Rebecca Ebey was never happy about the family's encounters with local indigenous peoples. Living some distance from the other Euro-American farmers, she stayed close to home managing the household during Isaac's long absences. Already weakened by
tuberculosis, Rebecca died in 1853 following the difficult birth, and subsequent death, of the Ebeys' newborn daughter, Sarah. Ebey soon married Emily Palmer Sconce, a widow with a daughter named Anna. In 1857, a party of northern (possibly
Haida) natives from the Kake Tribe of Alaska traveled by
canoe into
Puget Sound on a mission of vengeance. Following the death of one of their chiefs and 27 other tribal members in an attack by the
USS Massachusetts the previous year, the party searched for a white
Hyas Tyee (great chief) in retaliation. Originally, the intended victim was Dr. John Coe Kellogg, who lived near the present day
Admiralty Head lighthouse. On the hot summer evening of August 11, unable to locate Kellogg (who was out of the area), the natives beached at Ebey's Landing and traversed the steep cliff up to Ebey's home. Knocking on Isaac Ebey's door, the natives called him out of the house, shot him dead, and scalped him. In fact, the
Puget Sound Herald of
Steilacoom published an article fifteen months after Ebey's assassination stating the Kake and Stikine nations, "numbering a couple hundred," were responsible for the "cold blooded murder." However, it was never known which particular tribe perpetrated the death and beheading of Ebey.
Ebey's scalp Isaac Ebey's headless remains were interred in the original Ebey family cemetery located at Ebey's Prairie on the bluff overlooking Isaac and Rebecca's home. Ebey's first wife Rebecca was already interred there, along with their daughter Hetty. The rest of the Ebey family is officially interred at Sunnyside Cemetery, from the burial place of Isaac. Captains Swanston and Charles Dodd of the
Hudson's Bay Company steamer
Beaver attempted to purchase Ebey's scalp about a year after his death, but were unsuccessful when the Kake Nation took the request as a first step in an attack of their village. It is rumored the Kake refused to sell Ebey's scalp because it was customary to dance around the scalps of their enemies killed in battle during annual feasts. They also believed the scalp held great family importance and should be handed down through generations. Dodd acquired the scalp for a liberal reward of
"six blankets, 3 pipes, 1 cotton handkerchief, 6 heads of tobacco, 1 fthm. cotton," and gave it to A. M. Poe, Esq. to be returned to Ebey's brother, Winfield. On April 5, 1860, Winfield Ebey noted in his diary the much awaited return of his brother's "poor head": While some historians insist Winfield—a prolific diarist—had the scalp buried with his brother's body, no record of this claim exists. After Winfield's death in 1865, at least five separate accounts maintain that Ebey's sister, Mary Ebey Bozarth, inherited the relic. Albert Kellogg, the son of Dr. John Kellogg, recalled visiting Bozarth "ten or twelve years" after the murder and "she showed the scalp lock still retaining the long black hair. It was the only thing of that kind I had ever seen and I remember it caused cold chills to run over me." After Bozarth died in 1876, Ebey's scalp was passed on to his niece, Almira Enos. The next mention of its location occurred in 1892 when Almira visited Whidbey, an event noted by the Island County Times. In the newspaper's July 29, 1892 issue it was reported: But Enos also visited an old friend, Hugh Crockett, who was quoted by the Times as saying that Enos
"told me only a few weeks ago that she has (the scalp) at her house in San Francisco." Those two articles are the most reliable accounts to date of where that "sad memento" of Ebey's death was kept. At this time only one other reference to the scalp's whereabouts has been found. According to family reports, the scalp was last known to be in the possession of the Almira Enos family in California as of 1914. == Legacy ==