With his party he reached Portland in August, 1851; from thence, with J. N. Low, he made his way to Olympia on Puget Sound, where he arrived footsore and weary, they having traveled on foot the Hudson Bay Company's trail from the Columbia River. From Olympia, with Low, Lee Terry, Captain Fay and others, he journeyed in an open boat to Duwampsh Head, which has suffered many changes of name, where they camped, sleeping under the boughs of a great cedar tree the first night, September 25th, 1851. The next day Denny, Terry and Low made use of the skill and knowledge of the native inhabitants by hiring two young Indians to take them up the Duwampsh River in their canoe. He was left to spend the following night with the two Indians, as his companions had wandered so far away that they could not return, but remained at an Indian camp farther up the river. On the 28th they were reunited and returned to their first camp, from which they removed the same day to Alki Point. A cabin was commenced and after a time, Low and Terry returned to Portland, leaving David Thomas Denny, nineteen years of age, the only white person on Elliott Bay. There were then swarms of Indians on the Sound. For three weeks he held this outpost of civilization, a part of the time being far from well. So impressed was he with the defenselessness of the situation that he expressed himself as "sorry" when his friends landed from the schooner "Exact" at Alki Point on the 13th of November, 1851. No doubt realizing that an irretrievable step had been taken, he tried to reassure them by explaining that "the cabin was unfinished and that they would not be comfortable." Many incidents of his early experience are recorded in this volume elsewhere. He was married on the 23rd of January, 1853, to Miss Louisa Boren, one of the most intelligent, courageous and devoted of pioneer women. They were the first white couple married in Seattle. He was an explorer of the eastern side of Elliott Bay, but was detained at home in the cabin by lameness occasioned by a cut on his foot, when A. A. Denny, W. N. Bell and C. D. Boren took their claims, so had fourth choice. For this reason his claim awaited the growth of the town of Seattle many years, but finally became very valuable. It was early discovered by the settlers that he was a conscientious man; so well established was this fact that he was known by the sobriquet of "Honest Dave." Like all the other pioneers, he turned his hand to any useful thing that was available, cutting and hewing timber for export, clearing a farm, hauling wood, tending cattle, anything honorable; being an advocate of total abstinence and prohibition, _he never kept a saloon_. He has done all in his power to discountenance the sale and use of intoxicants, the baleful effects of which were manifest among both whites and Indians.