Peter Smith said: "We were crossing the plains in 1852 when Spotted Tail with about thirty warriors, fresh from the Crow war, rode up to our camp early one morning. I was cooking breakfast for our party, and I tell you I was pretty well scared, but I thought to offer them something to eat and after several attempts, made them understand what I wanted, and finally gave them all a breakfast of bread and sugar and coffee. When they first came they sat on their horses with feathers in their hair, and said nothing to me and nothing to each other, and I really thought my time had come. After they had eaten their breakfast they went on up the Platte River toward Fort Laramie. After we had traveled about three hundred miles we camped in the vicinity of a large Indian force under the control of Spotted Tail. I was with a group of men that had gathered when I felt a tug at my coat tail. I looked around quickly but saw no one, so I went on speaking to the man that I had been talking to. Pretty soon I felt another tug, and looking around saw an Indian, whom I recognized as the leader of the band that had eaten breakfast at our camp a few days before. The Indian told me that his name was Spotted Tail, and that he wanted me to come to his camp a few miles away. I told him I would go. Although the others in our party tried to dissuade me from the undertaking, I went. The chief treated me with great kindness and hospitality. He was a tall, athletic Indian, and his daughters were very pretty, having regular features and black hair. I returned to the train well pleased with my visit. Forty years after, while at the world's fair, I met a young man who had some office at Fort Laramie, which post Spotted Tail often visited. He told me that Spotted Tail often inquired about me, said that he had never been so well treated by a white man in his life, and expressed a desire to have me come and see him. I was very sorry that I never went through the reservation where Spotted Tail lived to stop off and see him."
"The Indians have massacred all the white settlers on White River and are coming down on us here in Puyallup," was passed from house to house on that fateful October day of 1855. Mrs. Woolery and Mrs. Boatman were the only survivors present at the reunion who witnessed the scenes that followed. Some had wagons; some had none. Strive as best they could, they only got across the river the first day. Two canoes were lashed together and the wagons ferried across, after being first taken apart. The trip out the next day was made on foot, the women carrying the young children on their backs. Then came the volunteer company a week later to rescue the provisions, stock, clothing and other property that had been abandoned. This party consisted of the settlers of the valley, with a few others—nineteen in all. The author was one of the "others," not having yet settled in the valley. As we went in by the "lower" road the column of United States troops and volunteers abandoned the field and withdrew by the "upper" road, leaving our little band in utter ignorance of our danger for four days, when we crossed the trail of the retreating column, which we afterwards learned had halted at Montgomery's, at the edge of the prairie. Our women folks were disturbed at our long stay, and the troops were under orders to advance to our rescue, when lo! and behold! at nightfall on the sixth day we returned, loaded with property and provisions, in most cases being all the possessions of the owners who formed a part of the company, and there was great joy in camp. Not an Indian had been seen nor a shot fired, except to empty our guns to make sure that they would "go," as some of the men quaintly expressed it.