Marine Environment

A Timeline of Samish Island History
Last update: March 6, 2008

Pre-History | To 1789 | 1790-1850 | 1850-1900 | 1900-1933 | 1934-present
Historical photographs & documents | Resources

Prehistory - The Skagit River once entered Puget Sound at Padilla Bay, but sometime during the past thousands of years, its mouth shifted southward into Skagit Bay. Bayview Ridge to the southeast of Samish Island, was also once an island, like Samish Island, before delta marshes filled in this region. View image.

Prior to 1780 - The Samish Indians, a Coast Salish cultural tribe, lived in this area. The Coast Salish homelands were the Gulf of Georgia, Puget Sound, a good portion of the Olympic Peninsula and most of western Washington, down to Chinook territory at the mouth of the Columbia River. (Drucker) The Samish Indians' ancestral homelands were on the Samish River and Samish Bay, Samish Island, Guemes Island and the northwest portion of Fidalgo Island. There were an estimated 1,000 Samish tribal members in 1780. (Swanton). Phillips estimates more than 2,000. The Name Samish is derived from the Skagit Indian word samens, meaning "hunter." (Phillips).

A web site with a map of Coast Salish Villages is available. This site shows two village locations on Samish Island: Ehtseh'kun, on the southeast shore of Samish Island, and another unknown village name on the North end of Samish Island, the "Biggest village of the tribe [late 1800s]. One large building, 4 smaller [60’x40’] buildings."

The sandy beaches of Samish Island were good for canoes and camping. Two natural springs on the north shore and two on the south provided fresh water. Clams, crabs flourished along the north beaches with unnumbered water fowl living in the marshes to the south. Samish River was teeming with salmon. The Samish tribe had permanent homes primarily on Samish and Guemes Islands. Their encampments were all over Samish Island, the most prominent being on the southeastern part. A community longhouse existed along Alice Bay, which various sources estimated to be from 200 to 1200 ft. in length.

Visit the Samish Indian Nation Web Page for information about the Samish tribe. The cultural history page on that site is informative. Also, the Washington State Governor's Office of Indian Affairs has a Tribal Directory, which includes information on the Samish Tribe.

1791 - Spanish Explorers on the Eliza Expedition discovered and named Samish Island's Point William "Punta Solano." Jose Narvaez , a crew member on the Eliza Expedition, named it to honor Spanish naval officer Jose Solano. He also gave Padilla Bay its name, after the viceroy of Mexico, whose full name was Juan Vicenta de Guemes Pacheco de Padilla Orcasitas y Aguayo, the second conde de Revilla Gigedo (1740-99). Narvaez describes this bay as "a great sand flat with 1/2 fathom of water on it, and an extended piece of flat land beyond to the east and south horizon. In the sandflat, they saw many Indians after shellfish." (Majors, p.22)

1792 (June 10) - Peter Puget and Joseph Whidbey of the Vancouver Expedition landed on Hat Island. Puget said "there is a communication by rivulets" between Padilla Bay and Skagit Bay. They camped that night on Punta Solano (Point William) on Samish Island. "An animal called a skunk was run down by one of the marines after dark, and the intolerable stench it created absolutely awakened us in the tent." (Majors, p22)

1792 (June 23) - Point William was named by George Vancouver for a British supply officer in England named Sir William Bellingham. (Majors, p.22). The Lummi Indians knew this point as "Shuts-kus." This point had the previous year been named Punta Solano by the Spanish. (Meany, p. 209)

1821 - North West Company (Astoria) was forced by the British government to merge with Hudson Bay Co. because of bloody, violent confrontations between them. Their new headquarters moved to Ft. Vancouver. Their range covered the whole West Coast, B.C. to California. The North West Company lost its name to Hudson Bay Co. One of trappers of Hudson Bay Company was Blanket Bill Jarman, who trapped Jarman's Prairie near Alger. (Note from PNW history teacher Dick Studebaker at Sehome H.S.)

