SOUTH WHIDBEY HISTORY - Key Persons
A Bridge Between Two Worlds: Chief William Shelton His Story Poles and Enduring Legacy Few Whidbey Islanders know of William Shelton. He was the last hereditary chief of the Snohomish Tribe and was born at Brown's Point (now Sandy Point) on Whidbey Island in 1868. The...
In 1937, Austin Marshall opened "Austin's Store in Freeland. It was located along the highway and is more recently remembered as the Gay 90's pizzeria."Deke" was born in Langley in 1894 and died in Freeland in 1974. When asked why friends called him...
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board Officers Team
- President
Billy Sunday was a pretty exciting name around those times, so when an excursion launch ran over to Everett one night to hear him, Allie Lou and my sisters all voted ‘Yea.' Dad was up in Canada somewhere, so I went along.
The evangelistic meeting was in a big circus-type tent with portable seating all around. The speaker's platform was in the center. Billy was a forceful speaker with a powerful voice, but to me, hardly seemed worth the trip, and especially so since the financing for the trip had been shaken out of my little piggy-type bank.
The thing I remember best was Aunt Maggie's story about Angus McLeod, sitting on the open stern-deck bench of the Camano that afternoon and having a compelling urge to sneeze. He did sneeze and then had to sit there and watch his false teeth sail overboard and volplane down, down through the green water and finally out of sight. He'd had the final fitting just that morning.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board Officers Team
- Vice President
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board Officers Team
- Treasurer
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board Officers Team
- Acting Secretary
Christian Madsen was born in Denmark in January, 1832. At an early age he became a seaman and soon acquired his own ship. In 1857 he sailed his ship across the ocean, around The Horn and up the west coast of the United States to San Francisco. At that time San Francisco was involved in a building boom and lumber was needed not only for buildings but also for dock pilings. The virgin stands of timber on the Olympic Peninsula and South Whidbey provided an ideal source, and Madsen established a thriving shipping business transporting lumber from Washington Territory to California.
He maintained his southern headquarters in San Francisco. His northern base of operations was at Port Ludlow in the Lyons Hotel whose owner, Mike Lyons, also had timber land and a mill in the Maxwelton area of South Whidbey.
Until 1870 Madsen was strictly a seaman but that year be began leading a double life. In public he was a ship's captain and apparently a bachelor but his private life, which he attempted to keep secret for several years, involved a wife, three step-children and a small farming project at South Whidbey's Bush Point, then known as Willow Point. His wife was Emily Low, a Clallam Indian woman whose husband, a white man, had died and left her with three children, Tommy, Emily and Minnie.
Madsen established his new family at Willow Point in one of the longhouses in the Indian village there. He continued to live in Port Ludlow when not at sea or in San Francisco, but he made periodic visits to Willow Point, coming in a small sailing scow which he could moor on the beach while his large freighter was conspicuously berthed at Port Ludlow or Port Townsend. His diary shows several notations that he went to the "island camp" and mentions several activities of "Emily and Minnie and Tommy". When he was on the island Madsen used the name, "Jim Brown", which later evolved into "Jim Madsen."
According to stories handed down in his family, Madsen was a poker player and, on at least one occasion, his skill paid him handsomely. As the story goes, he was involved in a poker game at Port Townsend in which he put up $1500 and won. The loser, a soldier whose name has been lost in the passage of time, had no money to pay his gambling debt. Instead he gave Madsen a deed to the entire area known as Willow Point (Bush Point) on South Whidbey. How the soldier came to own the land, if he really did, has never been clarified but Madsen took no chances. In 1881 he made sure of the title to his property by filing a pre-emption claim which was duly recorded in the county courthouse.
He built a large warehouse on his property clearly shown on a map included in an old abstract. He also built a cottage, 24 x 30 feet, containing two bedrooms, a large living room and a kitchen. He finally admitted to being a family man and, when the house was finished, he moved Emily and her children into the new home and set up regular housekeeping there, retiring shortly thereafter from the sea and devoting his energies to establishing a flourishing farm.
Apparently one of his first acts after he established his home was to sever his connections with the Indian longhouse. In the log of his schooner, H. C. Page, November 25, 1886, he wrote: "Madsen started taking down potlatch house at Bush Point; December 6, Potlatch house down; December 7, Potlatch house burned." John McCurdy, writing in the Whidbey Record in 1978, quotes Ijess Davis as follows:
David McLeod worked for Miss Coe as a teenager, helping care for her yard and acreage.
