, but it quickly paid off. To build with all of the devices that Seattle was known for, the central was always busy, and that meant lots and lots of profit. And when there was enough cash in the bank, Peter decided to use it to build a dream home for his young bride, Lizzie.

What he built was a massive 5,000 square foot mansion, complete with a turret, high ceilings in every room, a wide wrapper on porch, and an indoor theater. When it was completed in 1902, Peter and Lizzie moved in and began to set up their new life inside those spacious rooms. The tragedy was right behind them, and it moved in a short while later. Now there are two versions of how this tragedy played out. There are some who think that when Peter discovered that Lizzie was cheating on him with another local businessman, that he kicked her out and converted the enormous house over to become

yet another brothel and gambling den. It was a reaction fueled by grief and spite, and a reflection of his tortured soul. Others though think that Gessner's luck had just finally run out, and his empire was faltering. Opening his dream home up as a palace of vice was the only thing he could think of to save his business. Either way though, the house became something very different than Peter had intended, and perhaps that's what led to the next chapter of his story. A year after the transformation, Peter was found dead inside his Georgetown mansion.

They say his body was found in one of the second-story bedrooms, and that his tongue and lips showed signs of poisoning from drinking carbonic acid. Most believe it was suicide, but some have wondered if his estranged wife Lizzie might have had a hand in his death. That's because months after Peter Gessner was in the grave, Lizzie and her new husband moved into the castle that he had built for her, setting off a wave of rumors throughout the neighborhood. All of that pain and tragedy seems to have stuck around, too.

In the 1970s, the house was purchased by Ray McWade and Peter Peterson, who set about restoring the house to its former glory. According to the story, the two men discovered a small room that had been covered up and forgotten by past owners. Inside, the room felt unnaturally cold, and noises could be heard throughout the house. Once outside the tiny room, though, the noises stopped. McWade and Peterson also reported finding a dead cat on their front porch one day. Assuming the animal had gotten into a fight and dragged itself to their porch before dying,

they gave it a proper burial in their front yard. The following day, though, they were shocked to find the cat's body right back where they'd found it before. In the decades since, numerous visitors to the mansion have reported unusual activity. Some have felt cold waves wash over them as they move through the house, while others have heard pounding on doors that have no one else on the other side. One overnight guest reported getting up to use the bathroom at one in the morning, only to be shoved down the stairs by an invisible hand.

Today, the house is in the hands of yet another loving family, and they have continued that ongoing mission to restore Peter Gesner's mansion to the glory it once knew. But even though new generations have taken up the fight against time, it's hard to deny the way the past seems to haunt those high-ceilinged rooms. The past might very well be behind us, but if Seattle is any indication, it's all around us as well. Everyone loves a good comeback story. To see the hero of the tale stand back up and keep marching toward the prize.

Maybe that's because humans tend to be stubborn and resilient, or perhaps these stories offer us that precious nourishment that our souls depend on. Hope Seattle is a city of hope. It's a community with a dark and broken foundation, rooted in prejudice and violence and crime. But it's never let the past define it. Even when it all burned to the ground, that was seen less as a setback, and more as a

chance to improve and become something better. The rise from the ashes like a phoenix. But it never really goes away, does it? The city's dark past just moved underground for a time, setting up shop beneath the feet of the people who live there. Because that's what shadows do. They bend away from the light, clinging to the underbelly and the corners of our world. We won't ever fully get rid of them, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

In some ways, the past is still there. It's in the names of streets like Yesler Way, in places like Pioneer Square. But in other places, progress has washed over the past like a wave, and replaced it with something new. A great example of this is the brothel that Lou Graham built following the Great Fire of 1899. It's still standing today at the corner of South Washington and 3rd Avenue, although it's now known as the Washington Court Building.

But the most persistent pieces of the past to stick around are the stories. Chief Seattle passed away in 1866, but his daughter, Kikus Omlo, stayed in the city. Legend says that she lived near the waterfront, near Western Ave and Pike, and she was so warm and friendly to everyone around her that Doc Maynard's wife, Catherine, was said to have given her the nickname Princess Angeline. Time marched on and tried to leave the past behind, but for decades, Princess Angeline was still there, serving as a reminder of her father's legacy and the early days of the community.

They say she sold clams and handmade baskets, and watched as the city that had once been a fishing village of her own people grew into a metropolis of strangers. When she passed away in 1896, she was buried near Henry Yessler in Lakeview Cemetery. But there are many who believe she's never really left the city. Ever since the establishment of the Pike Place Market, countless people have reported seeing a woman with a woven basket in her arms, usually sitting off to the side of the crowd. Others have seen the same figure walking down the streets between downtown and the market. Her shoulders wrapped in a shawl, her hair pulled back in long braids.

