Road Survey, 1880

In doing my ‘due diligence’ (as in going through my unsorted piles of ‘stuff’) I ran across a copy of an old road survey. The measurements were in chains and links, units that have not been in common usage since the beginning of the twentieth century. I could tell by some of the landmarks mentioned that this was an early survey for the Oysterville Road, or as it was once called, “Pacific Street.” It runs from the ocean beach to the bay and is one of the oldest roads on the Peninsula. The survey says:

Begin in Oysterville at a Rock marked R,O,B, … Corner of Caruthers [sic] Hotel…Corner of Briscoe’s fense [sic] … Corner of M.E. Church… Door of Saloon… Culbert 2500 top of hill or Sandridge by F.C, Davis House… a Sanded Bridg [sic]… a Willow Post marked R1N…

 ‘Caruthers Hotel’ was Richard Carruthers’ Pacific House built in 1873 and located on the northwest corner of what is now Oysterville Road and Main Street. The M. E. Church refers to the Methodist Episcopal Church built in 1872 and also located on the corner of Oysterille Road and Main, on the northeast corner. F.C, Davis lived a quarter mile west at the base of the hill now known as Davis or Cemetery Hill.

I’m not sure if this was the first official survey of the road but I do know that the road, itself, was there from the very earliest days of Oysterville. In her book Coast Country, Lucile McDonald wrote: …23 citizens petitioned in 1859 to have a mile and a half road built to connect Oysterville with the weather beach so that “the travelling wayfarer or emigrant who is looking for a home” might ride a horse or vehicle most of the way to Baker Bay.

Ilwaco Road to the Weather Beach

At the Ilwaco end there was a road with planks laid over the marshy spots and, by the 1860s, Isaac Whealdon drove mail and passengers by wagon across the road and up to Oysterville on the wet sands of the weather beach three times a week. In 1870 Lewis A. Loomis would use the same route for his stagecoach line until he replaced it with the narrow gauge railroad in 1889.

A notation on the back of the survey officially identifies it: In Commissioners Court, Pacific County, Wash. Ter. Survey of Co. road from Oysterville to the Weather Beach. Of Pacific County road book May 7, 1880. W.T. Filed May 4, 1880, John R. Goulter Clerk. Recorded on pages 117 & 118 John R. Goulter, Recorder of Pacific Co.  I believe that John R. Goulter is one of our neighbor Bud’s forebears – perhaps the same Goulter that Bud says is pictured in the early photo of that very road being built (or improved?) over Davis Hill.

I wonder what else I’ll uncover or ‘rediscover’ as I continue my sorting and filing tasks. It’s this kind of discovery that at once slows me down and keeps me going! Love the discoveries; hate the task!