The will of John Burkhart.
The wind was blowing a gale, the rain was pelting down, and even the protected waters of Seattle’s Elliot Bay were raging on a certain day in the early 1920’s when a fireman, named Allen Kelly, looked out across the bay from the fire and police station on the shore where he was stationed, and saw a lone man in a row-boat out in the bay being inundated by waves and appearing on the verge of collapse.
Kelly jumped into a boat at the fire station and went out to see if the man needed help. Help was badly needed. The man, was completely exhausted and soaked to the skin. Kelly brought him to shore, and tied up the boat. He took the stranger into the station, removed his wet clothing, wrapped this shivering man with blankets and put him to bed on the fire station cot.
When the man had recovered enough to talk, he explained that his name was John Burkhart, that he owned a thousand feet of waterfront and back-land on the shore of Useless Bay on South Whidbey Island, and that he had started out from home in his row boat, as was his custom, planning to spend a couple of days in Seattle. The storm had started when he was a little bit past Edmonds and had worsened as he proceeded toward Elliott Bay. He didn’t think he could have made it to the shore without Kelly’s help.
When Kelly asked Burkhart if he had relatives who should be notified that he was safe, he said, no that he was a bachelor and lived alone in a small house he had built on his farm. After he recovered he attended to his business in Seattle and then, making sure that the weather was clear, he rowed back to his home on Useless Bay.
When John Burkhart died in August, 1931 his friends found a sheet of lined paper on which he had written his last will and testament dated July 18, 1931. All the property was to go to Allen Kelly of the Seattle Police and Fire Department who had befriended him. The will was executed and Allen Kelly inherited not only the real estate but also a schooner rig “Middleton of Seattle” based al Nome, Alaska and a boat moored on Lake Union at 6th Avenue West in Seattle in care of Mr. Staples.
John Burkhart’s home at the extreme left. The bam is seen at the extreme right of the picture.
Allen Kelly had the property for many years and finally sold the real estate in 1966 to F.M. Milby who had a real estate firm in Freeland and who is now developing Useless Bay Shores, an exclusive residential plat.