"'Seattle was not a very big city in those days,' said Mr. Ward recently in discussing the matter. 'I remember that soon after my arrival I thought I would take a walk up in the woods. I went to the church, which stood where at present is the Boston National Bank building. I found windows filled with little holes. It was a great mystery to me. I went down town and made inquiry about it and was told that every hole represented a bullet fired by the Indians during the fight three years before.' "Mrs. Mercer was a woman of many grand qualities; she never permitted any suffering to go on about her if she were in a position to relieve it. She was a good friend of the poor and did many kind acts of which the world knew but little." In the latter years of her life she was a patient, uncomplaining invalid, and finally entered into rest on the 12th of November, 1897, having lived in Seattle for thirty-nine years. She was buried with honor and affection; the pallbearers were old pioneers averaging a forty years' residence in the same place; D. T. Denny, the longest, being one of the founders, for forty-five years; they were Dexter Horton, T. D. Hinckley, D. T. Denny, Edgar Bryan, David Kellogg and Hans Nelson. Mr. Mercer, at the age of 84 (in 1897), still survives her, passing a peaceful old age in the midst of relatives and friends. CHAPTER IX. DR. HENRY A. SMITH, THE BRILLIANT WRITER. This well known pioneer joined the "mighty nation moving west" in 1852. From Portland, the wayside inn of weary travelers, he pushed on to Puget Sound, settling in 1853 on Elliott Bay, at a place known for many years as Smith's Cove. Being a gifted writer he has made numerous contributions to northwestern literature, both in prose and poetry. In a rarely entertaining set of papers entitled "Early Reminiscences," he brings vividly to the minds of his readers the "good old times" on Elliott Bay, as he describes the manner of life, personal adventure, odd characters and striking environment of the first decade of settlement. In them he relates that after the White River massacre, he conveyed his mother to a place of safety, by night, in a boat with muffled oars.