~Guest Post by Noah Heutchy, a Snoqualmie Valley Museum volunteer.
In 1888, forty-five-year-old John Loft headed east out of Seattle with his pack on his back and two hired guides by his side. Loft wanted land to claim as his own and was told he would find it in the Snoqualmie Valley. He traversed wilderness, lakes, and rivers before encountering the land he desired in a remote area of the state, fourteen miles east of what would become the town of North Bend.
While settlers were in the area, the actual town of North Bend would not be plotted for another year. Most people think of pioneers as hardy men raised in the wilds, accustomed to hunting, gathering food, and going long periods without much company. Lofts was not raised in the wilds of the American West but rather in a small village in England.
John Lofts was born on June 1, 1847, in Duxford, Cambridgeshire, England. He was well-educated and well-read. Lofts worked in publishing and printing near Cambridge University before immigrating to the United States at the age of twenty-four. After his arrival, Lofts did not immediately seek out a pioneer lifestyle; rather, he lived in cities such as New York, Boston, and St. Louis while continuing his work in publishing.
Why would a man accustomed to living in a city with a stable career choose to leave everything to become a pioneer in a sparsely inhabited area of the country? This question may never have been answered if it wasn’t for a grand-niece of Lofts who found and preserved several letters he wrote to relatives in England. The letters give us a unique perspective into the life of one of Snoqualmie Valley’s earliest pioneers.
John Lofts chose to come west due to what he calls an instinct. He wrote: “It was the year 1888 that desire to own a small piece of land whereon to make a home…the herd instinct which causes animals – including mankind- to follow each other, impelled me to penetrate one of the numerous small valleys in the western foothills of the Cascade Mountains with the intention of squatting and later, when officially surveyed by the government, to file a homestead claim on 160 acres.”
In 1891, Lofts wrote to his brother that he had settled on a piece of unsurveyed government land on the bank of a river in the Cascade Mountains, at least twelve miles from the nearest settlement. That nearest settlement is what eventually became the town of North Bend. He further wrote, “There are about 12 to 15 of us up there, all single men, it is too far away for families to live…at present, it takes the best part of a day to go there over a very rough trail.”
Lofts’ goal was for this new land to support him eventually. He feared failure, as conveyed later in that same letter, “If I do not write, it is not because I do not think all at home but because I feel that my coming here has not been a success.”
On his claim, Lofts built a small cabin that protected him from the worst of the weather but did little to keep out rodents, small animals, and dampness. He cleared some of the land, planted potatoes and built a rodent-proof cupboard to store his supplies. And then he left! At the time, it was common for those hoping to settle a new claim to live there only in the summers and to return to more developed areas for the winter while working in logging or another profession to earn a living.
Lofts continued living and working on his claim for about three months of the year, clearing and improving the land. What drove him to live on his claim full time was not that it was fully developed and ready to support him, but rather the economy. There was stagnation in business, and few jobs could pay their employees. So, he went to live on his claim year-round, through the long winter with an amount of rain that John describes as “disagreeable.”
To make life more comfortable, Lofts built an improved cabin, described in an 1897 letter to his nephew as being constructed “of logs hand lengthened on top of each other and roofed with singles about the same size as your slates only split from cedar wood with a big knife – and the floor is made of split cedar boards and chairs, and nearly everything we make is made from the same.” All food had to be carried on by Lofts himself or on the back of a pony.
Things such as fresh meat and butter would spoil on the journey, and not wanting to hunt, Lofts lived on bacon and canned beef during the winter. It was also a lonely life. Fortunately, his love of books got him through the long days and nights as he wrote, “If I did not enjoy reading, I could not endure it.”
Despite the hardships, Lofts loved the rugged beauty of the area. In the same letter to his nephew, he wrote: “I am living in a little valley in the Cascade Mountains. A very rough country, steep mountains, with small valley between, each one having a swift-flowing mountain stream running down it. The mountainsides are covered with evergreen trees as fir, hemlock, cedar, etc.”
As Lofts grew older, life in the wilds became more difficult. He realized that the trip over the trail would only become more difficult. In addition, the location of his land proved difficult to make it profitable, “for it was now plain that no road would not be built and without it, no one could or would live there so, at long last, I definitely made up my mind to leave the place for good and go out to work.” Lofts estimated he had invested one thousand dollars into the claim over the years. He eventually sold the land for six hundred dollars. Lofts was disappointed with his lack of success in homesteading as he wrote: “The springs of hope were dried up and I had become disgusted with solitude.”
He further reflected, “There is one consolation, which is that hundreds of thousands of native-born Americans have made similar mistakes, as either the natural conditions were unfavourable or artificial conditions were created later as in our case by wealthy corporations buying up the land and which not only caused those with homes to abandon them but effectually prevented further settlement…There is no doubt that in the future, the valley will again be settled and let us hope that these later inhabitants may be more successful in establishing happy and prosperous homes than their predecessors.”
Whether Lofts was speaking of his own little valley or the Snoqualmie Valley as a whole is unclear. However, his piece of land was never developed. It is now public land traversed by a forest service road. If you have ever visited the Russian Butte View Day Use Area you stood on some of the same land that John Lofts claimed.
While life in the wilds did not meet Lofts’ definition of success, the loss of his land was a benefit to the town of Snoqualmie. Lofts was instrumental in turning around the local school district. In a letter to his sister, he wrote that he was a school board member working to straighten out the district’s finances. School board records show that he was successful in this endeavor.
No letters by Lofts are in the museum holdings for 1907-1920. Hints about his life during those years come from land, census, and school board records. During this time, Lofts’ most visible legacy was constructed – the Snoqualmie Grade School. Land records show that in 1911, Lofts sold four lots to the school district on which the school was built. That building remains today, and within it are housed the administrative offices of the Snoqualmie Valley School District. At some point, perhaps because of this land sale, Lofts traveled to England to visit relatives.
Lofts return from overseas was likely the cause of a shift in his view of the Snoqualmie Valley. Among the various changes, he notes that “the forests [were] gone and in the place of quiet and solitude the noise of railroads, on both sides of that river, noisy locomotives and auto cars.”
Lofts returned to London in 1926. He was eighty years old and likely intended to stay and live out his days with relatives. For whatever reason, he chose to return to the United States. Upon his return, he visited his brother, Robert, near Alton, Illinois. A letter to his sister hints that he may have been planning to stay long-term with Robert. Still, he had “insufficient water and no modern conveniences such as I have been accustomed to for a good many years, and which are almost a necessity for an old person.”
When Lofts returned to Snoqualmie, he purchased a small, newly constructed bungalow with electricity and running water. He was proud to remain independent and wrote to his family that he added a porch to the bungalow, planted a small garden, and preserved food. He mused that he “never regretted coming to this coast.”
In July 1929, John Lofts was hit by a car. He convalesced at home under the care of his nephew Henry until his death on October 13th. He was buried in Mt. Si Memorial Cemetery at his request, where the mountain would always look over him.
[Featured Image: PO.275.0015 John Lofts sits between two of his brothers.]
Comments
Wonderful article. Thanks for posting!