Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Seattle

SEATTLE, Indian chief, b. about the year 1780; d. in Seattle, 7 June, 1866. He repeatedly asserted, late in life, that he remembered the visit of Capt. George Vancouver and Lieut. Broughton, with the ships “Discovery” and “Chatham,” in 1792. Seattle, when a young man, achieved local renown by the skilful and successful manner with which he resisted and defeated hostile Indians intent on assailing and plundering his own and neighboring tribes. For this he was made chief over all the Squampsh tribe of Indians, some eight or ten thousand. The whites first became acquainted with him about 1850. He was impressed by them, and thereafter was their steadfast and unfailing friend. He urged them to come into his country, guided and located them, sold them lands, and rendered them innumerable services. In the war between the whites and Indians of 1855-'6, he and his people took no part, but treated the whites as nearly as possible just as before. He was a large-bodied, massive, big-brained man, a great orator as well as a brave warrior, with marvellous influence over the Indians, and enjoyed the respect and good feeling of the whites. His place of burial is marked by a handsome stone monument, placed there by his white friends of the city which derived its name from him, the stone bearing this inscription: “Seattle, Chief of the Squampsh and Allied Tribes, died June 7, 1866. The firm friend of the whites, and for him the city of Seattle was named by its founders.” His name sounded like Sealth, but it was Americanized into Seattle. The old chief pleaded that the city might not be named after him, in accordance with the custom of his people that the name of the dead must never be spoken, but his consent was finally obtained. The chief never learned the art of writing. — His daughter, Angeline, d. in Seattle, 31 May, 1896. She was one of the celebrities of the North Pacific coast for many years. Of her early life nothing is known. At the time of her death she was nearly blind and was popularly believed to be nearly a hundred years old. She was held in high esteem by the pioneers of the city and their descendants, because in the early fifties she had given timely warning of an intended Indian massacre, and so had probably saved several hundred lives. Her few and simple wants thereafter were amply supplied by the citizens of Seattle.