Whidbey Island holds an uniquely important place in the history of settlement in the Pacific Northwest, at an especially interesting time in American history. Indeed our island figures importantly in the negotiations over territorial claims between a young United States and Britain following the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, and running through the War of 1812, until the 1860's and '70's. In fact, it is the geographical setting of Whidbey Island and a couple of its extraordinary settlers that are partly responsible for the fact that British North America (known as Canada after Parliament passed the North American Act of 1867), lies no further south than the present-day United States-Canadian boundary, or that Puget Sound (the water body lying south of the Strait of Juan de Fuca) is now in the United States. Britain and the U. S. were involved in an epic struggle for control of the land and waters accessed by the Strait. Britain thought the Northwest 'vital' to their commercial interests. Our national policy was to resist all European claims and activities in accordance with the Monroe Doctrine. The U.S. had to be careful, however. We had only two small ships, under Naval Lt. Randolf Jones in our "North Pacific Fleet". This at a time when the British fleet virtually ruled the world's seas.

However, our little community, Coveland, was the 'capitol' of a northwestern effort to blunt British activities, reflected by Hudson's Bay Company trading posts, ultimately to push them further north, out of Puget Sound. In the end, the struggle was settled by colonization - we got Americans to settle the Northwest faster than Britain, so they ultimately lost the 'race'.

Take this quiz. Where was the first court and voting precinct in the Oregon Territory, north of the Columbia and west of the Cascades? Where was the first post office west of Walla Walla and north of Astoria (Oregon)? What caused the Hudson's Bay Company to abandon its two early 'Washington' trading posts: Ft. Steilicoom (south of Tacoma) and "Psa'tse'ta", Whidbey Island? Or what induced the British government to settle the U. S. boundary at 49 degrees of parallel, and finally abandon Puget Sound under the terms of the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, following the "Sheep War of 1853", and later, the "Pig War of 1872"? Where were there a trading post, post office, court, judge, physician, postman and settlers when not a single white family lived in what came later to be Seattle, Portland, Tacoma, Olympia (originally called Smithfield), or Bellingham (formerly called Whatcom)? The answer to all these questions is Coveland. Where is Coveland? First, some background on what we now call Whidbey Island.

There is evidence that some humans lived on Whidbey Island perhaps 8,000 years ago. Certainly there were significant villages of Snohomish, Suquamish, Skagit and Swinomish Indians or their ancestors by 1500. From 1500 to 1640, hundreds of European explorers, especially those Portuguese and Spanish navigators influenced by Prince Henry's school of navigation in Lisbon, circumnavigated the globe and sailed southern and northern waters with confidence. In 1500 the Portuguese navigator Gaspar Cortereal discovered Labrador and the entrance to Hudson Bay. Spanish and Portugese mariners made parallel discoveries in the Pacific: Balboa in 1513, followed by Cortez, Cabrillo and Ferrelo. Martin Frobisher in the 1550's explored widely the northern coasts of present-day Canada. In 1610, a Dutch navigator sailing for England, Henry Hudson, explored Hudson Bay far to the west seeking the theoretical "Northwest Passage" believed to connect the Atlantic to the Pacific across North America, analogous to what Ferdinand Magellan found in 1520 at the 'bottom' of South America where the Atlantic Ocean joined the Pacific. Sir Francis Drake in 1579 sailed the outer coast of much of the "Oregon Territory" in his quest for fame. To promote trade and find a 'Northwest Passage' route across North America (and solidify British interests in these resource-rich lands), the Hudson's Bay Company was founded in London, in 1668.

Parallel exploration took place on the Pacific side of the continent. The "Spanish" sailor, who called himself Juan de Fuca (who was actually a Greek born, Apostolus Valerianos), in 1592, sailed into what we now call Puget Sound. Others followed. In 1774, Juan Jose Perez Hernandez, in 1775, Bruno de Heceta and Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra. Britain's James Cook explored Vancouver Island in 1778, later Alferez Quimper and Francisco Eliza, and others, provided names for places familiar to many in Puget Sound today.

Captain Lieutenant Salvado (or Salvador?) Fidalgo from his 1592 voyage was to have his name given to the island then thought to include Fidalgo and Whidbey Islands. In 1787 British Captain John Barklay began the exploration of Puget Sound and the waters to the north that today lie in Canada. This voyage led the British government to fund an exploration and mapping expedition in 1791, of two ships under Captain George Vancouver. Vancouver on HMS Discovery in company with HMS Chatham in escort, sailed into 'Puget Sound' and began exploration and mapping of the Sound. (The magnificent "model" of HMS Discovery shown here was researched and made for Herbert Weissblum, a Whidbey Island resident, and is in his collection).

