A Deadly Souvenir of the Battle of Seattle

In the din and bustle of extending business, it would be forgotten that the peaceful streets now thronged only with the crowds of industry were swept by the 'loud terrors of war,' were it not for frequent reminders—such as puzzled old Kaspar's grandchild on the field of Blenheim—that are dug up from time to time in different parts of the city, in the shape of rusted cannonballs, bombs, grape-shot and other debris of battle. The latest curiosity in this line was a 27-pound shell, laid on our table yesterday by H. G. Thornton, who found it imbedded in the wood of a huge fir tree that used to stand on the corner of Sixth and South Pine or Terrace street—the Lake road hill. It had buried itself 20 inches in the heart of the tree and lain there imbedded in pitch for 21 years, with its deadly animation suspended, its message of death unspoken, but ready to deliver it yet if the quenched fuse were enlightened! The tree was felled about six years ago and if it had been burned like many of its neighbors there would have been a lively explosion. Mr. Thornton casually discovered it by striking against it with a crosscut saw. It came out perfectly sound without a dent—a tangible proof of the claim made by the San Francisco Board of Marine Underwriters in behalf of our Puget Sound fir as a ship-building material—that iron imbedded in it was preserved by the natural pitch of the wood from corrosion. We distinctly recall the bright, crisp winter morning, twenty-one years ago this month, when the good ship Decatur opened her lurid broadsides at sunrise upon the woods that swarmed with the warriors. The forest crowded down to the line of Second Street, and closed down on the beach all the way north of Columbia street, and this shell passed over the tops of its lower fringes and struck near the summit of the hill.