Page 6 - Early Winter 2022 SWHS Newsletter.indd

her stepson, Henry, when she gave also grew up at D’GWAD’wk. In 1902 Jack Carlson and Waite
birth in 1869 to Nathaniel U. Bailey, Spithill had William Jewett arrested Merrick of Port Townsend built a
followed by Laura Bailey in 1874, on a Friday night, but Jewett’s lawyer large structure on the spit, intending
and Clarissa Bailey in 1880. An infant found a technicality and said that if to smoke herring, but they abandoned
daughter Inez was listed on the 1881 he married Laura right away, he could the plan and caught the fish to sell
census and two-year old Nellie was on avoid jail. A marriage license was pro- fresh for bait.
the 1887 census but are not on later cen- cured on Monday, and the next day, The latest commercial plant on the
suses. They probably did not survive to April 9, Laura and William were wed, spit was the Sea Products Co. fertiliz-
adulthood. with both Anastasia and Alexander er plant utilizing fish waste including
Older sons Henry and Robert left Spithill signing the license as witnesses. salmon carcasses and fish livers. Ed
home in the early to mid-1870s to work The Jewetts lived at Duwamish, and Ellis worked there more than 23 years
on Puget Sound steamers. (See previous later in Seattle’s 3rd District and had as chief engineer of the day shift.
newsletter for their story.) four children: Eva-Grace, Joe, Elmer About four years ago the company
The June 1, 1870 Whidbey Island and Esther. The family moved to the loaded its equipment on a scow and
Productions in Agriculture census lists Bailey farm on Cultus Bay in 1896. moved the operation to Alaska. The
Robert Bailey as owning 160 acres, tideland was sold to the Manson-Os-
--50 of which were listed as improved In an August 2, 1958 article in the berg Co., contracting firm, which
land (farmed) and 110 were woodlands. Seattle Daily Times Sunday Magazine, razed the structure and expects to
(This was before his purchase in 1873 veteran journalist Lucille McDonald improve the property. The company
of another 160 acres.) wrote about the history of Cultus Bay, will dredge a channel inside the bay
(excerpted here) which was then slated
The value of his property was esti- for development. to a boat basin sheltered by the spit,
mated to be $1,000 with farm equip- where lots will be surveyed.
ment worth $150. He paid $300 in ...When Island County was orga-
wages to farm laborers that year. nized in l853 all of Whidbey south of Laura and William divorced in 1908,
Holmes Harbor was called Scatchet
He is listed as having 6 milk cows, Head Precinct. The voting place was with Laura receiving her father’s land-
4 working oxen, 8 other cattle, and Bailey’s house, which stood in an or- holdings, then about 100 acres. She
12 swine, with a $750 value of all the chard between the spit and the mod- lived with son Elmer, and later, her
farm stock. ern fishing resort. The house burned in daughter Esther Jewett House on land
On March 11, 1889 Bailey died at 1907 and was replaced by another... between Sandy Hook Yacht Club Es-
age 66 after nine months of illness at a tates and Possession Shores.
Steilacoom Hospital in Pierce County. Joseph Jewett of Seattle, grandson Laura died in 1960 at age 86. Her
The 1889 census lists son, Nathaniel, of Bailey, remembers his first view of daughter Esther continued to live in the
the island in 1896 when he was a small
age 19, as taking over the family farm. boy. The Bailey place had not been little house until her death in 1980.
No mention is made of his mother occupied for some time and Laura In his land deed, Robert S. Bailey re-
Charlotte, nor the year she died. Jewett, Joe’s mother, persuaded her quested that his burial place be beside
Daughter Laura Bailey, then 16, went husband to move there from Seattle. his two wives underneath a large ma-
to work as a domestic servant at a farm “A sternwheeler let us off at Pos- ple tree on the site of his homestead in
on Lake Washington. There she met a session Point,” Joe Jewett recalled. perpetuity.
33-year-old farmhand from Indiana, “We led our cattle and horses along Where that house was located is not
William Jewett. (No relation to the Jew- the beach at low tide. It was easier exactly known, (it burned in 1907) but it
etts who settled in Bayview.) to do then. is likely on parcel 2 of the Sandy Hook
According to an article in the April 7, “Cultus Bay had been a gathering area. There is no record of their graves
1889 Seattle P-I newspaper article, dis- place for Indians who came to dig being relocated, and their names are not
traught over succumbing to William's and dry clams and smoke salmon. on the rolls of any local cemetery.
advances, (he had promised marriage, They called the bay ‘Stochwa’ but It is very likely they still rest in the
but then backed out), she went to I don’t know what that means. There soil of the place they called home at
Mukilteo to seek help from her guard- was a one-room shack on the spit and D’GWAD’wk.
ian, Alexander Spithill. near it a longhouse. Farther north on Have you joined the 3,450 people
One newspaper cited Spithill as her the spit were two other longhouses.” who follow our Facebook page?
uncle, but if true, it would have been by Jewett started to school about 1901,
marriage. It may be that Laura’s mother, walking through the dense forest to Hit the ‘follow’ button at:
was related to Spithill’s wife Anastasia, Maxwelton (Island School), which as https://www.facebook.com/
Chief Bonaparte’s granddaughter who yet had no name. SouthWhidbeyHistory
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