The Doc Will Seattle You Now
David Maynard was a highly educated man, going to med school when he was 17, getting married at 20 then jumping into the political realm over in Ohio. He started his own medical school and dipped his hand into the railroad but pretty much lost everything in the panic of 1837. His wife wouldn't let him forget how it was all his fault they were broke and so on. She cheated on him and made sure he knew all about it but for the sake of his children, he stayed with the wench until his kids were of age. At that point he left for California with nothing but his doctor bag.
Being a doctor helped him finance his trek west. Curing people of all kinds of diseases, broken bones, and so on. Making a few bucks here and there. Not all of his patients lived though. There was a husband and wife with the Wife's mother who were traveling to Oregon to join up with some family that had already made the trek. The guy got Cholera and died. The mom died soon as well and in her dying breath begged for this doctor to make sure her daughter Catherine made it to Tumwater in the Oregon Territory.
He promised he would and sure enough did. Along the way they fell in love, to the point that he decided to not continue south to California in search of gold. He stayed right there and became a logger. Logging was a decent job and for him was a part-time job since he was a doctor. Soon he realized he could make a ton more money if he got himself a ship and sold the lumber in San Francisco instead of selling it to the shippers right there in The Puget Sound. So that's what he did. Making over 10 times the amount he would have.
Maynard then used this mini fortune from logging to build himself a nice little store and bought in bulk, this way he could sell for way cheaper than all the other stores. He also used a credit system so people didn't have to pay upfront like in most of the other shops. This ticked off the shop owners in the area and he was essentially told to leave or suffer the consequences.
At this point, he met a Tribal Chief who was called Si’ahl who was friendly to Maynard and made a deal with him to go to Elliot Bay up north and open a shop there and they would supply him with a bunch of salmon that he could salt and sell to the people in California. Which is exactly what he did.Unfortunately, the majority of the salmon expired by the time it got to California, 900 kegs worth of rotten salmon
Maynard wasn't all into the get rich idea. He saw Duwamps as a potential great city like New York. So he did all kinds of extra jobs for little or no pay just to see it succeed. For example, The only Lawyer in town died in a freak canoeing accident so he studied up on law, passed the bar, and was the new lawyer in town. There were all kinds of issues with the Indians so he spent a lot of time keeping the peace with a ton of help from his buddy Si’Ahl who you'd know as Chief Seattle.
He saw a need for a blacksmith so he became one and as soon as there was a blacksmith in town he sold the blacksmith shop for hardly anything. He was a very hands-on philanthropist. He also believed that to build a great city you needed to provide plenty of vices. So he set up the first saloon, brothel, and casino.
At one point He was made a delegate and voted to divide Oregon into two territories making a new one they would call Washington. In doing this they created new counties one being King County named after Vice President William King. Later to be renamed King County after Martin Luther King Jr. in 2005 because William King was a slave owner. which is interesting because Chief Seattle ran a slave trade in the Puget Sound and had a few personal slaves including sex slaves. But hey That's none of my business.
Doc Maynard eventually decided he was tired of the city life and wanted to try his hand at farming so he moved to New York - Alki which is just West Seattle and tried to run a farm there. Using kelp as fertilizer to grow potatoes. But in the end, he was not all that great so he moved back to Duwamps where he headed the effort to have the city renamed Seattle and then built a hospital, which unfortunately didn't do so well because he treated both Indians and whites so most people went to other hospitals instead.
Though Maynard had a great rapport with the natives and was sympathetic, he still believed they needed to be conquered.
During all this, he was able to get a virtual divorce from his wife back east and married that gal he met on the wagon train. They lived happily until wifey number 1 showed up in town demanding half of his estate. In court, they fought and Maynard was forced to give up half of his original estate which he no longer had and give it to wife #1 but the judge ruled she was not entitled to it since she did not claim it within the time frame after the divorce. He and wifey #2 laughed and were all giddy until the judge said that he still didn't get to keep that half and it also did not go to wifey #2 but instead would go to the state.
In the end, Doc died in his home comfortable and beloved by many. His funeral was the greatest the city ever saw and someone at his service said these words.
"Without him, Seattle will not be the same. Without him, Seattle would not have been the same. Indeed, without him, Seattle might not be."