In June 1792, Discovery entered 'Penn's Cove' and "was received by 600 natives" curious to meet these "white men". Reportedly, Vancouver, Captain Joseph Whidbey[2], Pilot Peter Puget and the other expedition leaders were well received all over the Sound. This seems historically accurate, apparently because the 'whites' appeared to be a powerful potential ally against the dreaded war-like Haida, Kwakiutl, and Nootka Indians from Prince George's Sound and the Queen Charlotte Islands. These aggressive "Northmen" were slave owners and practiced what our local tribes considered "barbaric" human sacrifices on their Puget Sound captives.

Serious American interest in the Pacific Northwest followed the overland journey of the Lewis and Clark expedition (1803-1806) to find the western boundary of what President Thomas Jefferson had purchased from France as the "Louisiana Territory" in 1803. It is clear too, that Jefferson thought it in the United States' best interest to explore and prepare for land claims in the northwest. The western limits of the purchase were described as the "founding waters" (headwaters) of the Mississippi/Missouri River system. These headwaters can be found in several western states and British Columbia including present-day Washington and Idaho. Lewis and Clark at the Continental Divide crossed and then followed the westward-flowing rivers that formed the Snake and Columbia Rivers. In 1805 they build their winter fortress on the "Oregon" side of the Columbia, at Astoria. That is why the territory formed, as the Oregon Territory was not named the 'Washington' Territory. Settlers were encouraged to colonize the Great Northwest as U.S. Army engineers helped lay out the Oregon Trail. From 1836-1841 the United States funded a land/sea expedition to further explore the Northwest and to assert American claims against British expansion. This "Wilkes Expedition" was led by an intrepid Naval Lieutenant, Charles Wilkes. In 1841, on his flagship USS Vincennes[3], Wilkes landed at the western end of Penn Cove and the expedition's historic notes describe the large permanent Skagit Indian village of "Pra'tle" and its "longhouses" lining half a mile of beach in front of what is called today "Kennedy's Lagoon".

Whidbey Island's first "permanent whites" appeared in 1833. HBC records suggest that three Hudson's Bay Company employees were sent to Whidbey from the HBC post near Dupont, in present-day Thurston County, to erect a new trading post. There is ambiguity in the record as to whether their post, between Scatchet Head and the Possession Point shoreline, on South Whidbey, was ever completed. The next significant European influence followed the arrival of Father Francis Blanchett in 1840 who founded a Catholic Mission at Penn Cove. Blanchett later left Whidbey to convert Indians near present-day Mount Vernon. Technically, Whidbey and the Northwest only became part of the U. S. the following year, 1846, when Congress ratified the Treaty of Oregon Act, ending decades of "joint occupancy" of the Northwest by Britain and the U. S. The Treaty recognized British sovereignty north of the 49th parallel and American claims to settlement north and south of the Columbia River as discovered and explored by Robert Gray, an American fur trader. Two years later, the Oregon Territory Act was signed into law, asserting U. S. claims over what is today Oregon, Washington, the 'Panhandle' of northern Idaho and western Montana.

On South Whidbey, in 1850, Robert Bailey from Virginia arrived at the HBC camp near Scatchet Head on 'Bailey Bay' flats, where there was also an Indian village called "Dig'wash". Bailey apparently began the predecessor of "The Bailey Corner Store" store sometime around 1857. The shellfish midden remains of "Dig'wash" can still be seen today at Cultus Bay. Three years later the Scatchet Head Fisheries began a very large salmon packing enterprise of shipping preserved, salted salmon from the island to San Francisco, San Diego, Monterey and New York. Bonemeal was manufactured as a by-product. Bailey gave testament in 1878 that more than 100 workers were once employed at Scatchet Head. When Seattle was later developed it is said that on a warm day, when the wind was blowing in the right direction, one could smell Whidbey Island!

