With the exception of some genealogical records, little is known of the lives of John and Lydia Low until they joined with the Denny Party on the Oregon Trail in early August 1851. When the combined group reached Portland later that month, John Low and David Denny (1832-1903) were sent north to scout for a likely place to settle, and by happenstance were joined by Leander (Lee) Terry (1818-1862) in Olympia. They chose what is now called Alki at the entrance to Elliott Bay. Before Low returned to Oregon to fetch the others, he and Terry marked out claims on essentially all the usable land at Alki. He returned to Alki on the schooner Exact with Lydia, their four young children, and the main body of the Denny Party, landing on November 13, 1851. In the early spring of 1852 Low and Terry had a townsite surveyed and laid out, first called New York, but soon renamed Alki. Yet these first would not last – Lee Terry abandoned his claim and left less than six months after the Denny Party's arrival. One year later Low sold his interests to Charles Terry (1828-1867) and moved the family to Thurston County to farm. John and Lydia ended their days in the town of Snohomish, which their firstborn, Mary, had helped found.
Origins
John Low's father, Nathan Low (1791–1844), was born in Greenbriar County, Maryland. He married Sarah Brooks (1792-1879) of Pennsylvania on February 12, 1814, and the couple had seven children, including John Nathan Low, born in either Ohio or Maryland (sources differ) on April 17, 1820. At some point the Lows moved to Illinois, and in 1835 Nathan Low purchased 40 acres of land near Danville, where the family farmed. Nothing certain is known about John Low's upbringing or education, but some assumptions seem supportable. In 1840 nearly 70 percent of Americans were farmers, and like most rural youths of that era, John no doubt spent much of his time working on the farm, with limited opportunities for formal schooling.
The next documented event in John Low's life came on February 17, 1842, when he married Lydia Colborn (1820-1901) in McLean County, Illinois. Lydia, a native of Pennsylvania, was one of six (perhaps seven) children of Jonathon Colborn (1784-?) and Susan Skinner Colborn, whose birth and death dates are unrecorded. In 1850 John and Lydia and their children were living in Bloomington, Illinois. That year's federal census listed John Low's occupation as "farmer" ("1850 United States Federal Census").
Going West
When in 1851 John and Lydia Low decided to go to Oregon Territory, they had four children – Mary Elizabeth Low (1842-1922), Alonzo Low (1845-1921), John Low (1847-1902), and Minerva Low, who was born in 1849 but would die in 1858, age 9. They set out across the Great Plains from Bloomington on April 1, 1851. It was reported that the Lows left Illinois with a herd of "45 cows and heifers" (Hoffman, 15), "choice stock for dairy purposes" (Bancroft, 21, fn. 54).
Near Fort Laramie in what is today Wyoming, the Low Party passed the Denny Party, which had left from Cherry Grove, Illinois. Both groups were headed to Portland in Oregon Territory, many hoping to claim fertile farmland in the Willamette Valley. The roll call of the Denny Party is well-documented, but that of the Low group is not. In her book Blazing the Way, Emily Inez Denny (1854-1918), daughter of David Denny and Louisa Boren Denny (1820-1916), described the Low party as comprising "six men and two women" (E. I. Denny, 31). No mention is made of the Lows' four children, nor are the five men other than John Low and the one woman other than Lydia Low identified. Jumping ahead a bit, when the schooner Exact dropped the Denny Party at Alki, among the passengers were John and Lydia Low and their four children. It appears that Ms. Denny's account – repeated in 4 Wagons West by Roberta Frye Watt, granddaughter of party leader Arthur Denny (1822-1899) and his wife, Mary Ann Boren Denny (1822-1910) – must be questioned. The inconsistency is irreconcilable without more information, which given the passage of time seems unlikely.