1824 - Fur trader John Work meets with a party of Skagit Indians at Padilla Bay during December 1824: "The Scaadchet are fine looking Indians...They go quite naked except a blanket about their shoulders; many use in lieu of blankets little cloaks made of feathers or hair. The bay in which they reside is a handsome place. Padilla Bay is a bird watching site for ducks, shorebirds, and peregrine falcons." (Majors, 22)

1852 -"Blanket Bill" Jarman" became the first white man to settle on Samish Island, when he and his Clallam wife paddled their canoe from Port Townsend and were welcomed by the Samish chief, S'-yah-whom (a.k.a. Chief Sehome), who lived in the Samish village at the eastern end of the island. With the profusion of wild roots and berries, ducks and game, fish and shellfish, and inspired by the beauty of his new surroundings, "Blanket Bill" decided to stay. He named the shallow bay at the mouth of the Samish River after his wife, Alice.

1854 - The Samish Indian population had dropped to 150 people, due to diseases carried by white settlers and periodic attacks from the fierce Haida Indians of Queen Charlotte Islands. The Indian encampment at Samish Island was located at Scott's Point on Alice Bay, and consisted of a number of crudely constructed huts made of split cedar slabs. Chief S'-yah-whom (Sehome) was chief in 1854. He sold his daughter (Julie) to Bellingham Bay Coal Mines superintendent Edmund Clare Fitzhugh, and eventually moved to the town of Sehome (now part of Bellingham) to be near them. (Jeffcott). The tribe was later moved to the Lummi Indian Reservation. (Majors, 19) (Swanton) (Jeffcott). A photo of the longhouse site is in the Jeffcott book, current location of the Freestad plat on the southeast shore of the island, along Alice Bay. The longhouse was said to be between 200 and 1200 ft. long.

1859 - Josiah Leary arrives in the Leary Slough area, which is named after him. (Majors, 19)

1860 - Chuckanut Drive was constructed during this decade by U.S. Military Engineers to connect Whatcom with the military posts in the south. It was named Military Road. (Thomas). The road was later abandoned by the military and became a gravel road part way, then a trail. Later, as public demand increased for a through road, the Skagit County Commissioners built a new road which is the present route of Chuckanut Drive. (Thomas)

1867 - Daniel Dingwall settled on Samish Island in 1867. (Majors, p22). He started a logging camp operation, and then built a store, small hotel and dock at Fish Point, the east end of Blue Heron Rd. In the late 1860's and early 1870's, Samish Island was a bustling place, as it was the chief distribution point for the Samish River Valley. Because there were no roads to speak of, people, mail, and goods traveled primarily by steamboats, which covered most of the Northwest Coast at that time. Travelers made overnight stops at his hotel.

1869 - Edison was first settled in 1869 by Ben Samson, which received its name in 1876 in honor of inventor Thomas A. Edison. (Majors, 19). Town of Bow was homesteaded. (Hansen, p. 81)

1870 - Another settler, William Dean, settled at Dean Point which is now Camp Kirby's location on Samish Island (Majors, p22). He built a store and a second small hotel called "Dean's Inn" in 1873 on the north side of the narrowest part of the island, probably just off Wharf Street. His site was accessible from both Padilla and Samish Bays. Steamboat activity increased by the early 1880's , leading to commercial prosperity for the island.

1870 - Samish Post Office was established. (Hansen)

1871 - The first diking was begun to connect Samish Island to the mainland. (Hansen). It was not completed until 1932, when Skagit County completed the fill across the South Samish River Channel (the salt marsh area between Alice and Padilla Bays) to construct the present roadway to the island. U. S. Naval Surveys 15 years later, shows the remaining undiked slough area.

1874-75 - Mail came to the Samish Valley through a post office at the village of Samish on Samish Island. Steamboat connections existed between Bellingham Bay, Samish Island, and La Conner. (Hansen, p81). By this time, a logging camp, two stores, two docks, a post office, and a small hotel were established on Samish Island. A steady stream of steamboats pulled into the docks to refuel and drop off freight and passengers for the growing valley settlements. (Rousseau)

1883 - Within one week in 1883, two towns were platted on the island.

