The Old Indian Fighter Who Taught Himself to Read After Paralysis Took His Limbs
Jim Foley fought in the territory's early Indian wars, logged its woods for thirty years, and spent his last quarter-century as a ward of Snohomish County — where the old campaigner, unable to move, finally learned his letters.
Jim Foley, an old-time Indian fighter and a pioneer of Snohomish county, died at the county hospital Wednesday noon. He is reputed to have been in all the Indian fights of the early days. At the White River fight he intimated that Capt. Dent (brother-in-law of Gen. Grant) was lax in pursuit of the Indians, whereat the captain struck him over the head with a rifle. On consideration of his not pushing the court-martial he was allowed to desert from the post at The Dalles. He was well known among the logging camps of thirty years ago. Twenty-five years ago he became paralyzed while at Mukilteo. The loggers made up a purse of $500 for treatment at Portland. Not getting any better he returned to Snohomish county and has been a ward of the county ever since. He could neither read nor write until he became paralyzed. Then he learned to read.
“He could neither read nor write until he became paralyzed. Then he learned to read.”
Foley's story captures how the Puget Sound frontier treated the men who cleared its forests: celebrated while they worked, then left to the county when their bodies failed. The loggers' whip-round for his treatment is a small testament to the rough solidarity of the camps — a precursor to the mutual-aid and union halls that would later organize those same workers. Today, as the region again debates who cares for aging laborers priced out of the boom, the county ward remains a familiar figure.
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