by James Canby | Feb 17, 2022 | SW People & Families
During the thirty years between the arrival of Robert Bailey in 1850 and the beginning of the decade of the eighties, not more than a dozen families had established permanent residence on South Whidbey. There were several active logging operations, with small numbers...
by James Canby | Feb 17, 2022 | SW People & Families
About the year 1866 a stalwart Swedish man, Emil Pearson, packed up his goods and, with his wife and four year old son, Andrew, came to the United States, settling in Minnesota near Duluth. In February, 1872, a son Charles was born and in February, 1879, a daughter...
by James Canby | Feb 17, 2022 | SW People & Families
The names of George and Catherine Finn occur repeatedly in accounts of the lives of various settlers in the Useless Bay area in the 1870s, but the actual date of their arrival is not recorded. It is a matter of record, however, that the Finns purchased a tract of land...
by James Canby | Feb 17, 2022 | SW People & Families, Uncategorized
In 1857 when Christian Madsen arrived in San Francisco after sailing his ship around The Horn from Denmark, he met John Curtis Farmer whose family and fortunes were to become intertwined with his for the rest of his life. Farmer was an Englishman who had migrated to...
by James Canby | Feb 16, 2022 | SW People & Families
Woven into the tapestry of the lives of the settlers on the western shore of South Whidbey was a bright thread that gave a sort of continuity to the overall picture. That thread was provided by a sea captain, Christian Madsen, whose various ships. . .Thatcher, H. C....
by James Canby | Feb 16, 2022 | SW People & Families
While the Hinman brothers had been busy developing the town of Clinton, another settler had been equally busy establishing a home and an exceptional farm about two miles inland overlooking Deer Lake. The unusual thing about this settler was that she was a woman...
