Port Townsend Washington Genealogy

Chimakum Indians

Chimakum Indians were located on the peninsula between Hood’s Canal and Port Townsend, they were often referred to as the Port Townsend Indians.

HON. ALLEN WEIR. – This universally known and universally respected maker of public opinion and founder of pioneer institutions in Washington Territory, of whom we present a portrait, was born in Los Angeles county, California, April 24, 1854, and is therefore in his thirty-sixth year. In 1860 the family removed from California to Puget Sound, arriving at Port Townsend June 1st of that year. They located on government land in the Dungeness river bottom in Clallam county, and there resided and “grew up with the country.” They were among the early pioneers of that section, moving in when there were … Read more

Biography of James Seavy

JAMES SEAVY. – This representative gentleman of Washington is, as we have noted in the case of many of the leading citizens of that state, a native of Maine, having been born at Thomaston, of the old Pine-tree state (Maine), January 11, 1825. Receiving an ample practical education at the public school and academy of his native town, he maintained himself during his early manhood by teaching and farming. In 1854 he undertook the labor, almost unheard of in his community, of bringing his family by sea to the Pacific coast, accomplishing the voyage around Cape Horn in the bark … Read more

Biographical Sketch of James McCurdy

JAMES McCURDY. – This gentleman, who worthily bears the name of his honored father, Doctor Samuel M. McCurdy, was born at St. Andrews, New Brunswick, in 1840. He was early sent to school, and spent his time to advantage until as a lade of fourteen he began the work of his own maintenance, finding a suitable position in the general merchandise store of Vose & Joyce at Robbinston, Maine. Four years later he engaged as clerk at New York. In 1859, however, he determined to join his father upon the Pacific coast, and reached Port Townsend, Washington Territory, in September … Read more

Tumwater, Vancouver, Port Townsend, Washington

Tumwater, the initial point in the ‘history of the settlement of Puget Sound, was incorporated in Nov. 1869. In time it numbered more manufactories than any other town on the Sound. Vancouver and Early Settlers Vancouver was the fourth town in size in western Washington, having in 1880 about 3,000 inhabitants. It was made the county seat of Clarke County by the first legislative assembly of Washington, in March 1854, its pioneers, both English and American, long retaining their residences. Among the early settlers were James Turnbull, born in England, came to Washington in 1852, and with him William Turnbull, … Read more

Biography of Francis W. Pettygrove

FRANCIS W. PETTYGROVE. – The greatest respect and admiration is due the memory of the men and women who came to the Pacific Northwest when it was the home of Indians, and mountain men and a few traders, almost as wild, to plant homes and lay the foundation of the empires of Oregon and Washington, now so prosperous, and in fact fast verging into the garden spots of the union. They dared much when they accepted the role of pioneers. Among those who came in the earlier emigrations was the gentleman whose name heads this brief sketch. He was a … Read more

History of the Olympic Peninsula

“The Last Wilderness” by Murray Cromwell Morgan, published in 1955 by Viking Press in New York, is a comprehensive historical account of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. Spanning 275 pages, this book delves into the rich and tumultuous history of the region, offering insights into its pioneering days, the challenges of its lumber ports, and the establishment of Olympic National Park.

Biography of Hon. David Shelton

HON. DAVID SHELTON – Mr. Shelton, one of the very earliest of the pioneers of Washington Territory, who with Mr. L.B. Hastings and F.W. Pettigrove became a founder of Port Townsend, was born in Buncombe County, North Carolina, September 15, 1812. His father, Lewis Shelton, emigrated to the territory of Missouri in the year 1819, and settled in Saline county but kept on the advance wave of settlement, ever moving westward as the state settled up, and died in Andrew county in 1847. In this frontier life young David came to maturity, and on May 30, 1837, was married to … Read more

Biography of Hon. James G. Swan

HON. JAMES G. SWAN. – Hon. James G. Swan was born in Medford Massachusetts January 11, 1818.He came to San Francisco via Cape Horn in 1850. He came to Shoalwater Bay in 1852, which was then a part of Oregon, and remained till 1856,when he went East as private secretary to Governor Isaac I. Stevens, Delegate to Congress at Washington, District of Columbia. He returned to the territory in 1858, and settled in Port Townsend. In 1862 he was appointed teacher in charge of the Makah Indian Agency at Neah Bay, and remained till 1866, having charge of the government … Read more

Biography of William H. Whittlesey

WM. H. WHITTLESEY.- This popular young gentleman, who has brought to our coast a business capacity and enthusiasm of progress which augers well for the city in which he has made his home, was born in Virginia August 8, 1858, and is a son of the gallant Major Joseph H. Whittlesey of the United States Army. The mother, Kate K. Fauntleroy, belonged to one of the first families of the Old Dominion. The son William, of whom we write, remained in the south while his father, the major, was transferred to the Department of the Columbia, having command of Fort … Read more