The first - called Atlanta - was founded by a Confederate veteran named George Washington Lafayette Allen. He built a large three story hotel, secured a a post office and built a store and wharf. The hotel, called the "Atlanta Home Hotel" catered to steamboat passengers, duck hunters in winter, vacationing families in summer. The hotel was located in the Seacrest/G-Loop roads area.

Six days later, backed by a group of Union veterans, George Dean platted the town of Samish - separated by one street from Atlanta. A pitched battle of intermittent violence ensued for the next ten years, until the Great Northern Railroad arrived in the valley and replaced the island's importance as a distribution center for the valley. The rival towns and their twin docks soon withered away, and Samish Island settled back into its peaceful character, with small farms and orchards, oyster beds and scattered homes. (Alice Bay Cookbook, Julie Rousseau).

View a Pre-1890's map of Samish Island settlers and where they lived.

1884 - Bayview was named and platted by William J. McKenna. (Majors, p19)

1887 - The U.S. Navy maps the Samish Island Slough, part of a Samish River channel which made Samish Island an island.

1888 - Samish Island School (School District #5) is in operation. Ten families on the island had 26 children of school age, but the average daily attendance was 12. It was a one-room school, with 2 blackboards, small paned windows along the sides of the building, and was built along the main road of the island, just up from the beach (exact location unknown). A new school house was built in the early 1900's near the location of the first school. Boys hauled drinking water from the nearby hotel, and two outhouses were located on the beach, where the children had recess. (Squires)

1889 - Washington becomes a state. The first railroad in Skagit County (non-logging line), is built. It was known as the Fairhaven and Southern Grade. (Hansen, p. 81)

1892 - Mail and supplies came to Edison by way of the North Fork of the Samish River. (Hansen)

1895 - James T. Squires settled on the island in 1895 with wife Theodosia, building their first home where the welcome sign now stands. They built their large white house in 1920, in order to survey their farm, the land on the flats straight down to the first curve on Samish Island Road. (Samish Island newsletter, February 1994).

1897 - A socialist/utopian commune called The Equality Colony, was established at Blanchard, Washington in 1897, on Colony Mountain. It disbanded after 9 years, in 1906. View photos of Equality Colony. Read about a young girl named Catherine "Cricket" Savage's life at Equality Colony (from the Skagit River Journal of History and Folklore). The University of Washington digital collection has many photographs of this utopian community.

1898 - The Samish State Fish Hatchery was constructed at Belfast to culture salmon, mostly chums and coho, and some steelhead. In 1914 king and sockeye were added. (Hansen)

1899 - Harry Samish, died June 6, 1899.

1901-1902 - The Bow post office was established, and Bow became the railway stop for the rich farming area of the Samish flats. Bow had a large general store, hotel, meat market, livery stable, post office, school and church. The steamboats which had operated on Samish Island from 1875 to 1902, soon faded away because of the railroad. (Samish Island Newsletter, July 1994)

1903 - Washington State appropriated $25,000 for the establishment of the "Ruby Creek trail, beginning on the Blanchard road in Whatcom County. This was the beginning of the Chuckanut highway. (Koert-Biery).

1907 - The Squires children Gladys and Jim traveled with two other siblings by horse and buggy to school in Edison, which had three teachers for the eight grades and school spanned nine months. There was a livery stable near the school where they kept the horse and buggy during the day. Samish Island had a school, but it was just open three months in fall and three in spring, and one teacher juggled lessons for eight grades. (Samish Island newsletter, February 1994)

1907 - The State Highway Department took over the Chuckanut Road in 1907 and made it part of the State highway system from Blanchard to Fairhaven, naming it Chuckanut Drive. It was still a gravel road - not made into a concrete road until 1919-1920. (Thomas). A 1900 photo and 1926 photo of Chuckanut, from the UW digital history collection photographs are shown in these links. Another 1926 photo, taken closer to Bellingham. Read more about the history of Chuckanut Drive. In 1913, the Pacific Highway was designed to include this waterfront route. In 1920, the state with Federal aid, extended the paved road three miles southward, at a cost of $35,000 per mile. The road was opened to traffic in 1921, with a mile still remaining unpaved. (Koert-Biery).