Our "original" Whidbey Island colonizer was Thomas Glascow. In 1848, two years before the Oregon Land Act, Glascow arrived on Whidbey, claiming 160 acres of Ebey Prairie; property now including the parking and display area of the Ebey National Historic Reserve. Glascow was harassed by a group of "Northmen" that autumn and left the island - abandoning his 'claim'. In the spring of 1850, Congress enabled the Oregon Land Bill, permitting the claim of 640 acres, if married, 320 if unmarried, in what was now the Oregon Territory. A few months after the Bill's passage, Issac Ebey took over Glascow's claimed area, becoming the most noted of our early settlers; more noted still when he was murdered by Indians in 1857[4]. Ebey built his house, know locally as "The Cabins", near the National Historic Reserve. The following year Ebey's father, Jacob Ebey and his wife arrived at Ebey Landing and built the family home known as "The Ferry House", which later became an informal "inn" for visitors arriving on the west side of the island. The ferry house has remained almost untouched by time, alone in a field on the south side of Ebey Road[6]. At the same time Ebey arrived on Whidbey, Benjamin Barstow arrived, settling at the western end of Penn Cove and opening a general store/trading post at 'Barstow's Point", near today's Captain Whidbey Inn. Except for lumber mills, this was the first business in the Northwestern United States, north of Ft. Nisqually and west of the Cascade Mountains. We do not know who started the name Coveland, however this, the first town in Puget Sound, is referred to by name in 1851. That year, Dr. Robert Lansdale arrived. In addition to being the first American physician in the Pacific Northwest, he became the first U. S. Postmaster north of the Columbia River. A courthouse was built that stands to this day on Madrona Drive, overlooking the lagoon and Penn Cove. Issac Ebey became the first sitting judge north of Astoria. Ebey was also Collector of Customs and representative to the Territorial Legislature when Island County was created, with Coveland as its "seat". The original Thurston County included the entire Pacific Northwest, north of Chehalis (then called Chickeeles), from the Cascades to the 49th parallel. By 1853 it is said that Coveland was a village of 400 Skagit Indians and eight white families[5]. The following year, Samuel Libbey arrived and settled at Coveland, that had by this time become the titular "capitol" of the Pacific Northwest. Libbey and his family lived in a small house by Kennedy's Lagoon and in 1854 moved "down the beach" to a house built by Barstow the year before. This home on Madrona Drive is the best candidate for the oldest home on Whidbey Island still at its original location. The following year, 1854, because of the land claims of Thomas Coupe and others further east along Penn Cove, Coveland reached its building limits and thereafter expanded "around the corner" on the north side of Penn Cove. Later, in 1888 the name of the town was changed from Coveland to San de Fuca. The original town and its wonderful history remain in two buildings on Madrona. A new village, today's Coupeville, began to attract settlers. Thomas Coupe built the first frame house on Whidbey Island on what is now Front Street, just east of the intersection of Main. This home although somewhat altered in remodeling over the years remains largely as original in 1854. While the New England sea captains were arriving in Puget Sound, Ebey as the sole Oregon Territory representative presided over the formation of Island County and Whidbey and the huge area that was to become in 1889 the State of Washington. Our history warrants indeed an unique place in U. S. history.

Salvado Fidalgo in 1592 named our island, "Paradiso". Today we call it Whidbey Island, but its still Paradise.

Notes:
[1] We have intentionally left recognizable photographs and location maps out of this article to make these important historic places less an "attractive nuisance" to vandals.
[2] An interesting historical footnote is that Captain 'Whidbey', from Yorkshire, England, actually spelled his name 'Whidby'. Whidbey gained further fame a few days after his first visit to 'Penn's Cove'; he discovered Deception Pass, the hidden cut dividing Whidbey and Fidalgo Islands that had eluded mariners for 200 years.
[3] I am grateful to Clay Miller of Coupeville, a former "naval person", for correctly identifying the Vincennes rather than the USS Saratoga as Wilkes' flagship. Ironically, our Saratoga Passage was named for the same naval hero as the original sloop-of-war, USS Saratoga, the first vessel Wilkes served on in the famous defeat of British presence in the Great Lakes during the War of 1812.
[4] The events leading up to Issac Ebey's murder should be explained. A series of Indian wars took place during 1855 and 1856 between 'Northmen' and local tribes and between local tribes themselves. An Indian leader near the Port Gamble mill was killed during a pitched battle. As a result the settlers on Whidbey (and other places) began building defensive fortifications. In all, there were ten 'blockhouses' built here. Four remain on Whidbey. Alexander's blockhouse was moved to the Historical Society grounds in Coupeville, and can be seen there. Crockett's 1855 blockhouse in the Crockett Donation Claim on Ft. Casey Road and Davis' blockhouse in the Pioneer cemetery, can be visited. Issac Ebey's is on private property. A second Crockett blockhouse, also on the Crockett D. C., the largest fortification built here was, along with another smaller blockhouse surrounded by a high log palisade. This site has been plowed under by subsequent farming activity on the Prairie, however, visitors to Tacoma's Fort Defiance Park and the former Hudson's Bay post exhibit there will find the Crockett blockhouse itself, still in near perfect condition, at the northwest corner of the palisade as they enter the fort. In 1857 a group of marauding 'Northmen' in apparent "retaliation" for the killing of one of their leaders (in a fight having nothing to do with white settlers on Whidbey), caught Ebey alone at night and murdered him.
[5] The State Office of Archeology conducted some reconnaissance of the Jacob Ebey 'Ferry House' in the Autumn of 2001 and the Spring of 2002.
[6] In 1854, the Territorial Legislature created out of Thurston, four counties: Pierce, King, Jefferson, and Island. Island County at that time was enormous, including all of what is today Snohomish, Skagit, Whatcom and San Juan Counties.

Colonization of the Northwest

Whidbey Island and the Settlement of the Pacific Northwest