Strength in Numbers
On July 6, 1851, near American Falls on the Snake River, the Denny Party was attacked and fired upon by Native Americans for the first and only time. They were able to outrun the attackers without injury, but fearing further pursuit they kept up a tiring pace all afternoon. Late in the day they caught up with the Low caravan that had passed them earlier:
"As night approached, the welcome light of a campfire, that of J. N. Low's company, induced them to stop. This camp was on a level near a bluff; a narrow deep stream flowed by into the Snake River not far away. The cattle were corralled [sic], with the wagons in a circle and a fire of brushwood built in the center …
"The Denny and Low trains were well pleased to join their forces and traveled as one company until they reached their journey's end" (E. I. Denny, 29-31).
Upon reaching The Dalles, the combined party divided into two groups. Most of the men went with the wagons and livestock over the Cascade Range, while the women and children, and much of the supplies, traveled down the Columbia in boats, then up the Willamette River to Portland. There they found disappointment. Most of the best land in the Willamette Valley had been claimed since the passage of the Donation Land Claim Act one year earlier. Portland was dirty, crowded, and plagued with ague (recurring attacks of chills, fever, and sweating), which Arthur and Mary Denny both caught.
Even before souring on the Willamette Valley, Arthur's interest had been directed north. On July 24, 1851, the combined Denny/Low Party had been camped on the Burnt River in eastern Oregon Territory, where Denny
"met a man by the name of Brock … He gave us information in regard to Puget Sound and called attention to the fact that … as yet there was no road over the mountains, by which it could be reached.
"My attention was thus turned to the Sound and I formed the purpose to look in that direction" (A. A. Denny, 27).
Getting Ready
The Denny/Low party had reassembled in Portland by August 5, 1851. With Arthur Denny ailing, it was decided that David, his younger brother, would accompany John Low to drive Low's livestock to winter-range pasturage on the Chehalis River. They would then make their way north to investigate Puget Sound. They left on September 10, 1851, ferrying the livestock down the Columbia River, then taking the Hudson's Bay Company's trail to the valley of the Chehalis. Historian Hubert Howe Bancroft noted that Low's stock "were the first selected American cattle taken to the Sound country, and [Low] seems to have had a more definite purpose in emigrating than many who came to the Pacific coast at that period" (Bancroft, 21).
After securing the livestock at its new pasturage, Denny and Low started working their way north. They soon reached Olympia, located on Budd Inlet at the southernmost point of Puget Sound. The town, still small, was the Sound's leading settlement. There Denny and Low met Leander Terry, who had come west from New York, and Captain Robert C. Fay (1820-1872), who was using a small, open sailboat to buy salmon from local tribes to salt-cure, barrel, and ship to San Francisco. The four men joined forces and headed 60 miles north in Fay's boat to Elliott Bay (then called Dewamps Bay). Low, Terry, and Denny hired two Native Americans with a canoe to explore the bay and the Duwamish River that emptied into it. Three days later they made their way by land to what would later be called Alki Point.
John Low and Lee Terry seemed cut from the same cloth. Both were family men, although Terry had left his family back in New York when he headed west. It soon became clear that rather than simply settling down and returning to lives of farming, they both had greater ambitions, a shared vision to found, develop, and own a town. On September 28, 1851, six weeks before the remainder of the pioneers would arrive, Low and Terry jointly marked off Donation Land Claims at Alki that encompassed almost all usable land on the entire point, leaving nothing for others. They had, in effect, become the landlords of every other member of the Denny Party who chose to stay at Alki. In large part for that reason, none but Charles Terry did.
"Come at Once"
During the delay caused by the Dennys' illness, Arthur Denny was trying to recruit others to join in the move north. The first to commit was the Bell family – William Bell (1817-1887), his wife, Sarah (1819-1856), and four daughters, who had crossed the Great Plains from Alton, Illinois. The last to sign on was Charles Carroll Terry (1829-1867), the younger brother of Lee. They had arrived in California at about the same time, but either did not travel there together or parted ways before long. When Charles Terry agreed to join the Denny Party, he had no idea where his brother was, much less that he had teamed up to scout with David Denny and John Low.
