New in the Neighborhood

When you stand on the northwest corner of School Street and Territory Road these days, you can see ‘progress’ happening to your right and to your left.  Two big (by Oysterville standards) building projects are in the works!  Two new residences – one a remodel of an historic building and one brand new!  And both for full-time residents!  Whoo hoo!

Building a house in Oysterville these days is not an easy proposition.  We are surrounded by wetlands; we are in the hundred year flood plain; we are a National Historic District.  There are rules and regulations to follow and hoops to jump through. Property owners who build here need to be persevering and persistent.

I think it has always been that way here in Oysterville – but for very different reasons.  I can’t help but think of the letter that John Marshall wrote to his wife back in 1863.  John was from New York and had come to the West Coast hoping for work.  Times were “dull” back home in Rossville, Staten Island, and for some years his brother-in-law, John Morgan, had been urging Marshall to join him in California where the Gold Rush was still in full swing.

John drew up a power of attorney for his wife, Mary Morgan Marshall, asked for and received a letter of reference from the minister of the Methodist Church, and in early 1860 sailed for San Francisco.  He was a carpenter by trade, 43 years old, and, in addition to his wife, he left behind three children, ages 9, 6, and 2 ½.

By the time his ship docked in the city by the Golden Gate, Marshall’s brother-in-law had abandoned his quest for gold and had headed north toward a new mother lode – oysters!   The letter he left for Marshall included a map and instructions to meet him in Shoalwater Bay, Washington Territory.

But when John got to Oysterville, he found that a new law was in place and would require him to wait six months before he was eligible to work in the oysters.  So, he fell back on what he knew best – carpentry.  This is what he wrote his wife:

Logging in the Early Days

Mary it does me good to write your name for it does appear that I am talking to you…
I am getting out timber to build a house for John Morgan.  I go in the woods and look for trees suitable for house but can’t find them they are so bige [sic].  They are from 150 feet to 200 feet high and from 3 feet through to 6 feet and it is so much labor to get them they stand so close together that we can’t hardly get through them.  I never saw such woods until I came to this country.  Here we can’t see anything else.
People here own claims of 100 acres and 300 and can’t get land enough cleared to raise a few potatoes to eat.  They have to ship them it is so hard to clear off the land.
Mary keepe a good hart we will see one another again.  Give my love to you all…
I remain your True Husband, John Marshall

John Marshall returned to New York a year or so later.  The record is silent on whether or not he built that house for John Morgan.  But, clearly, building a house in Oysterville, then as now, required a good deal of tenacity.  We are thankful our newest neighbors have that essential character trait in good measure!