by James Canby | Feb 16, 2022 | SW People & Families
John Phinney had established the first semblance of a town on his waterfront property on South Whidbey’s eastern shore but he soon had neighbors, the Hinman brothers of Michigan, who started a village on the beach about four miles north of Phinney.In 1872 Edward...
by James Canby | Feb 16, 2022 | SW People & Families
About the same time that Joseph Brown was establishing a lighthouse, starting a family and dreaming dreams about founding a town on South Whidbey’s eastern coast, a San Francisco company also was dreaming large dreams about the same general area. In 1864 the firm of...
by James Canby | Feb 16, 2022 | SW People & Families
In 1859, the same year that Thomas Johns unceremoniously left the British navy to become a solid citizen on the western shore of South Whidbey, a nineteen year old Portuguese seaman, Joseph Brown, took similar impromptu leave of his ship on South Whidbey’s...
by James Canby | Feb 15, 2022 | SW People & Families
A man named Luther Moore appeared on the South Whidbey scene in 1863 in what is now the Maxwelton area and, for a time, it seemed as if the southwestern shore of Useless Bay would experience the same kind of development that was beginning to occur on the western shore...
by James Canby | Feb 15, 2022 | SW People & Families
Edward Oliver and Thomas John Johns had scarcely established themselves on the Deer Lagoon side of Double Bluff when they acquired a new neighbor, Nathaniel Porter. In 1859, Porter took over the financially distressed property which had been homesteaded by Raphael...
by James Canby | Feb 15, 2022 | SW People & Families
Edward Oliver found that the job of logging Deer Lagoon was too big for one man so he started looking for a suitable partner soon after he arrived on South Whidbey. On a trip to Port Ludlow he found just the man he was looking for, Thomas John Johns, an adventurous...
