|
Early
days of Redmond: Told by the daughter of it's Founder
Seattle Times, issue June 5, 1949, Seattle Times Library
A
little white-haired woman with sparkling blue eyes sat in
her niece's home yesterday (June 4, 1949) and talked about the founding
of Redmond, it's first school, first store and the Indians who sat and waited
for her mother to feed them. The woman is Mrs.
Anna McRedmond SMITH, 77 years old, the only living child of Luke McRedmond,
the founder of Redmond. She is visiting with a sister's daughter. Mrs. Smith,
who now lives in Portland, Oregon, spent most of her life in Redmond. She was
among the first pupils in the log school-house which her father built.
"My
parents came to this country from Ireland and first settled in Kitsap County,
where my father served as sheriff," Mrs. Smith said. "Later
they moved to Seattle and their home was at First and Madison. Father took
up a homestead where Redmond now stands and built a little house
there. I remember so well my mother telling about the trip to their
new home. Father loaded the family, all the household belongings and the cow
into a scow. They went up the Duwamish River, into Black River, then across Lake
Washington and up the Sammamish River.
Father
was always a friendly man with the Indians, and when one of them died, they came
in great groups and sat in our yard and mourned. When I was a child, the Indians
came to our place all the time. They would sit around and watch us until my
mother gave them something to eat. I was never afraid of them."
Mrs.
Smith recalled how her father, with five sons and two daughters to educate, got
several families together and built a school for them on his
property. Miss Mary
Condon was hired as teacher. She lived at the McRedmond home.
Mrs.
Smith told how, when the family came to Seattle, they would hike or ride horses
as far as Houghton "over a trail through the forest which my father had
made" and would cross Lake Washington in a rowboat. Mrs. Smith said her
father opened a general store after the Redmond population had grown, and was
appointed postmaster.
At
the old home site, Mrs. Smith met and married Elmer A. Smith, a conductor on
the Seattle, Lakeshore & Eastern Railroad, the first rail line into this area.
|