They say she lacks that apparitional appearance that we might expect from typical ghost stories, instead blending in with all the other people near her. But when anyone has approached her, she vanishes. Following the battle for Seattle in 1865, a treaty was signed between both sides. An old chief Seattle was said to have given a speech during the negotiations. The authenticity of the speech, as we know it today, is highly debatable. The first version historians know of was printed three decades after the treaty was signed. But most think that, at the very least, the spirit of his message was captured by those

who attempted to record it. And it's the final few lines that have caught the attention of so many. Words that seem to echo through the ages as a warning to those who choose to remain in the city named after him. At night, Seattle was said to have spoken, when the streets of your cities and villages will be silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with returning hosts that once filled and still love this beautiful land. The white man will never be alone.

Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only a change of worlds. Looking back from the perspective of the 21st century, fewer words could be so true. Nothing ever really goes away. It just slips into the shadows of the past, where it haunts us by reminding us of its presence, for better or for worse, were never alone. I hope you've enjoyed this brief tour of the amazing history behind one of America's

greatest cities, and the stories that still haunt her streets. But there's one last tale I want to share with you. One that begins in the earliest days of the community, but has refused to fade away. Click around after this short break to hear all about it. When Daniel and his wife Susanna climbed into their wagon in 1852, they weren't the typical family headed toward the Oregon Trail. They weren't looking for land, or even gold. No, Daniel and his family were heading west for an entirely different reason.

He was on a mission from God. Daniel was a Methodist minister who had spent the previous decade traveling throughout Illinois, preaching his message from town to town, and setting up new Methodist church communities. Now though, he had been given a new task. He was to be a missionary, taking his work into the west, where he would serve out a five-year contract for the tidy sum of $600 a year. But the journey was tough. Along the way, they met up with other travelers, and along with good conversation and helpful

hands, these strangers brought something else with them. Cholera. The number of travelers died from the disease, but somehow Daniel and their son Clarence managed to stay healthy. Susanna though, wasn't doing so well. As they moved closer and closer to their destination in Oregon, rumors began to reach them of a place farther north, a place with fresh air and open sky. Believing that his wife's health could benefit from such a climate, Daniel changed course

and aimed for the Puget Sound, finally arriving in 1860. Susanna pulled through, and the family settled into life there in the growing town named after the local Native American ruler, Seattle. And while he did engage in the duties he had been tasked with, founding the Methodist Church on 2nd and Mason, he also threw himself into the local business world. Soon enough, he was commissioner for the brand new University of Washington, founded by none other than Arthur Denney. After that, he took over management of a series of coal mines on the eastern side of town.

Daniel Bagley had a knack for business, and he was quickly rewarded for all his hard work. And looking back on his influential life, he left a powerful mark on Seattle. But he might have left more than that. There's a story about one of his Methodist Churches in the area, up on Capitol Hill, that takes place in the late 1980s. According to former Deacon Douglas Jensen, he began his nightly rounds one evening, as he always did, by taking a walk through of the building. And it was in the middle of that inspection that something unexplainable happened.

Jensen recalled walking into one of the rooms, only to be stopped in his tracks by the figure of Daniel Bagley standing before him. Jensen described the vision as translucent, and something reminiscent of the holograms one might see in a Hollywood sci-fi film. Others have seen Bagley as well. One minister in the building witnessed Bagley standing on the balcony, his arms on the railing, eyes looking down upon him. And Daniel is apparently not the only spirit to haunt the church.

Some have claimed to see a woman in a long flowing dress, her form glowing in that same translucent blue light. On one such occasion, the woman actually spoke. How do I get out? She asked. A person who found her could do nothing except point to the door, their voice caught in their throat. Instead of heading that direction, though, a ghostly woman was said to have turned around

and flown out a nearby window. It was only later, while thumbing through a book of old images from Seattle's past, that the witnesses realized just who that woman really was. Daniel Bagley's wife, Susanna. Maybe the couple had returned in an effort to save the church they founded, or perhaps they just felt drawn to a familiar place. Either way, they are just one more reminder that this thoroughly modern metropolis is full of countless stories from the past.

And I hope that we never forget them. This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with research by Carl Nellis and music by Chad Lawson. I make two other podcasts as well, Cabinet of Curiosities and Unobscured. You can find links to both of those over at www.theworldoflore.com slash now. Lore exists outside of this podcast as well. There's a book series in stores around the country and online. And as we mentioned before, the second season of the Amazon Prime television show kicks

off in just a few days on October 19th. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life. And you can always learn about everything going on all over in one place www.theworldoflore.com slash now. Oh, and hey, if you're a social media sort of person and you want to follow along, the show is on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Just search for Lore podcast. All one word and click that follow button.

When you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.