1908 - Samish Island was a real island in the early century, separated from the mainland by the South Fork of the Samish River. A channel about 1/4 mile wide connected Alice Bay on the East to Padilla Bay on the West. The channel was deep enough for tug boats to use. A wooden bridge spanned it, but the buggy and later the Model T, had to negotiate some muddy marsh on either end of the bridge. It was no place to be in high tide. Gladys Squires says you could tell who lived on Samish by the rust on the underside of their autos. (Samish Island newsletter, February 1994, taken from James Squires, Jr. and Gladys Squires Samish Island History).

1912 - The Interurban freight and passenger service began service between Bellingham and Mount Vernon. It was an electric train, built by The Northwest Traction Company. There were station stops at Sedro Woolley, Allen, Burlington, Mount Vernon and Bellingham. (Hansen). The all-steel cars had hourly service, carried up to seventy-five passengers, and reached speeds of up to sixty-five miles an hour. Each care had a smoking compartment, parlor coarch and baggage area. There were twenty stops between Bellingham and Mount Vernon. (Koert-Biery).

A large substation for power was built at Clayton Bay near the Whatcom-Skagit county line and kept in operation by a maintenance man who lived at the substation. The passenger coach was called the Interurban, but nicknamed by all the young fry of the day the "Auntie Urban." This was the school bus of early days. Unable to compete with automobiles, buses and trucks, and plagued with wrecks and maintenance problems, the company abandoned service in 1929. The tracks were torn up and the Clayton Bay substation dismantled. (Thomas)

1913 - Edward R. Murrow, the respected CBS news reporter, moved with his family to Blanchard "living in a tent by a cousin's house until they found a home of their own. Roscoe Murrow, his father worked at the big saw at the Hazel Mill, and was later a brakeman on the lumber camp railroad of the Samish Bay Logging Company. His mother Ethel was a Quaker. At age 14, Ed went to work summers as a whistle punk and donkey-engine fireman in the logging camp. He graduated Edison High School in 1925, and from WSU in 1930." (Koert-Biery).

1914 - "Three men held up the Great Northern train between Burlington and Bellingham in a daring, Jesse James-style heist", near Chuckanut Bay's Samish Station ... killing the three people who tried to stop them.." These wanton murders stunned and shocked the people of Skagit. A massive dragnet went on for months, but the thieves/murderers were never found. (Roe)

1922 - Samish Island School District #5 consolidated with Edison Schools.

1932 - Skagit County builds a a fill across the Samish Slough (the salt marsh area between Alice and Padilla Bays), to construct the present roadway to the island. This action blocks the river outlet to Padilla Bay, forcing the Samish River to go north around the island. Samish Island becomes a peninsula off the mainland. (Samish Island newsletter, February 1994 and February 2002)

1933 - The "Atlanta Home Hotel", built in 1883 by George Allen, founder of the town of Atlanta on the island, burns down.

1941 - 1958 - Samish Island during WWII and the Cold War Era: A contingent of soldiers arrived in their jeeps to perform land/air/sea patrol for the duration of the war. Samish Islanders were mobilized. A wooden observation structure was was constructed on what is now the Langley property on Samish Island Road. It was a small, rustic cabin on stilts surrounded by a narrow deck, rising some 16 feet off the ground and manned round-the-clock by volunteers. They were looking for enemy planes, on the chance that one might evade the large army installations near Port Townsend. (Samish Island newsletter, June 1994)

1944 - Sig and Tora Freestad bought most of the southeastern property of the island for a turkey farm - about 100 acres, most of Scott Point on the east, to the west near the present Samish Island Road.

1950's - A proposed Industrial Park would have filled in much of Padilla Bay between Bayview, March Point and Samish Island. Fortunately, the plan was never realized.

