Doc David Maynard

Last year I donated a print of a sketch of Doctor David Maynard to my Lodge. As it turns out few people, and just as few Seattle Masons have ever heard of him. Since it is my pleasure it share his story with the visitors of the foyer of my Lodge, it shall also be my privilege to write about his life and how it impacted our today as well.

                  We are very familiar with Chief Seattle of the Duwamish Tribe. His statue sits in Pioneer Square, and his face is on all official documents of our city. After all our city is named after him. Who does not have a statue or his likeness reproduced is his friend affectionately know as Doc Maynard, with out whom, Seattle would be  ¼ the size and known as the City of New York Alki.

                  St Johns Lodge records Doc Maynard as being of the first men initiated into their lodge shortly after they received their charter. Maynard was one of the oldest founding members of the city and also never really accepted by the other founders. However, he had two sides of his personality that was unlike by his fellow founders. Firstly he was a hard drinker, where the rest of the Seattle founders such as the Denny’s and Mercers were teetotalers; and secondly, he believed in equality between native Americans and White people. It was this second point that we find the most Masonic about his personality, having contributed most with the least recognition to our city. It is also his belief in that equality that caused his memory to be largely erased after his death by the surviving founders.

                  Maynard was first and foremost a shrewd businessman who rather than delivering his shipment of logs to Portland, sailed the extra distance to San Francisco where they were worth ten times more, used the money to buy 650 acres of land in what would be downtown, snatching up the majority of the land that is now Pioneer Square and SODO, at a time when the other founders were still living in the part of the city we now know as alki. It was his land, that when developed turned Seattle over night in to a thriving shipping town, and laid the infrastructure to be able to handle the boom of the 1890’s gold rush, and later on those same lands be the perfect manufacturing space for Boeing to lay the foundations of it’s empire. Though most of his pioneer square burned in the great fire, it was the district that he built that became the cornerstone of our city, even today.

                  However, it was not his foresight of city planning that we should necessarily remember him for. I personally believe we should remember our brother for something else. In the early days tensions were tight between native Americans and the settlers, but our brother thought that every person was entitled to our kind offices. And so he made a special friendship with Chief Seattle, who, when filing the official city charter with the territory, changed the name of our city from what was New York- Alki, to its current name in honor of his friend, Seattle. It was because of that friendship that the president appointed him the ambassador to the native Americans, and in 1856 when the native tribes of central Washington felt infringe on by the culture developing in Seattle, and the Yakima Tribes waged war against us, the Duwamish and Snohomish tribes, lead by Chief Seattle stood with Brother Maynard and defended our city, and the idea that we can coexist together.

Brother David Maynard was Seattle's first doctor, merchant prince, second lawyer, Justice of the Peace, and Architect of the Point Elliott Treaty of 1855. Toward the end of his life, the people of Seattle, began boycotting his businesses because of his friendship with Chief Seattle and his people, and after his death, made an effort to minimize the impact he and on this city, a city he believed “Could only be the greatest city in the world.” Only, in recent days have people begun to recognize him for the impact he had on this city.  He is a tribute to the fraternity in Seattle. So when you hear the name of our city, Seattle, remember the man who made it so, a good mason. 

-Daniel Done, Queen Anne Lodge