"She was a lovely lady", David recalls, "gracious, conservative and a pleasure to work for. Once she visited in England for almost a year. When I married in 1936 she gave me a set of Gorham silver teaspoons and when she died she willed me a complete set of Shakespeare's work which I still have."
David and his wife, Georgia McLeod, have provided the following information regarding Miss Coe's gravesite in Langley cemetery. It is marked with a headstone with a bird-feeder insert and the words, ‘‘Please feed my friends." Helen Coe died in 1940. In her family plot are Helen R. Gove, (a niece) 1884-1956; Peter Camfferman, 1890-1957; Margaret Camfferman, 1881-1964.
David McLeod, Murdock and Lottie's son, is the one member of the McLeod clan who has lived practically his entire life in Langley since his birth in 1909. From his infancy he was ac-customed to having his relatives involved in town government. He remembers hearing his Aunt Maggie, the town mayor, claiming that she had the sharpest hearing of anyone and "could hear the grass grow''. The boys were careful to keep out of her earshot when they were planning mischief.
David recalls being barred from some of the trials being conducted by his Uncle Hugh, an attorney and Justice of the Peace. The trials were considered unsuitable for childish ears but David would crawl under the frame building where his uncle held court and listen to many hair-raising incidents which most definitely were not meant to be overheard by children.
Hanging around Langley's blacksmith shops watching the forge and bellows being operated and the horses being shod was a favorite pastime for young David and his friends, as was going through the woods up to DeBruyn Street to watch Mr. Barker come in with his four-horse team hitched to a sled-load of logs which Barker would dump over the bank into Saratoga Passage.
Langley's first city hall, David recalls, was located on Second Street adjacent to where the present Peoples Bank now is. It was a wooden building with a portable cage which served as a jail holding tank for miscreants until the County Sheriff could come for them. Justice in those days was not as complicated as it is now, according to David. The sheriff knew most of the community's residents personally and, if something went amiss the accused would tell the sheriff his side of the story. If the sheriff believed him the matter would be settled accordingly. The city hall and jail eventually burned down.
David's father and uncles helped build the Langley Methodist church and later assisted in hand-digging its basement. Young David never missed a Sunday School there in 16 years. The excitement of being shipwrecked is another of David's memories. With his Aunt Maggie and his sister, Ruth, David boarded the Calista on a certain memorable morning in July, 1922.
They were in holiday mood, en route to Seattle to attend the famous oratorio, "Wayfarer". For this venture into the big city David had groomed himself carefully, expending considerable effort to get his hair slicked down in the manner of the current Rudolph Valentino "shiek" craze. The Calista was laboring through a heavy fog when suddenly without warning the huge bulk of the Japanese freighter, Hawaiian Maru, struck the Calista amidships with a great thud. Before he could comprehend what was happening David remembers his older sister, Ruth, pushing him up a rope ladder on to the deck of the Maru. He was thoroughly frightened when he looked down from the deck of the Maru to see the Calista cut in two and sinking. She was completely submerged within 15 minutes but fortunately there were no fatalities. Another boat arrived to take the rescued passengers on to Seattle where they were greeted by newspaper reporters and photographers. A reporter, preparing to take David's picture, remarked that the boy didn't look much like someone who had just escaped death in a shipwreck. To David's great disgust the reporter thoroughly mussed up the 13 year-old lad's carefully created "shiek" hair style in order to make the picture more exciting.
David started school at Saratoga. His teacher was Miss Olga Reynolds who later married Fred Frei. All eight grades were in one room and David claims he knew more about fourth and fifth grade studies than first grade because they were more interesting to listen to. When his family moved back to Langley David completed his schooling there, then attended Washington State College for one year. He borrowed $100 from the local bank to pay his college expenses.
The following summer he worked at sheep-herding in the Yakima and Ellensburg backlands for $75 per month to pay back his college loan. The sheep-herders slept on blankets on the ground and cooked over an open fire. A food staple was sheep-herder's bread made in a frying pan. David says he can still make a "mean herder's bread." He was accustomed to this rugged outdoor life because when he was 14 he and his brothers and their father worked in the Ellensburg country each summer helping harvest hay, grain and apples.
When he was 21 years-old Dave and his brother, Boyd, decided to seek their fortune in the "outside" world so they invested in a Model T Ford and set out for California. The Ford lacked the stamina of its young owners and it "died" in Eugene, Oregon. They called a tow car to get it off the road. The bill came to $10 and they gave the tow-man the car in lieu of the money. The two brothers continued on as far as Catalina where Dave spent a year and a half working as a brick-layer after which he returned home and has lived in Langley ever since.
He married Clara Peterson in 1936 and they had one daughter, Mary, who is now married and lives in Oregon. Clara died in 1970, David later married Georgia McInnis. David and Georgia live in the same house on Second Street in which David has resided for the past 40 years. David served on the Langley Town Council and also was a volunteer fireman for 14 years.
Besides David the only other descendants of the original McLeod clan now living in South Whidbey are John and his son, Douglas and his family.
John married Winnifred Bell and after 40 years with Lucky Stores in Seattle, moved to their home at Bell's Beach on South Whidbey. His son, Douglas and his wife, Mary Roll, and their three children, Molly, James and Anna, live in their home in Langley. Marjorie McLeod Carter, husband Dan Carter and son, Joshua live in Everett. She commutes to South Whidbey Elementary School to teach South Whidbey youngsters. John and Winnie's other daughter is married to Jerry McKenzie and they live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They have two sons, Trevor and Aaron.
Klondike Gold Rush dollars and a national economic recovery renewed Langley's prospects in the late 1890s. Anthes was granted a contract to supply brush needed for shoreline development in Everett and Seattle. In 1902 the Langley Land Company deeded land back to Anthes and he began building trails and roads to the interior of the island and a road to connect Langley with Clinton. He also constructed a new dock, a quarter of a mile east of the original wharf, in a partially protected cove. Langley became South Whidbey's trading center for loggers, fishermen, and farmers, with steamers connecting to Everett, Seattle, Camano Island, and Whatcom (now part of Bellingham).
Having started with almost nothing, Anthes now owned the town's general store, its water system, a post office, and a bunk house and cook house for workers. He was also becoming prosperous from his real estate holdings, not only on Whidbey Island but also in nearby Everett. Polk's City Directory listings link Anthes to a hotel in Everett as early as 1904 and by 1908 the Anthes family had moved from Langley to the riverside of Everett. The directories list Anthes in Everett from 1908 to 1939, the year he died.
For almost 85 years Effie Co Jean Simonson was known as Langley's unofficial ambassador of goodwill. On her 76th birthday June, 1970 the town honored her as its oldest pioneer daughter and her picture and life story were featured in the Whidbey Record.
From the date of her birth, on June 15, 1894 at Browns Point until her death on April 27, 1979 Effie's life was so filled with drama that it could have come from a Dickens novel. Her father, Oliver Joseph Co Jean, had been a French wine-maker prior to migrating to the United States where he settled in Missouri and worked on the railroad. About five years after his marriage to Ellen Bradshaw he moved his wife and four children to Langley shortly after Jacob Anthes had platted the town in 1890. The family lived at Brown's Point (now Sandy Point) while Co Jean built a house on property he had leased from Anthes on what is now Sixth Street.
When Effie was three years old her father and Anthes had a business disagreement and CoJean left the island, leaving his wife and children behind. Ellen Co Jean had a rough time trying to support her sizeable family and Effie was taken to live with the Beachum family who were homesteading 160 acres between Langley and Freeland. The June 11, 1970 Whidbey Record picks up Effie's story.
As a young girl she was counted on to help with the livestock, pack water to the fields, rake hay and tramp it down in the sheds, work in the harvest and prepare the year's supply of fruits and vegetables, as well as take care of the other children. In 1905, the Beachum's adopted another child, a boy, later known as "Pappy" Beachum who became the senior pilot for Navy vessels coming into Bremerton.
Effie's memories of those years are of the winding horse trail through the woods to Langley and of the excitement of a trip to Everett by stern wheeler, and of school, first Mutiny Bay and later at Bayview where 5 students from the first through the eighth grades were housed and handled by a single teacher in the one room schoolhouse.
She moved back to Langley in 1910 but spent a good part of the next three years in the Yakima Valley picking hops or apples and working at a store and ice cream parlor at Soap Lake where she was up at 7 to fill milk bottles and stayed until 10 unless there was a dance next door to clean up after which lengthened the day until one a.m. Effie's recollections of Langley as she knew it in the early days continue in her interview with the Whidbey Record in 1970.
Jacob Anthes, who would pioneer Langley's early development, left his home in Gross Gerau, Germany, in 1879, when he was 14, to avoid compulsory military conscription and begin life in a new land. Anthes and a friend, George Miller, arrived in New York and set out for Topeka, Kansas, to visit Miller's mother. Anthes worked in the stockyards there for a short time but soon set out alone on the transcontinental railroad for San Francisco. From there he headed north, in 1880 arriving in Seattle where he met a businessman who had a homestead claim on South Whidbey Island. Anthes agreed to move onto the property in order to hold down the man's claim. He occupied a rustic cabin built by a previous settler and began cutting trees to sell as cordwood to Mosquito Fleet steamboat operators. He is reported to have cut about 35 cords a day, with the help of loggers that he hired. Anthes also planted a large vegetable garden, with plenty of potatoes that he sold to loggers and other workers on the island. And he began exploring the southern portion of Whidbey Island on foot, writing diaries of his experiences.
James Weston Langley Click the photo to learn more about Langley's namesake.
In 1889 Anthes married Leafy Weeks, a woman from Seattle, and the following year he purchased a homestead tract on a bluff overlooking Saratoga Passage, built a house, and began planning a town. When Washington gained statehood in 1889, the establishment of townsites in the region reached a state of madness as entrepreneurs awaited the arrival of the Great Northern Railway and speculated where it would first touch West Coast tidewater. Anthes placed his hopes on South Whidbey Island's location and resources and sought backing for town development. With financial support from Seattle Judge James Weston Langley, C.M. Sheafe, James Satterlee, A.P. Kirk, and Howard B. Slauson (1861-1933), Anthes formed the Langley Land and Improvement Company and deeded property to the company for development. The town plat of Langley - named for the judge - was drawn in November 1890 and officially recorded on April 9, 1891.
One of the company's first projects was building a 999-foot dock (above), at a cost of $5,000. Anthes opened a general store and post office across the street from the dock. In the hard times following the financial Panic of 1893 most of the Improvement Company's plans had to be set aside. In addition, the dock had been poorly located and fell victim to heavy tides and storms. When severe storms destroyed it in 1894, the company did not have the means to rebuild and, for a time, large vessels were unable to dock at Langley.
Jonathan 'Joc' Salisbury was already in his mid-40s when he and his family headed west in 1889. They landed first in Tacoma, where they purchased a hotel to run, then headed up to Alaska in 1890 to set up accommodations for miners up there. According to a family...
Joseph Primavera was born in Bologna, Italy and came to Seattle in 1899 where he owned and operated a saloon. Ten years prior, Victor's mother, Martina had left Italy, to come to Seattle to work in her aunt's boarding house.Joseph and Martina met, fell in...
Think you have a tough commute? Consider the weekly one Miss Julia Mackie had in 1914.After graduating high school in Everett, Julia was hired as a teacher in a logging camp near present day Honeymoon Bay.It was a large Pope and Talbot logging camp (later...
Lon and Katie Chase arrived in Langley in 1929 from California seeking work, after having found none in Seattle. "They said I was too old," as Lon told it. He was 43 at the time. They had heard of Whidbey Island and, after a ferry ride they stopped at Langley where Lon remained for the next 40 years.
Although Lon and Katie had no children of their own they are credited with having put at least 26 youngsters through school. Their theory on children was that no matter how bad they might be they would grow up to be good if they had a good home life. Lon was custodian of the local school for 12 years and he was featured in one of the school's Falcon
Luther L. Moore and His Revealed Remedy…. Imagine a natural remedy that would purify the blood and cure everything from asthma to venereal disease--including conditions in between such as ague, alcoholism, asthma, bowel problems, consumption, constipation,...
In 1858 a baby girl was born in a town in Minnesota who was destined to play an out-standing role in the development of a tiny, new town thousands of miles away on an island in Duget Sound. That baby was Helen B. Coe.
She grew up to be a lady of culture and distinction and was a teacher. Time has cloud- id the reason that Helen Coe crossed half a continent to settle in Langley about 1896. The 1900 census shows that she had living with her Lillian Kelsey, a 33 year old seamstress from England. In due time several other relatives arrived to share the attractive home and 10 acres which she had purchased west of Langley bet-ween the high bank waterfront and Saratoga Road. There was her sister-in-law, Mrs. Alice Rollit Coe, also a niece and her husband, Margaret and Peter Camfferman.
In the rugged frontier life that characterized Langley around 1900 Helen Coe's home was an oasis of refinement which she graciously shared with the tiny community. In the memoirs, "My First Days In Langley", Mabel Anthes, daughter of Jacob and Leafy Anthes, gives an interesting account of the part Miss Coe and her family played in the life of youngsters in the community.
"During that period I looked forward to Sunday mornings when Mother dressed me in a clean apron and a brown-checked sunbonnet and sent me to the home of Mrs. Alice Rollit Coe (a sister- in-law of Miss Helen B. Coe, author of "Fir and Foam"), who taught her two children, Winifred and Rollit, my sister Cora and me to sing "Jesus Loves Me This I Know" and "Onward Christian Soldiers".