1955 - About twenty years after filling in the dike and blocking off the south Samish River channel, all oysters in Alice Bay were attacked by a creature called the oyster drill. They died, effectively ending oyster habitat south of Samish Island. The buildup of silt and mud in Alice Bay has built up 4 feet since the 1887 survey by the Navy.

1958 - The Freestads donated a substantial portion of their property to the RLDS Church for a church camp.

1964 - Aerial Photo of Samish Island, taken July 24. Evelyn Hopley Clift puts together her history of Samish Island, Samish and Vendovi Islands; Records and Thoughts(1964). Another history of Samish Island, written in 1973 by James Squires, Jr. and Gladys Squires, fills in still more of the historical picture of Samish Island.

1968 - Seattle City Light and Snohomish PUD #1 purchased 100 acres of the Point William area of Samish Island, and all of Kiket Island in Skagit Bay near La Conner. The stated purpose for both islands was to build a nuclear power complex of two or more plants, of 1000 megawatts each. Read Samish Islanders' accounts or check the historical chronology gathered from the Skagit Valley Historical Museum in La Conner.

1969 - On June 30, the Seattle City Council approved Seattle City Light's request to purchase Kiket Island on Skagit Bay as a site for a $250 million nuclear power plant.

1972 - Seattle Mayor Wes Uhlman and City Light Superintendent Gordon Vickery (1920-1996) shelve plans for Kiket and Samish Islands. "No Active Plan For Kiket Island Plant Says Vickery," The Seattle Times, October 28, 1972, p. A-9.

1980 - Seattle City Council approves the sale of Kiket Island in 1980.
(Seattle City Council Resolution 26414, September 22, 1980, Seattle Municipal Archives).

1983-84 - The RLDS Church was constructed on the RLDS Church Camp property. Vic Hastings was the building project coordinator for the church, later renamed the Community of Christ Church.

1994 - Aerial photographs of Samish Island and surrounding areas shorelines were taken by the Washington State Department of Ecology to be an educational monitoring tool for coastal managers and the public. Panning left to right along the shoreline, the photos were taken to optimize sun angle, shoreline orientation, and low tides. Oblique photos are useful for interpreting bluff geology and land-sliding, riparian vegetation, and shoreline modifications such as bulkheads and seawalls.

1998-1999 - Thirteen houses on North Beach were protected from severe erosion through the facilitation of Coastal Geological Services, designed by Wolf Bauer and Jim Johannessen. Reported in a publication called Soft Shore Protection as an Alternative to Bulkheads, one can read the descriptions, outcome and monitoring of the project, beginning at the bottom of page 6. Photographs.

2001 - John Guy, a long time Island resident, writes a book about his life in the aviation industry, which provides a unique perspective of the 1900's in our country's aviation, and our island's appeal. Called One Guy's Journey, it was reprinted by the Community Club for historical appeal and value.

2002 - Samish Island Rapid Shoreline Inventory Project was conducted in July by People for Puget Sound for the Skagit County Marine Resources Committee (MRC). 59 Samish Island shoreline property owners participated in the study, which analyzed characteristics of intertidal, backshore, bluff, bank, invasive species, adjacent land use, streams, outfalls and other freshwater outflows, shorelines structures, wildlife and vegetation, spawning habitat, aquatic vegetation, hydrography, marine birds & wildlife habitat, conservation focus areas, and restoration focus areas.

2004 - John Guy passed away in February, shortly after his 100th "island birthday" celebration.

2004 - People for Puget Sound sponsors a preliminary study in 2004-2005 by the Samish Nation's Center for the Study of Coast Salish Environments, with the possible thought to re-open the original Samish River channel between Alice and Padilla Bays. This is the old channel which the county filled in 1932, to build the present road to Samish Island. The original channel is shown on this 1887 Navy Map. The proposed reconstruction of the Samish Island slough is pictured in this map.

