Arthur Armstrong Denny

Arthur Armstrong Denny (June 20, 1822 – January 9, 1899) was an American politician and businessman who is regarded as one of the founders of Seattle, Washington. He founded the Denny Party, and was later the city's wealthiest citizen. He was a 9-term member of the territorial legislature. The city's Denny Way, however, is named not after Arthur Denny, but after his younger brother David Denny.

Indiana, Illinois, and the way West Mary Ann Boren, wife of Arthur A. Denny, copied for his book from a daguerreotype. The caption was confusing and this might be her sister Louisa Boren. See David Denny. Denny was born near Salem, Indiana; by the time he was attending school his family had settled in Knox County, Illinois. Denny did not have an easy childhood. He cared for his invalid mother while attending half-days in a log schoolhouse. He learned carpentry, taught school, studied surveying,

Career

On February 15, 1852, Denny and others filed their claims.

On November 25, 1852, Denny was a delegate at the Monticello Convention that produced a petition to US Congress to split the Oregon Territory, creating the Washington Territory, which would later become the state of Washington.

In 1854 when he began a general merchandise partnership with Dexter Horton and David Phillips.

Denny soon turned from politics to business. He returned to being a partner with Horton and Phillips, this time by taking a half interest in Dexter Horton and Co., the bank founded by Horton and Phillips in 1870, He was president of the Seattle and Walla Walla Railroad Company and an investor in the Great Western Iron and Steel Company. Later in life, he was active in the Society of Washington Pioneers and wrote a memoir, Pioneer Days in Puget Sound. On the current U.W. campus, Denny Hall, the former administration building (built 1895) is named in his honor.

In 1962, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.

Personality and politics Denny was an ascetic, a devout Christian (conservative in his religion to the point of opposing a divorce law), and a lifelong teetotaler.

Argument over land This dour man is nonetheless remembered for at least one example of his wit. In his memoir, recounting his failure in 1853 to reach agreement with David Swinson "Doc" Maynard over what was intended to be a joint plat of the town of Seattle, he wrote, "it was found that the doctor, who occasionally stimulated a little, had that day taken enough to cause him to feel that he was not only monarch of all he surveyed, but what Boren and I had surveyed as well."

It was later shown in a review done by a professional engineering firm on behalf of the city that it was in fact Denny that was wrong about the direction the streets should run and had actually violated the law in his plat of the city.

Works Pioneer Days on Puget Sound (1888). ( Text online) Pioneer Days on Puget sound, published by The Alice Harriman Company, Seattle, 1908 (Online text showing original pages)