A Settler's Deadly Stand at Johnson's Point
After a dance near Olympia turns hostile, logger Thomas Johnson shoots two Native men and wounds a woman, then surrenders to a mob demanding his scalp.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
SHOOTING SCRAPE.—On the night of July 3d a lot of Indians and half-breeds gave a dance at Johnson's Point, about midway between Olympia and Steilacoom. Early on the morning of the fourth a settler residing there, named Thomas Johnson, a logger by profession, appeared at Olympia and gave himself up to Sheriff Billings. His story is about as follows: 'I attended the dance at Johnson's Point last night, and during the dance several of the Indians became envious and jealous of me, and attempted to make trouble. Seeing that I would get the worst of it if I remained I went home. About twenty Indians followed me, and broke in the door of my cabin. I escaped through a window with my rifle, and while the savages were destroying my property I opened fire on them, killing two bucks and wounding one squaw. I then hastened to the beach, launched my boat, and put out for Olympia. After rowing till I was tired, and knowing that I was hotly pursued, I landed and took to the trail.' Johnson was locked up in jail, and a few minutes after fifteen or twenty maddened Indians came into town, clamoring for his scalp, but were compelled to return to their rancherie without it.
“I opened fire on them, killing two bucks and wounding one squaw.”
This 1884 clash on Puget Sound reflects the violent dispossession of Indigenous people that accompanied settler expansion. The story's casual dehumanization of Native people—calling them 'savages'—was typical of the era's press, but the underlying conflict over land and belonging remains a reckoning we still face.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.