(click to enlarge photos)

This Sunday we, Jean Sherrard, myself, and especially Ron Edge, our collector-cartographer with a devotion to details, hope to convince you that we have discovered the correct location for the footprint of Princess Angeline’s home. Angeline, many of our readers will know, was the daughter of our city’s namesake Chief Seattle. Born around 1820, she was in her prime by the time Euro-American settler-interlopers first arrived here to stay in the early 1850s.  The princess got on well with the city’s founders, and it was one of them, Catherine Maynard, who gave her the royal name.  Catherine, a nurse and wife of the village physician, Doc Maynard, explained that her new name better fit her elevated status. (Although surely the princess’s native name, Kikisoblu, was as euphonious as Angeline.)

Angeline supported herself washing clothes and weaving baskets, which she sold. She also posed for pictures, both candid street shots and prepared portraits.  The latter, like the Edwin J. Bailey portrait shown here, were snapped in studios where the native princess was sometimes – although not here – posed with a mix of props and backdrops that promoted her authenticity.  Through Seattle’s first half-century, the princess was easily the most popular subject hereabouts, and when she could, she charged a fee for posing.

The princess also accepted help and may have expected it.  She enjoyed a free grocery tab at Louch’s Market on First Avenue, which was not far from her home, whose true footprint we will now reveal with the help of photographs.  In 1890 the N.P. Railroad photographer, F. Jay Haynes, took what may be the earliest surviving photo of Angeline’s home.  I first used and misused it for this feature on May 13, 1984.  While Haynes did not peg his portrait of the Princess sitting near the front door of her seemingly windowless shed, I embraced the commonplace belief that her home was somewhere near the waterfront, between Pine and Pike Avenues, and probably closer to the latter.  My mistake was in making it a beach shack by interpreting Haynes’ prospect largely on the basis of the patch of horizon that shows to the left of Angeline’s shed. That is not the beach and Haynes was not looking west but nearly northwest through the neighborhood of small warehouses and squatters’ sheds that climbed the western slope of the now long gone Denny Hill.

We must thank Ron for this correction and also for introducing photographer Frank LaRoche’s setting of the Princess and her dog posing on the front porch of her new home, built for her in 1891 by the local lumberman Amos Brown. Printed to its full width, the LaRoche photograph reveals a wide swath of Belltown landmarks that lead us with the help of Ron’s triangulation to within a few feet of Angeline’s last home.  Although the princess died in 1895, her Amos Brown-made home survived and served at least as evidence until the printing of its footprint in Vol.2. page 127 of the 1905 Sanborn Insurance Map.  To follow Ron Edge’s revealing lines and to explore more photographic evidence of Angeline’s home and the neighborhood, please visit the web page pauldorpat.com.  It is so noted every Sunday, including this one, at the bottom of the feature’s text.

WEB EXTRAS

Just a few special treats to sweeten the (already sweet) pot. First off, a big thanks to David Peugh, through whose condo we were given access to the site; his son Jeff (pictured below) graciously escorted us.

Below, Paul presents the evidence which led Ron Edge to his discovery.

This is meant to be – or will be – a feature about our victory in locating the home site of the daughter of Chief Seattle for whom the pioneer settlers adopted the name Princess (and sometimes Queen) Angeline.  We have known with considerable confidence that her cabins – at least two of them for which we have photographs – were set somewhere near Pike Street, below what has been since 1907 the Pike Place Public Market.  But we wanted the footprint – or close to it.

After assembling perhaps all available clues – maps and photos – Ron managed to find the home, or proper footprint, for this home, and Jean posed him, as it were, on the front porch of Angeline’s home for the NOW, where she posed with her dog more than once, for she for the boom years before her death in 1896 probably the most popular photographic subject in Seattle.

MORE ANGELINE INTERLUDE – 

Included within the frame of this week’s featured photo are the helpful clues for locating the footprint of Angeline’s cabin.  They are listed in yellow upper-left.  Click to Enlarge.

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Both the number and inserted thumbnails should help you orient some of these parts/clues to those notes in the featured photo.  CLICK CLICK CLICK TO ENLARGE

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An unidentified photographer looks north thru (and above) the ruins of Angeline’s older home to the front south facade of her new home. This photo was obviously of great help in finding the footprint.

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Looking north from the roof of the Standard Furniture Co. Warehouse  with Western Avenue on the right.  The landmark tree is number two.   By this WW1 era shot Angeline’s home is gone.  Most of it – perhaps all – would have been out-of-frame to the  bottom.

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The red line is drawn down from the tenement on Front Street at Pine into Angeline’s last home.

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The neighborhood looking north along the waterfront from the King Street coal wharf in 1890.   Construction is nearly the as yet not built central tower of the Denny Hotel, upper-right, on the front hump of Denny Hill.  It straddles Third Avenue between Second and Fourth Avenues a few feet more than 100 feet above the regrades.

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Angeline’s back yard – again.

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Helpful details from both the 1893 and 1904 Sanborn Insurance Maps.   The red circle marks Angeline’s cabin.

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A Google Earth space shot superimposed on the 1904 Sanborn Insurance Map.

The Standard Furniture Co. Warehouse c1905 (now  the Fix/Madore building)

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And a few links to additional related features: