At The ‘Y’

The historic village of Oysterville begins at the ‘Y’ where the ‘OYSTERVILLE 1854’ sign is and continues up Territory Road, around the loop past the old cannery building, and then out the beach road past  the store and post office to the cemetery.  Many folks live outside those boundaries and have an Oysterville address, but when we speak of “the village” the area just described is what we are talking about.
            There are thirty-one houses within the village – so small a number that people often ask if we are really a hamlet rather than a village.  Although we do sometimes refer to Oysterville as a hamlet, according to most definitions a hamlet has no church.  We, of course, have a church though it has no minister and is not used on a regular basis except for summer vesper services.  We also have a schoolhouse and a commercial garage building, neither of which is used for its original purpose.  Plus, we have the store/post office and the cannery building.  The latter no longer turns out canned goods, but it does deal in oysters.  And the store/post office, in the same location for nearly a century, continue to  function as the center of village life.  Anyway, having a church apparently disqualifies Oysterville as a hamlet.
            A town, as opposed to either a hamlet or a village, is larger and in addition to a having a church has an organized form of government.  We are part of Pacific County’s unincorporated area and fall under its governance umbrella; we have no elected officials or town charter.  Therefore, a town we are not.  We are clearly a village. 
            I’ve not located any definitions which include population figures.  It seems to me that if sixteen residences is the cut-off point between hamlet and village there must be an assumption that more than sixteen people – probably quite a few more – live in a village.  In Oysterville we have only fourteen full-time residents, but we have thirty-eight part-time residents – that is folks whose primary residence is elsewhere.  So does that put this village of Oysterville in a different sort of category altogether?