[1] Yesler arrived in Seattle from Ohio in 1852[2] and built a steam-powered sawmill, which provided numerous jobs for those early settlers and Duwamish tribe members.

The system was made up of a series of open-air, V-shaped flumes perched on stilts that started atop First Hill and ran down past Yesler's residence and to the mill.

[2] Prior to her arrival, Yesler fathered a child named Julia with the fifteen-year-old Native daughter of a local Duwamish hereditary chief.

[4] In his informative and tongue-in-cheek book, Sons of the Profits, columnist and Seattle historian William C. Speidel pointed out some of Yesler's negative aspects.

Speidel also recounts how, according to courthouse records, Yesler owed John McLain, an old friend from Ohio, $30,000 for the loan that the latter set up for construction of the mill.