Winter/Spring 2014 – Summer/Fall Sou’wester – a great resource, if I do say so myself.
Rummaging through the information that I’ve collected over the better part of a century is becoming more problematic all the time — especially those bits and pieces that (presumably) have been stored among my mental synapses. “Total Instant Recall” is not my middle name! But, often, answers attack me hours, days, or even weeks after the question has been posed. Here are a couple of questions that were asked at the History Forum the other day… and my late-breaking answers.
What was the old name for Baby Island? I think that question was directed to Charlie Funk, who immediately said “Round Island” and many of us nodded in recognition. But I mean the island’s Chinook name came the clarification. We all shook our heads, though I’m sure there were others besides myself who were trying to dredge that information forward. Finally, this morning I looked online! Duh! Tenas Illahee is the answer that came up, Vaguely familiar but I’d like to check it out with Tony Johnson or another of the WaWa speakers among the Tribe.
Someone also asked how it was that ‘far off’ Oysterville became the County Seat after Pacific City failed? I was able to say, It didn’t immediately. First it went to Chinookville but getting there proved difficult for the commissioners who had dispersed throughout the area after the demise of Pacific City. It then went to … and here I blanked. Someone’s schoolhouse in the area that would become Ilwaco. THEN, in 1855 the commissioners voted to move to Oysterville.
Another “duh!” It was Holman’s schoolhouse on Baker’s Bay, built for the his and neighboring children of the area . Although the Commissioners held their meetings there from March to May 1855, it was never officially made the County Seat. Oysterville was voted in as the next (and third after Pacific City and Chinookville) Pacific County Seat in May 1855.”
“For information about Pacific County history, this is an easy way to get the basic facts,” she said modestly.
One further aspect that we didn’t get into was the matter of Pacific County’s changing boundaries during those early days. Seven (count ’em, seven!) boundary changes shaped Pacific County to the form it now holds. The first change was defined in the first regular session of the Washington Territorial Legislature in 1854; the last was approved November 13, 1879.
One other interesting tidbit that didn’t come up at last week’s forum — Bruceville, later known as Bruceport, served as the first “permanent” county seat on the shores of Shoalwater (now Willapa) Bay. However at that time Bruceville and the rest of the upper bay were in Chehalis, not Pacific County — so many of the hijinks among those early Bruceville Commissioners described by James Swan in his book, The Northwest Coast were not actually a part of Pacific County’s history…
I think there might have been other questions-without-immediate-answers last week. Sometimes the braincells just take a while to activate… If you come up with other topics without closure, do weigh in. Inquiring minds are needing reboots!