Biography of James O’Laughlin

JAMES O’LOUGHLIN. – This gentleman, whose portrait adorns the opposite page, is one of the representative men of Skagit County, Washington. He is a native of Ireland, thus making Skagit, as every county in the United States indebted to the emerald Isle. County Clare was the region of his birth; and the time was April 9, 1844. Before he was three years old, his parents crossed the ocean to this land of liberty, bringing their nine children with the. They located at Lyons, New York, but in 1856 went to Lapeer, Michigan. There the boy James learned the tinsmith’s trade. … Read more

Biography of Hon. Joseph A. Kuhn

HON. JOSEPH A. KUHN. – Judge Kuhn has long filled a position of such prominence in Washington that the details of his life will be of public interest. His career illustrates once more the fact that the brawn and brain of the East needs but to touch the earth to spring up in double vigor at the West. He is the fourth in a family of six sons, resident in Pennsylvania; and the year of his birth was 1841. His mother belonged to an old American family of large reputation; and his father enjoyed the rank of colonel, and was … Read more

Biography of L. B. Hastings

L.B. HASTINGS. – Under the bluffs on the sandbank at the old place that the Frenchmen called La Dalles, in the autumn days of 1847, a company of wayworn immigrants was lying along the river side, the women at the tents, the children playing with the dogs and romping on the shore, and the ponies and cattle feeding upon the mountain. The men were at work day after day a whole month, with their axes and hammers, in making a flatboat from the pines that they cut form the hills. This company of sixty wagons had just come out of … Read more

Biography of Hon. Charles Eisenbeis

HON. CHARLES EISENBEIS. – This wealthy resident of Port of Washington gained his eminence by sturdy industry and sagacious investment during the pioneer days. He is a native of Prussia, was born in 1832, and the fifth in a family of ten children. Of his father he learned the trade of a baker, and was prepared upon his arrival in America in 1856 to earn thereby, in company with his brother, an independent livelihood at Rochester, New York. In 1858 he came via Panama to San Francisco, and in the fall of the same year arrived at Port Townsend. He … Read more

Clallam Tribe

Clallam Indians (strong people). A Salish tribe living on the south side of Puget Sound, Washington, formerly extending from Port Discovery to Hoko River.

Eccles, Darris Elwood – Obituary

Baker City, Oregon Darris Elwood Eccles, 78, died at his Kala Point home on Oct. 14, 2004. He has been a resident of Port Townsend, Wash., since 1956. Born on Sept. 5, 1926, to Richmond and Lenore (Sturgill) Eccles in Baker City, Darris graduated from Baker High School. He was employed by Safeway Stores in several Oregon cities and entered the U.S. Navy in 1952, where he graduated as an operating room technician with honors. He loved his time in the service, traveling on a transport ship to Alaska and the Far East, according to his family. Darris married Lora … Read more

Biography of Hon. Robert C. Hill

HON. ROBERT C. HILL. – Mr. Hill, one of the most responsible men of Washington, and a pioneer of an early day, was born in Hatboro, Pennsylvania, September 14, 1829, the son of Doctor John Hill, his mother’s maiden name having been Eliza L. Davis. At the age of seven he moved with his parents to Philadelphia, and received his education at the excellent grammar and high schools of that city. He entered upon a business career as clerk in a wholesale dry-goods store in the city, and followed that occupation four years. In 1848 he removed with his parents … Read more

Biography of Capt. Enoch S. Fowler

CAPT. ENOCH S. FOWLER. Mr. Fowler, a portrait of whom appears in this work, was one of those Argonauts who came to this country at an early day, and has since made himself a name known as a household word all over Puget Sound. Captain Fowler was born in Lubec, Maine, November 19, 1813, and died in Port Townsend November 27, 1876, being sixty-three years of age. He came to the Pacific coast in 1849 as master and part owner of the brig Quoddy Bell, which he sold in San Francisco, joining the brig George Emery as mate, and made … Read more

Biography of Hon. Alphonso Fowler Learned

HON. ALPHONSO FOWLER LEARNED. – Mr. Learned, whose travels and services abroad have taken him extensively over the world as an able representative of the American nation and flag, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1838. He spent a precocious boyhood in the schools of that city, – “The Athens of America,” – and at the age of sixteen was an alumnus of Comers College. Preferring the sea, however, to further bookish confinement, he became cabin boy on a full-rigged ship, returning as able seaman. In 1857 he came on the clipper ship Sierra Nevada to San Francisco, and as … Read more

Biography of Col. Henry Landes

COL. HENRY LANDES. – The subject of this sketch is prominent and noteworthy, even among the foremost self-made men of the great and growing Pacific Northwest, – a section so progressive and promising that it has attracted the most vigorous minds and the ablest men throughout the country. He was born in a small town in Germany on the 8th of October, 1843. In 1847 his father and family emigrated to Kentucky, Henry being then four years old. There the boy grew almost to the years of manhood, and developed in a marked degree the spirit of adventurous ambition which … Read more