Post Established
Some of the first European settlers to call the Chambers Creek and its surrounding area home were members of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC). Beginning around 1832, they set up post with the construction of a storehouse at the mouth of Sequalitchew Creek. Today that area is known as DuPont.
The Hudson’s Bay Company was hundreds of years old when it arrived in the Northwest and was built mostly on fur trading. Here, the Puget Sound Agricultural Company (PSAC) was formed to help support residents, increase profits, and diversify into farming. It acquired properties and hired servants and local Native Americans to work the land.
Locally the areas between Nisqually and the Puyallup rivers, which included Steilacoom village on Chambers Creek, were the center of it all. According to historians, the Puget Sound Agricultural Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company had good relations at the time with the local tribes and paid them as farmhands, housekeepers, and herdsmen while also recognizing their territory.
American settlement soon would shake that harmony up for everyone and lead to the demise of the agricultural company and the British occupation by the late 1840s. By 1844, a lot of farms were abandoned. The American settlers took claims surrounding Chambers Creek, established Fort Steilacoom in 1849, and built the town of Steilacoom in the early 1850s.
Early Hudson's Bay Logo. (Courtesy Curt Lewis)
Tensions Mount
More people meant more problems — especially when the American settlers began claiming land, creating friction with the Steilacoom people and other tribes.
The Treaty of Medicine Creek was negotiated on December 26, 1854, and that set aside reservation lands for the Nisqually, Puyallup, Steilacoom, and other tribes. The lands ended up being too small and isolated. The Native Americans fought back against the settlers in what was called the Puget Sound War (also known as the Indian War) in 1855-56. The United States military, local militias, and local Native American tribes including the Nisqually, Muckleshoot, Puyallup, and Klickitat were all in conflict.
A battle took place around spring of 1856 when Washington Territorial Volunteers were said to be ambushed by about 150 Native American tribesmen, thought by many to be led by Chief Leschi of the Nisqually Tribe. Later, Chief Leschi would be convicted of murder and hanged on Feb. 19, 1858 near Lake Steilacoom. In 2004, a historic court ruled he shouldn’t have been held accountable for murder for the death of enemies while at war.
After the local war, the U.S government vacated the reservation and the Steilacoom people returned to the Steilacoom area or went to neighboring tribal reservations.
Chief Leschi (Courtesy Curt Lewin)
Thomas Chambers
Thomas Chambers was one of those American settlers who staked a claim in 1849 — 640 acres (a square mile) at the mouth of what was known then as Heath Creek/Bay — and known today, as you may have guessed, as Chambers Creek/Bay.
Some historians believe he planted roots likely at an abandoned agricultural company cabin. In 1850, the U.S. still hadn’t paid HBC or PSAC for their land holdings. This caused issues and fighting. According to historical reports, a PSAC agent attempted to try to evict Chambers and his family and was met with a shotgun. It isn’t clear if it was the fear or eventually the payment from the government that ultimately kept PSAC away from the Chambers family.
Chambers went on to make his mark on the area by inspiring industrial development with the construction of a gristmill in 1850 (gristmills make flour) and a sawmill in 1852. In 1860, he built a four-story mill located at the mouth of Chambers Bay near where the dry storage marina stands today. He also served as Pierce County commissioner and was elected probate judge. Historians say people knew him as a “fair man” and he was known as Judge Chambers for the rest of his life.