He built a hospital for the Indians on the Island, and often traveled by canoe to answer the call of a sick patient. Smith was eventually appointed Governor of the Tulalip Reservation . He owned and managed 12 logging camps and a general store on the island as well.24

More . . .

In 1878, when Smith returned to Seattle and Smith’s Cove, his wealth had greatly appreciated with the rise in land values. Finally, the railroad came. He sold 9,550 acres of land for $75,000. Of the experience, Smith was quoted as saying:

“The Lake Shore and Eastern Railroad finally came along and I drew up an agreement with them whereby they were to purchase my land (all but 50 acres) provided they made their terminals on Smith Cove. They did this, but when the time for operation came they informed me that they would have to run a branch to Seattle, and of course, they made their terminals there. Oh, those railroad men are smart fellows.”25

Because of his wealth, Smith was the largest taxpayer in King County for years. Later, he was named the first superintendent of schools. He served in the legislature, and according to Bagley, “never sought office, never asked for a vote and was never defeated. While he was presiding officer in the council there was never an appeal of his rulings.”26

Smith’s approach to child rearing was unique in that according to Ione, “he assigned the oldest child to watch the youngest, the second oldest the next, and so on. So that each of us little ones had a loving sister to care for her.

The Indians had a friendly relationship with Smith and kept him supplied with clams, and fish, and Ione’s brother Ralph Waldo hunted fowl. Extra foods were always shared with neighbors:

"We younger children had our riding ponies and the older girls rode the carriage horses. Ralph had his own horse. He always accompanied us little ones when we rode over the beautiful old logging roads whose skids were worn level. Ferns, violets and trilliums grew there in profusion. The blooming shrubs were most beautiful; then we children lay and tromped in the warm tide-flats and pools of water, we had our very own lovely sandy bathing beach with water warmed from having come in over the tide flats.”29

Formal education was not ignored. The children’s first schoolhouse was a large room in a building that Smith owned. He later hired Miss Flora Fond, daughter of the West Point Lighthouse operator as their teacher. Ione added:

“Papa donated some land on which a schoolhouse was built and it had separate boys’ and girls’ cloakrooms. . . . modern for the times. Sunday school and church services were held in the same building . . . at times we were taught in our home . . . my brother Ralph rode his horse to the Denny School. At various times my elder sisters attended the Mills Seminary, Oakland California, Annie Wright Seminary in Tacoma, and St. Ann’s Convent in British Columbia . . . I finished eighth grade at the Mercer School then entered the Old Central High School in 1892.”30

Ione reports about her home life: “It was not unusual for guests to come in the night and make themselves at home without disturbing us. All winter, day and night, logs blazed in the fireplace of our living room . . . an iron teakettle with hot water always hung on the crane. We had six outside doors, none of which were ever locked.”31

The Smith house never seemed to be empty, as some guests would stay for more than a year:

After a number of years during which he made several trips to Alaska, Ralph Waldo and his companion Fred Campbell drowned while exploring the Aleutian Islands in a sailboat in 1892. Their bodies were not recovered.34

Vision Again, Just Luck, or Certain Logic . . .

“. . . Just after two men had been drowned in Lake Washington . . . it became necessary to find a new source of water-supply. Therefore, when two men came out from town to ask my father's advice, . . . I heard him say: ‘Cedar River is our God-given water reservoir with a constant supply of pure water from the Cedar River’...the men protested . . . it was too far away . . . it would cost too much...the city was not large enough for an undertaking. But, Papa maintained [his position]..bonds could be issued. It was not long before this development was made.” The Cedar River Water Shed lasts as a protected water supply today.35

Hard Times Took Their Toll

To Ione, Dr. Henry A. Smith’s “power of accomplishment seemed to lay in the ease with which he could turn from one form of activity to another. Whatever he was doing absorbed his whole attention. If he asked me to hold a tree straight [while he planted it], I felt it a privilege.”36

