"During the Indian war this building was the general rendezvous of the volunteers engaged in defending the thinly populated country against the depredations of the savages, and was also the resort of the navy officers on the same duty on the Sound. Judge Lander's office was held in one corner of the dining room; the auditor's office, for some time, was kept under the same roof, and, indeed, it may be said to have been used for more purposes than any other building on the Pacific coast. It was the general depository from which law and justice were dispensed throughout a large scope of surrounding country. It has, at different times, served for town hall, courthouse, jail, military headquarters, storehouse, hotel and church; and in the early years of its history served all these purposes at once. It was the place of holding elections, and political parties of all sorts held their meetings in it, and quarreled and made friends again, and ate, drank, laughed, sung, wept, and slept under the same hospitable roof. If there was to be a public gathering of the settlers of any kind and for any purpose, no one ever asked where the place of meeting was to be, for all knew it was to be at the cook house. "The first sermon, by a Protestant, in King county was preached by the Rev. Mr. Close in the old cook house. The first lawsuit--which was the trial of the mate of the Franklin Adams, for selling ship's stores and appropriating the proceeds--came off, of course, in the old cook house. Justice Maynard presided at this trial, and the accused was discharged from the old cook house with the wholesome advice that in future he should be careful to make a correct return of all his private sales of other people's property. "Who, then, knowing the full history of this famous old relic of early times, can wonder that it has so long been suffered to stand and moulder, unused, in the midst of the more gaudy surroundings of a later civilization? And who can think it strange, when, at last, its old smoky walls were compelled to yield to the pressure of progression, and be tumbled heedlessly into the street, that the old settler looked sorrowfully upon the vandal destruction, and silently dropped a tear over its leveled ruins. Peace to the ashes of the old cook house." While the pioneers lingered in the settlement, they enjoyed the luxury of living in houses of sawed lumber. Time has worked out his revenges until what was then disesteemed is much admired now. A substantial and picturesque lodge of logs, furnished with modern contrivances is now regarded as quite desirable, for summer occupation at least.