Told by the Pioneers: Tales of Frontier Life, vol. 1 (Washington Pioneer Project, 1937)

A letter of Mollie (Holbrook) Pfeiffer from Antelope Valley, California, 23 Mar 1925, to "Dear Harriet," a daughter of Capt. James Henry Swift, printed in the WPA's collection. Read 14 Oct 2026.

• Harriet came by Panama and San Francisco, where Capt. Swift gave her passage north; storm-bound at Coupeville, she stayed a week with the Coupes. "Across the bay where is now San de Fuca, my father was living in his log cabin proving up, or at least just beginning to work his homestead there. One day Thomas Hastie, then a young man, stopped to talk with him as he was going home, and told him of meeting a woman at Ebey's Landing--a very handsome woman whom he would have made every effort to marry, only that she had a husband in Olympia and was on her way to join him. Meaning my mother!"
• On the way to Olympia her steamer, the Lily, sank in the Narrows.
• The wedding journey: by sailing vessel to Seattle, then "a canoe with six Indians to paddle the remainder of the way," a storm, and Mrs. Libby's greeting at the head of Penn's Cove.
• "My father decided to plow up his virgin pasture, where San de Fuca now stands. Mother, always a good sport, drove the horses while he held the plow during the breaking up of that tough fifty acres. I imagine they grew very well acquainted and became good chums in those pioneer days."
• "When my father first brought my mother to the new house, he thought it wise as a safeguard for mother, to frighten the Indians, as he had to be away sometimes. So he told them that mother was very strong and vicious, and had killed an Indian up the Sound." She put "Old Kultus John" out of the cabin by his coat collar, and "he never troubled her again."
• "She brought the first kerosene lamp to Whidby Island. She lived the coziest and happiest years, she said, in the old three-roomed cabin with the big willows in front and the fine view from the little windows."