She wrote of asking her father what he considered himself to be, and he responded, “I would call myself an agriculturist because I so enjoy working with nature in accordance with God’s laws which are absolute and eternal . . . ” Her thoughts on his response indicate that she thought very highly of her father. “. . . to me [that] was a modest answer . . . because he was considered to be a very successful physician and surgeon, a statesman, a poet, a scholar and a writer.”37

Smith had tried to hold onto 50 acres that might have been of a great value to him assuming the development of a canal utilizing Salmon Bay succeeded as Fishermen’s Terminal. His property would be needed for its completion. Like the railroad, it seemed a progressive plan. The economic depression of 1893 devoured his large land holdings: his city block, island, buildings, and other property.

What remained were 10 lots on Queen Anne Hill. He ended up living there. His last orchard, vegetable patch, and flower garden were there. He died in 1915, at age 85, allegedly of influenza. Ione wrote that he seemed to feel that he had not done all that he wanted to do with his life, quoting him as saying one day, “I would like to live a little longer, there is so much to be learned and I know so little.”38

“In the summer of 1893, a tragic thing happened. Papa was in an accident in which he suffered a fractured skull and internal injuries. He was sick about seven years during which period it was necessary to entrust the management of his affairs to others who grossly mismanaged them. That all happened during depression years.”39

“When, I look back upon my childhood years, I see a kind and loving father whose main interest in life seemed to be wrapped up in his motherless children . . . I can still see our happy family gathered before the blazing fire on winter evenings . . . those years have never been erased from my memory.”40

Afterword

In present historical research, we are often advised to look between the lines to see what is missing. Smith was more than what vanity histories present him as. This man was smart, talented, risky, stubborn, and somewhat rigid. He was humble about the inevitability of his political involvements, despite going back into politics—“something he hated.” Reading between the lines becomes necessary when one observes that Smith’s daughter Ione wrote that he helped those who wanted out of the cove by buying their property from them. What is not articulated is Smith’s possible gain by providing this kind of help.

Reading between the lines, one sees a shrewd, exacting, absorbed, smart businessman who pinpointed the exact location of the Smith Cove railroad site and obstinately kept the railroad development idea alive for the years it took to make a fortune from it. Yet at the same time, equally clear, is the father who cared about his children and loved them while accepting the responsibility of raising them alone.

During his time, he was the richest man in Seattle who paid the most taxes. In Ione’s kind interpretation, he was a man who “helped” all those who had acreage to sell. This assistance cannot be viewed as all too altruistic. The real Smith is more complex than his daughter’s single perspective.

This Magnolia pioneer was an unusual man filled with odd energy and curiosity, whose interesting story is never really told in-depth in existing histories. He had an unusual well-to-do life in his time in history. As the first Magnolia settler he becomes most important in our study of Magnolia’s beginnings and in the glimpse of Seattle developing as a city. Like peeling one of Smith’s homegrown onions, we must seek all of the layers of this interesting man. We should avoid historical stereotypes, over-simplified family admiration, or histories that tell us about Smith by omitting more of his life than recording it. This is exactly what historians are asking of us as we take a look back from our day and age!

Monica Wooton thought that a look at the first permanent resident of Magnolia was important for this historical volume. She had heard of Dr. Henry Allen Smith, but when the research said he paddled a canoe from Olympia to Magnolia when he was 22, she became intrigued. In researching his life, she found the biographical material to be sketchy at best. Perseverance paid off and more study revealed the fuller character of Magnolia’s first pioneer. The discovery of a document written by one of Smith’s daughters, Ione Smith Graff, when she was in her 50s, was a great find and added a dimension to the story that had been missing all along. Thanks go to Paul Dorpat for sharing this fascinating document and reiterating that history is more than one person’s story, more than what is already written down, and that what isn’t always articulated is as important in figuring out past historical figures as that which makes it into the history books. 38 39