CHIEF MOSES & TOM SEATON

     The life of Chief Moses, Sulktalthscosum or Half-Sun, spanned the transition from native to white civilization.  As a child he knew the Indian camp, the trail, and hunting and fighting on the buffalo plains.  He won a name for himself by opposing the white man by stealthy attack and in open battle.
     As he matured, he gained the responsibilities of being chief of the Salish-speaking people of the mid-Columbia valley, he became a diplomat, and, convinced of the futility of resisting the growing white encroachment, he held his united tribes at peace in spite of almost unendurable pressure.  He maintained his independence from government control as long as he could, but eventually he lost this contest and in the 1880s became a reservation Indian.
     He had long been friends with Chief Joseph of the Nez Perces, and when Joseph and his people were finally permitted to return to the Northwest from Indian Territory, he joined Moses on the Colville Reservation.

          The above is from the jacket of the book,
               HALF-SUN ON THE COLUMBIA
               By Robert H. Ruby and John A. Brown
               University of Oklahoma Press, Norman  c. 1965
               second printing, June, 1966

          This book is a must read for anyone interested in the history of the West, of Native Americans, and of the Inland Northwest in particular.

     Thomas B. Seaton (my great grandfather, 1843-1920) was part of the railroad migration in the late 1880's, settling on a piece of land north of Wilbur, Washington.  In the very early days, he operated a Halfway House on his property and later established a store and Post Office there, which he called Hesseltine.  Hesseltine was located not too far above the old Columbia River crossing where he would later establish one of the first ferries in the area.  See the May 16 post, SAM SEATON 1886-1971, and the May 13 post, SAM SEATON RECALLS DAYS OF THE OLD FERRY.
     The Indian people who used the old crossing seldom stopped at the homestead before the store was established, but afterward, they came by quite often.

     Moses and Tom Seaton became good friends.  The following, concerning the fall of 1898, is from pages 345-346 of "Half-Sun on the Columbia":

     He {Moses} still kept his humor.  An old friend, Tom Seaton, was establishing a new ferry four miles above the mouth of the Grand Coulee, on the old Indian route linking Nespelem and Wilbur, and was moving his store from Hesseltine, fifteen miles northwest of Wilbur tot he south ferry-landing.  Having recovered sufficiently from an illness of the previous month, Moses set out with two wagons on a day in mid-November and crossed at Seaton's ferry.  It may have been on this trip that he discussed fares with Tom.  He said, "My people own half the river, so they should cross it for half fare."
     "All right," said Seaton, "I will take you half way across and then you and your women can just get off and walk the rest of the way."  Then relenting, "It's a deal."  Moses laughed heartily at the concession.
     Across the river, he visited Seaton's store.  He may have been reminded of the times when he and Joseph used to stop at the Hesseltine store or of the times he and his wives stopped there, and how the women used to alight nimbly from their carriage and beat him to the store on a calico quest, fumbling in their bright handkerchiefs for coins.  No doubt he remembered, too, how he used to go straight to a bucket of eggs on a counter in the back and begin sucking one right after another.  Now he raided the eggs again.  Seaton interrupted his feast, demanding, "All right, Moses, pay for the eggs."
     The old chief replied, "One half the eggs [like the Columbia River] belong to me."  Then, after a pause to let Seaton feel the impact of his humor, he asked, "How much eggs?"
     "Twelve and a half cents a dozen," answered Seaton, "but i never was much good at figurin' half cents.  You can have 'um for twelve."

     Their sources of this story are a letter of Thomas B. Seaton in 1898, the October 28 and November 18 issues of the Wilbur Register, and Tom's daughter, Bessie Seaton Dumas (1882-1970).