2005 - Tora Freestadt passes away in March. Tora and her husband owned about 100 acres on the island, much of which became church camp and Community of Christ Church property along Alice and Samish Bays.

2005 - Shoreline Treasures signs installed on Samish Island, by the Samish Marine Research Lab.

2007 - Fred and Sue Miller publish Samish Island: A History, from the Beginning to the 1970's. The book is available at these locations: Blau Oyster, WD Foods, Rosabella's Garden Bakery, Rhododendron Cafe, Horen's Drug, Stowe's Department Store, the Skagit Historical Museum in LaConner, and at the Anacortes Museum. For further information, contact Fred or Susan Miller, 766-6548, or Gail Hopley, 766-6823 on Samish Island.

Sources:

Barsh, Russel. Shoreline Treasures signs on Samish Island. Samish Marine Research Lab, 2005.

Clift, Eleanor Hopley. Samish and Vendovi Islands; Records and Thoughts(unpublished manuscript), 1964.

Drucker, Philip. Indians of the Northwest Coast. Garden City, NY : Natural History Press, 1955.

Hansen, Lawrence. SamishGold Memoirs; Samish River Adventures and History. Hansen Publishing, 1999.

Historical photos of Samish Island

Jeffcott, P.R. Romance and Intrigue on Bellingham Bay, or the story of Old Sehome and the origin of its name. Unpublished manuscript. Bellingham, 1955.

Johannssen, Jim W. Soft Shore Protection as an Alternative to Bulkheads; Projects and Monitoring. Coastal Geologic Services, Inc., 2000.

Koert, Dorothy and Galen Biery. Looking Back; the Collectors' Edition; Memories of Whatcom County/Bellingham. Bellingham, Grandpa's Attic, 2003.

Majors, Harry M. Exploring Washington. Holland, MI : Van Winkle Publishing, 1975.

Meany, Edmond S. Vancouver's Discovery of Puget Sound. Binford and Mort, 1942.

Miller, Fred and Susan Miller. Samish Island: A History, from the Beginning to the 1970's. Mount Vernon, Copy and Print Store, 2007. (Available on Samish Island from Blau Oyster, or Fred & Susan Miller).

Phillips, James. W. Washington State Place Names. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1971.

Roe, Joann. The North Cascadians. Seattle, WA: Madrona Publishers, 1980.

Rousseau, Julie Wilkinson. Alice Bay Cookbook. Mount Vernon, WA : Quartzite books, 1985.

People for Puget Sound. Samish Island Rapid Shoreline Inventory Project; prepared for the Skagit County Marine Resources Committee by the People for Puget Sound, ed. by Phil Bloch and others. Seattle, 2002.

Samish Nation Center for Study of Coastal Salish Environments. A Proposed Study of the Re-Opening of the Channel between Alice Bay and Padilla Bay; a presentation by Russel Barsh, ecologist, to the Samish Island Community Club on April 17, 2004.

Shore Lines; the Samish Island Newsletter, ed. by Kathleen Packard. Many issues include brief histories of island residents and events, 1994-present. All issues since 2003 are available online.

Skagit Historical Museum, La Conner, WA. Various archived articles about the Skagit Nuclear Power Controversy in Skagit County during the 1968-1972 period, that affected Samish Island. A Chronology from these articles was compiled in 2005 by Eileen Andersen, Samish Island Webmaster.

Squires, James, Jr. and Gladys Squires. A Samish Island History (unpublished manuscript), 1973.

Swanton, John R. Indian Tribes of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.Fairfield, WA : Ye Galleon Press, 1968.

Thomas, Robert B. Chuckanut Chronicles. Bellingham, WA : The Chuckanut Community and Firefighters Association, 1971. Reprinted December 1992
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This chronology was compiled from the resources listed above in 2002 by Eileen Andersen, for the Samish Island web page.

All text, maps, and most images on this web site are Copyight © 2004-2007 Samish Island Residents and may not be used without written permission. No information is collected about visitors to this site. Links to "Island Businesses" are provided for a small fee which help defray costs of the web page.