History at a Glance

Aron Collins left Indiana for the West Coast in the spring of 1853. This story is from the first letter he wrote back home to his brother on Dec. 8, 1853.

"I take my pen in hand to inform you that we are well and hope these few lines may find you all enjoying the same blessing. I arrived in San Francisco on the first of June. We had a very pleasant trip except crossing the isthmus of Panama was somewhat interesting. Particularly from Crusez to Panama on mules. There was near one thousand persons on mules, what time they could stay on. Climbing up and down the mountains some of the ladies got thrown from the mules and had to take it afoot. Some got parted from their children, but they were all found in Panama. All that were too small to ride alone were carried by natives on their backs. My baggage did not all come before the steamer left. I got Mr. Corwyne to attend to it and got it by the next steamer."

Collins stayed in San Franciso for two weeks, then went to San Jose, where he stayed about three weeks. "That valley is the pleasantest looking place I have seen, but there was no chance to get a sure title to land. The Spanish grants were not settled, and they claimed all the good land. Folks were squatting all over, all supposing they will not be within the Spanish grants. I was advised by the citizens to settle, but I concluded it was rather an uncertain business so I left for Oregon."

From Portland, Collins explored the Tualatin Valley, where he found fields of wheat, said to be 40 bushels to the acre and from 5 to 7 feet high. But all the land "anybody can live on" had been claimed, so he crossed the Columbia River at St. Helens and went exploring with four other men. "We found some small plains, but there were mountains all around so that it was impossible to go there any way but afoot or with pack mules. The timber is fir with some cedar, from 2 to 300 hundred feet high and from 10 feet in diameter, and with briars so thick it is impossible to travel with any speed."

Collins returned to Portland, then traveled by steamer, Indian canoe and wagon to Olympia, then 12 miles north to Hammersley Inlet, where he filed a claim on land across the bay from Arkada - "timber land with plenty of good bottom land for farming. We have no roads in this part of the country; traveling is done in canoes. Our canoes are made by the Indians out of cedar. I have one that will carry over 1,000 pounds and will ride the waves in almost any storm. The weather is perfectly warm and rainy. I can see Mount Rainier and the Olympic Range. This part of the country is very healthy for stout, hearty people but is considered hard on persons with consumption or rheumatism. There are a great many Indians on the Sound. They live on fish, clams and oysters. They live in tents just above high tide and move everything with them in their canoes every week or two from one bay to another."

Collins was critical of some of the settlers who came to the Puget Sound area. "There is the worst foolish set of people comes to this country that was caught in any trap. They read the stories about gold digging, fat cattle, big crops of wheat the third year from sowing and moderate crops without sowing. They come east of the Cascades and expect it all to be right in front of them. But they discover that the gold is at least 150 miles off, and the fish and big onions, oysters and clams another ways off. They don't know which end of the road to take, and accuse the letter writers of lying. But it is all true. There has been gold dug on the Ranges River, and great crops of wheat in the valley, and I have seen salmon so thick at the mill dams at the head of tidewater that you could stand and draw them out with an iron hook so fast that you would need a hand to help you put them in your canoe."

Aron Collins was elected justice of the peace in the newly formed Sawamish (now Mason) County in 1854, and was postmaster at Arkada in 1862. He died in 1880 at the age of 60, leaving a wife, Catherine, and their foster son, Jimmy Pickett.

■ Jan Parker is a researcher for the Mason County Historical Museum. She can be reached at [email protected]. Membership in the Mason County Historical Society is $25 per year. For a limited time, new members will receive a free copy of the book "Shelton, the First Century Plus Ten."