After claiming the land at Alki, Low and Terry hired David Denny to help build a cabin for the Low family, to be used by all the settlers until other accommodations could be constructed. Low was to return to Portland to retrieve his family and report to Arthur Denny. He carried a note to Arthur from David that read in part, "Come at once" (or words to that effect; sources differ slightly). Captain Fay had returned with his boat to Alki and agreed to take Low to Olympia, from where he could complete his journey to Portland on horseback and on foot. They left soon after Low and Lee Terry had marked off their claims.
Upon hearing Low's report, most of the Denny Party decided to go to Elliott Bay. Those who chose to stay in Oregon were Arthur Denny's father, John (1793-1875); his stepmother, Sarah Latimer Denny (1805-1888) and their young daughter, Loretta; and three of Arthur Denny's four brothers. As there was no established land route from Portland to the bay, the pioneers arranged to travel by ship, and passage was booked on the schooner Exact. Those of the Denny Party on board were Arthur; his wife, Mary Ann Boren Denny and their three young children; Louisa Boren (1827-1916), a younger sister of Mary Ann Boren Denny; Carson D. Boren (1827-1916), his wife, Mary Ann Kays Boren (1830-1905), and their daughter; John Low, his wife, Lydia, and their four children; William Bell, his wife Sarah Bell, and their four daughters; and Charles Terry.
The November 13, 1851, landing of the Denny Party at Alki is thoroughly discussed elsewhere. It suffices to say here that it came on a typical Northwest late-fall day, leaden-skyed, cold, windy, and very wet. The party's early struggles at Alki are also well-described by multiple sources. What is most relevant here is the effect that John Low and Lee Terry's preemptive claiming of almost all the land had on the future course of these first settlers.
Charles Terry, now reunited with his brother Lee, decided that his future was at Alki, a decision he would eventually come to reconsider. Arthur Denny, Carson Boren, and William Bell had not brought their families across the Great Plains to live as tenants on land owned by others. David Denny, still single, felt the same. Nor were they pleased with Alki's shortcomings; the place had fair anchorage, but frequent strong winds sweeping up and down Puget Sound made any over-water structures, such as piers and docks, vulnerable.
As soon as the weather improved, Arthur Denny, Boren, and Bell began scouting for a new place to settle. After rejecting sites near Puyallup, they found what they were looking for close by, almost within sight of, Alki. On February 15, 1852, the men marked off three adjacent claims on the eastern shore of Elliott Bay – Boren to the south, Denny in the middle, with Bell taking the northernmost. If any single date could mark the birth of Seattle, this was it. David Denny would later claim land to the north of Bell. Every original member of the Denny Party, man, woman, and child, who had come north was destined to leave Alki, along with the Bell family.
John Low and Lee Terry recognized the threat posed by the departure of all the settlers but themselves and Lee's brother Charles. They decided that William Bell, who had not been an original member of the Denny Party, might be persuaded to remain at Alki. On February 8, 1852, they presented him with a written offer to give him a lot in the planned townsite of "New York" and, in addition, pay Bell $500 if he built a "respectable dwelling" there by January 1, 1856 ("Bond binding Leander Terry …"). It was futile; one week later Bell staked out his claim in the future Seattle. Soon the Terrys and the Low family would be practically alone at Alki, but for the presence of several hundred Native Americans.
Lee Leaves, Low Perseveres … Briefly
Lee Terry, no doubt discouraged, spent two months considering his dwindling options, then threw in the towel. On April 25, 1852, the brig Leonesa anchored off Alki to take on a load of piles for San Francisco. It was not the first time it had done so – that was the previous December, when it gave the settlers their first, much-needed income. When it sailed, Lee Terry was on it, the first leg on his journey to return to his family in New York, never to return. There were no formalities; he either gifted his share of Alki to his brother or abandoned it for Charles to assume.