"Once or twice a month during 1896-8 the three Anthes children were invited to "tea parties" given by Miss Helen B. Coe and Miss Lillian D. Kelsey, both of whom had taught kindergarten before coming to Langley to live. We learned to make fans and sailboats of colored paper. Their home was an interesting place with furniture made from driftwood.
"On one occasion Miss Helen Coe consented to substitute for our teacher at school. We became restless one afternoon and Miss Coe instructed us to stand, throw out our arms and pretend we were little birds. This pleased the little tots but disgusted the older boys who swung themselves up into the rafters like monkeys, and there they lay sprawled out swinging their arms and legs. From that time on the big boys made themselves obnoxious. They pushed each other over the stove and woodpile, and one morning succeeded in pushing the stove over onto the floor. There was a great skirmish and a lot of angry words. The school board decided to employ a man teacher."
Enid McGinnis Mackie, who was Langley Town Clerk for several years, recalls that in her childhood she and her grandmother, Lillian Wylie, were sometimes invited to lunch at the Coe home. The luncheon table would be impeccably set with fine linen, china, silver and crystal.
In December, 1919, when an all-woman Council was chosen by the townsfolks to run Langley, Helen Coe was elected mayor. She served until March 7, 1922.
Found this fascinating article in our archives about Omer Porter, which was written by John Watkins and which appeared in the South Whidbey Record on October 7, 1980. It gives a glimpse into what life was like on South Whidbey around the turn of the last century....
Robert Pickens was born in Tennessee in 1898, but grew up in Oregon and homesteaded in Chehalis, Washington. He purchased 120 acres in the Maxwelton area in 1919 and became a well known farmer in the community. He also did some logging and fishing, catching dogfish and selling their livers to a processing plant in Seattle.
He is a bachelor and, as this is written, he lives alone on his farm but has a housekeeper come in at intervals "to tidy things up a bit," he says. He is a close friend of John Metcalf, another local pioneer who lives on Saratoga Road. Over the years the two men have spent many hours on the Metcalf fishing boats.
T. S. Mackie, who had formerly owned a store in Nebraska, was interested in starting one here but could not find what he wanted. The Mackie brothers with Howard as president, Dave as treasurer, and T.S. as secretary and manager decided later to take over the mortgage on the Island Ranch which was made up of 800 acres at this time. They were much impressed by its green fields of oats and of the lovely orchard showing green fruit.
Thomas John Johns and Mary Jane Johns
Thomas John Johns arrived as a 19-year-old on South Whidbey in 1859, shortly after Ed Oliver, but a little before William Johnson.He was born New Year's Eve 1840 in Plymouth, England, the son of a British sea captain. Young ‘Tommy' as he was called, became...
Virgil Auvil was born in 1896 in Auviltown, West Virginia, the eldest of 10 children. His father, Wayne, was a farmer who ventured west after his father died in 1909. He worked on farms in Snohomish County.After serving in WWI , Virgil and his brother, Ray, became...
Job Titles:
- Bush Point 's Native Son Honored As a Tribal Elder
Warren was honored as a tribal elder by the S'Kallam tribe. His family roots go back to the earliest written history of Whidbey Island.His great-grandmother, Emily Lowe Madsen, was a full S'Klallam tribal member from Sequim. She was married to Christian...
Another article from our recent newsletter: WARREN FARMER: Bush Point's Native Son Honored as a Tribal Elder Charles "Warren" Farmer was honored as a tribal elder by the S'Kallam tribe at the Seven Cedars Resort outside of Sequim last March. Farmer's family roots go...
Warren Wildes, who had been a logger before coming here, bought a place from the Puget Mill Company and he and the Cuthbertson brothers then started logging for the Harriett Logging Company which was located just east of the Island School. They shot their logs down the old Fin Calligan log shoot and took out over $40,000 worth of timber off the John Parsons, Kinskies, Saylor and Wildes places.
William Jewett, like his father-in-law, was a homemaker. He built a house on his property and he and Laura settled down to the business of developing a farm and raising a family. They became the parents of three children, Eva Grace, Joseph and Elmer. Joseph's daughter, Esther Jewett House, lived on the Jewett property until her death, February 6, 1981.
Another grandchild of Robert Bailey, George Bailey, who was living on the Tulalip Indian reservation in March, 1980, reported that he, his brother Henry Bailey who is a C.P.A., and their father were active participants over the years in the Snohomish tribal struggle with the Federal Land Claims office to obtain payment for their land on South Whidbey under treaty rights.