Connecting the dots — at last!

John Peter Paul, 1827 – 1909

Yesterday, I finally had a face-to-face encounter with a man I’ve greatly admired for many years.  Never mind that he lived and died way before my time.  He’s the horticulturist who, in 1869, was the first to cultivate wild cranberries here on the Peninsula.  He’s the master carpenter who built the Oysterville Courthouse and the two-story Oysterville School in 1875.  He’s the farmer who bought John Crellin’s DLC plus an adjoining 320 acres and engaged in stock-raising.  And, he’s the man who platted, laid out town lots, founded, and named Nahcotta.

He was John Peter Paul.  During the last forty years, I’ve read about him, written about him, and admired his industriousness and his ability to successfully turn his hand to whatever interested him or was needed by the community.  But, until yesterday, I had no idea what this man looked like.

Then, as I was thumbing through Volume II of History of Washington, The Evergreen State, From Early Dawn to Daylight with Portraits and Biographies (great title!) edited by Julian Hawthorn (Nathaniel’s son) and published in New York by the American Historical Publishing Co., 1893 — whew!! — I happened to run into John P. Paul.   He was a handsome fellow, indeed!

Oysterville School 1875-1907

He was born in Ohio on August 10, 1828 (which made him two years younger than R.H. Espy, my great-grandfather.)  He attended public schools until he was sixteen and then went to Cincinnati where he learned the carpenter’s trade.  He subsequently worked in Lexington,Kentucky and in Nashville, Tennessee before deciding, in 1853 to investigate the comparatively unknown region beyond the Rockies.

After mining in Nevada City and Placerville (then called Hang Town), California, he followed that trade in a number of locations between California and British Columbia until 1867.  That year he arrived in Knappton (then called Cementville) on the Columbia River.  There he stayed for two years before moving to the North Beach Peninsula where he lived in the Nahcotta area and, later, in Oysterville.  In 1882 he married Mary L. Andrews of California.

Hawthorne concludes his biography of John Peter Paul with these remarks:  The life of our subject has been one of great activity and frequent changes.  Blessed with a rugged constitution, he is still hearty and vigorous, and is enjoying all the comforts  of a happy home with his good wife, surrounded by many friends, and possessing the respect and esteem of all who know him.

Pacific County Courthouse, Oysterville (1875-1893)

On the chance that he was buried locally, I looked him up in the Ocean Park Cemetery Find-a-Grave site and, wouldn’t you know!  There was his picture, taken directly from Hawthorne’s book!  Apparently, I could have met John Peter face-to-face long ago.  His gravestone has him born in 1827, a year earlier than Hawthorne’s biography reports, but hardly important in the great scheme of things.  He died in 1909.

All-in-all, I am left wondering who else I can “meet” by taking the time and expending a little due-diligence!

 

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