John Low and Charles Terry were now partners, at least in the ownership of Alki. Terry, an entrepreneurial young man of 21 or 22, had landed at Alki with a stock of goods to sell. He built a small store, and began expanding his stock, buying from trading ships on Puget Sound or by order from Portland and San Francisco. While their exact relationship was opaque, it appears that he brought Low in as a partner in his mercantile operations, doing business as the New York Markook House (an approximation of mákuk, a Chinook Jargon word for trading). In late 1852 they together purchased a sailing bark, New World, in which to ship lumber, shingles, fish, and other products to San Francisco and bring back inventory for their store.
The last months of 1852 were a busy time for John and Lydia Low. Lydia gave birth to Amelia Antoinette "Nettie" Low (1852-1932), the couple's fifth child and the first white child born in what would soon become King County. In November, Low was a delegate to the Monticello Convention, which petitioned Congress to carve a new territory from the portion of Oregon Territory north of the Columbia River. Congress did, on March 2, 1853. On December 22, 1852, King County was formed from Thurston County. John Low, Luther Collins (1813-1860), and Arthur Denny were appointed the first King County commissioners by the Oregon Territorial Legislature.
Things Fall Apart
Whatever the precise nature of Low and Terry's dealings, they did not last long. Effective April 11, 1853, Terry and Low dissolved their partnership, publishing an announcement in Olympia's The Columbian newspaper on April 23. Low had decided to move with his family to Chambers Prairie near Olympia. He resigned from the county commission and sold his business interests and property to Terry, who for better or worse was now the sole owner of Alki. By early 1854 he too was looking for the exit.
Another incentive to leave Alki may have come from Low's wife, Lydia. She had survived the rigors of the trek west but was not entirely comfortable at Alki, surrounded by hundreds of Native Americans. She described one frightening incident to historian Edmond Meany. He later wrote:
"Mrs. John N. Low told the writer that one of those Indians once gave her an attack of nerves by poking his dirty finger into a loaf of bread she was baking before the fire. She took up her wooden shovel stirred up the fire and as the Indian scrambled back from the sparks she gave his bare legs an awful spank with the hot shovel He rushed from the cabin with a yell and then she sat down and cried for fear of a scalping party in retaliation" (Meany, 222).
More discouraging, however, was the fact that after the Denny, Boren, and Bell families had moved to their claims in Seattle, Lydia Low was the sole adult white woman at Alki. She had a new baby, Nettie, who had to be weaned on clam juice as no milk was available. (The lack of milk would indicate that the Low's dairy herd was still pastured elsewhere.)
The Lows Move On
By the summer of 1852 the Low family were working a farm and raising stock near Olympia. In 1854 John Low was elected a Thurston County commissioner. The Lows' sixth child, Charles Hudson Low, was born there on February 12, 1855. He later wed Mary J. Kincaid (1860-1925) on October 30, 1879, but the marriage was childless. He became a respected owner and operator of steam boats, but died of a brain aneurysm in 1887, age 32. There is some indication in the record that the John and Lydia Low had a daughter, Luella S. Low, who was born in Olympia in 1857, but died two years later. Even if true, nothing more is known about her.
The Low family was still living in Thurston County when another son, Horace C. Low (1859-1876), was born, and the family became complete with the birth of Sarah Francis Low (1862-1935), the couple's eighth child, three years later.
A rather mysterious interlude in the Low family's saga came in 1866. Some sources claim that the family lived in Sonoma, California, in 1866. The only documentary evidence is a voter registration roll from there bearing the entry "Low, John Nathan" ("Great Register, Sonoma County"). The register places Low's birthplace as Ohio, which agrees with most other sources (a minority view is that he was born in Maryland), and his occupation is listed as "Lumberman." While he did engage in logging in his early years in the Northwest, both the 1850 and 1860 federal censuses record that he was a farmer, and in 1870 his occupation would be given as "merchant."
This assertion is not easily dismissed, primarily because it was endorsed by Emily Inez Denny (1854-1918), the daughter of David Denny and Louisa Boren Denny. She was the first white child born in Seattle, and she knew Lydia Low and had spoken to her often. In her book Blazing the Way, Denny wrote of the Lows:
"The Lows did not make a permanent settlement there [Alki], but moved to a farm back of Olympia, thence to Sonoma, Cal., and back again to Puget Sound, where they made their home at Snohomish for many years" (I. E. Denny, 494).
Although it is not mentioned in most accounts, the fact of the Low family having lived in Sonoma seems established. Everything else about it remains a mystery. It is simply not known how many of the family went, why they went, exactly when they went, or why and when they returned.
Snohomish
In 1862 Mary Elizabeth Low, the oldest child of John and Lydia Low, married Woodbury Benjamin Sinclair (1826-1872) in Kitsap County, where Mary was a teacher in Port Madison. Sinclair had come west from Maine in 1855 and opened a sawmill. In 1864 he bought the claim of Edson Cady on the north bank of the Snohomish River, known as Cadyville, where he opened trading post. In April 1865 he was joined by his wife and their one-month-old son, Alvin. Mary was the first Caucasian woman to take up permanent residence in what would become Snohomish City. Twenty days after her arrival, the infant Alvin died. In 1866 a second son, Clarence Sinclair (d. 1904) was born. A daughter, Mabel "May" H. Sinclair, was born on April 28, 1869, and lived until 1935.
In 1871 Emory (1813-1860) and Lucetta Ferguson (1849-1907) platted their claim, which was adjacent to that of the Sinclairs. The following year, Woodbury and Mary Sinclair platted theirs, naming the avenues of their eastern claim after trees. This nearly doubled the size of what was now called Snohomish City. Three months later, on June 5, 1872, Woodbury Sinclair died. He had bought the Cady claim with his own funds, and because Washington was not yet a community-property state, his interest passed to his two young children.
Mary, as guardian of the estate, managed the property for the children. She had opened her own home for use as the area's first classroom as early as 1869, and in 1874 she donated a city block for a school, which later became the site of the Carnegie Library. In 1876 she gifted three acres that bordered the Pilchuck River to the Snohomish Cemetery Association for the city’s first formal cemetery. She placed a headstone of white marble as a memorial for Woodbury in the new cemetery, where she also moved the remains of her infant son Alvin and added those of her second son Clarence after his death in 1904.
The Senior Lows
Sometime after 1866 but before 1870, John and Lydia Low returned from Sonoma. After Woodbury Sinclair's death they moved to be near their daughter in Snohomish. The 1870 federal census listed John's occupation as "Merchant" (1870 Federal Census), and it is probable that he was working at his late son-in-law's store. Little more is known of their lives there, but tragedy struck the couple again in January 1876 when their son Horace, while skating with two friends on the outskirts of Snohomish, fell through the ice and drowned, together with one of his companions.
John Low died in 1888 and Lydia in 1901. John's remains were disinterred and moved at least once, and his current burial site is uncertain, although most sources hold that the remains of both found final rest in the Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery in Snohomish. Of Lydia, Emily Inez Denny wrote:
"Mrs. Low was the mother of a large family of nine children, who shared her pioneer life. Some died in childhood, accidents befell others, a part were more fortunate, yet she seemed in old age serene, courageous, undaunted as ever, faithful and true, lovely and beloved" (E. I. Denny, 494)
The surviving Low children, with the exception of Mary, appear to have led rather ordinary and anonymous lives. Just as her parents were honored as pioneers of the Denny Party, after her death in 1922 Mary was fondly remembered as a pioneer of Snohomish County, and for the many contributions she made to its development.
Afterword
It is interesting to note that both Leander Terry and John Low are included in most lists of Seattle's "founders," although they had nothing to do with it. They founded "New York," later called Alki, not Seattle. Lee Terry decamped to return to New York barely five months after the Denny Party landed, and never came back. John Low lasted about a year longer. So far as is known, Lee Terry never set foot in Seattle, and if Low did it was long after the town had been founded – by Arthur Denny, Carson Boren, William Bell, David Denny, and their wives. Both David "Doc" Maynard (1808-1873) and Henry Yesler (1810?-1892) have stronger claims to the title of Seattle founders, but the fact that they were not members of the Denny Party seems to have disqualified them.
