Page 2 - SUMMER 2020 SWHS Newsletter revised (1)

Time of Change, continued of where to hunt and fish were sought wanted him to file for land on Whid-
out as the partners of choice.” bey Island for their Port Ludlow Mill
In an effort to prevent fighting and fa- Land was another reason why mar- Company (later bought out by Puget
cilitate land settlement by Euro-Amer- riage to indigenous women was desir- ill Company), but Johnson liked the Is-
icans and immigrants, the Point Elliott able. The Donation Land Acts of 1850 land so much that he sold his Port Lud-
Treaty was signed at Mukilteo in 1855, and 1853 provided that a single man low property and filed a 160-acre claim
just two years before Zah-to-litsa was could claim 320 acres to homestead, in 1869 at a place now known as Dou-
born, though it was not ratified until but if married, they could jointly claim ble Bluff. (Over the years the Bluff was
1859 and only enacted in 1874. 640 acres. Even though this ended known by several names: Volcano Point
It was a terrible deal for the indige- in 1855 (land was no longer free but for its then-smoldering underground
nous peoples. The concept of ‘owning’ could be purchased for $1.25 an acre), peat fires, Ariel’s Point by the Wilkes
land was foreign to tribal leaders. To the Homestead Act of 1862 provided Expedition, Johnson’s Bluff, Useless
them, the lands were not the possession free land to settlers willing to live on Bay Bluff, and finally, Double Bluff.)
of any one person or any nation and make improvements to the land. Johnson was one of the first handful
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In a time of great transition, they Some of the early marriages were of white settlers on South Whidbey.
reluctantly agreed to ‘sell’ lands for according to the Snohomish custom The first recorded man was Robert
American/European settlement in ex- of the bridegroom giving gifts to the Bailey in 1852 who settled near the
change for education and vocational bride’s family, which were later recip- Snohomish permanent village of Dig-
training for their children, healthcare, rocated. Formal county marriage cer- dwash at Bailey’s Bay, now Cultus
a permanent reservation where they tificates were sometimes not recorded Bay. He was followed in 1853 by Ra-
could not be pushed off, homes, jobs, until years later. The Johnson’s mar- phael Brunn who claimed 320 acres at
and being able to continue to fish and riage certificate was recorded in Jeffer- Mutiny Bay.
hunt as they had always done. son County in September 1878, three In a paragraph in The Washington
Compensation was promised not in months after the birth of their second Standard, March 12, 1886, about John-
money but in terms of blankets, house- child, a son, George. son’s death it states that Johnson had
goods and farming tools. The tribes and In addition to Johnson, some of the lived on Whidbey for 25 years, which
bands of indigenous people assigned to other early settlers who took Coast Sal- would have put his arrival around 1861.
the Tulalip Reservation basically gave ish women as wives included Andrew Johnson’s (Double) Bluff had excel-
up ancestral lands of more than 9,000 Deming, George Finn, Ed Oliver, Na- lent timber which he logged and then
square miles for a mere 35.3 square thaniel Porter, Robert Bailey, and Jo- floated through Deer Lagoon and out to
miles 2 seph Brown. Port Ludlow where it was milled.
Zah-toh-litsa, however, did not relo- The 1870 Island County census lists
cate to the reservation at Tulalip, but William T. Johnson a William T. Johns(t)on(e) born in New
remained on Whidbey Island her whole William T. Johnson was born in 1822 York in 1822 and an Indian woman,
life, married first to William Johnson, in New York state. After an adventure- Jeannie, age 16, whose occupation was
and then neighbor Ed Oliver. some youth on the high seas, including listed as “keeping house.” Marriage
Zah-to-litsa had her first child, Loui- sailing around Cape Horn, he landed on was not a category in that year’s census
sa Ann) with William Johnson in 1873, the Olympic Peninsula, where he had a and early census records were often in-
when she was 16 years old and he was 160-acre homestead at Port Ludlow. correct as to age, spelling, etc. It is pos-
51. A 35-year age difference between Port Ludlow Mill on-site owners sible that this Jeannie was indeed Zah-
was not uncommon in those days. Syrus Walker and Arthur Phinney to-litsa and either her age was recorded
As author Nancy McDaniel writes in incorrectly, or she was born in 1854.
her book, The Snohomish Tribe of Indi-
ans, “Natives of Puget Sound tradition-
ally looked upon marriage outside of
their tribes as prestigious. White wom- 1. 2.b 3.a
en were at a premium in the Territory.
Prospective brides imported from the 2a.
east did not meet the demands in terms
of both quantity and knowledge of the
area for male settlers. Women with 4.
a knowledge of the area, with estab-
lished social and economic networks, The approximate areas where the four families settled. 1. Johnson, 2a. Oliver’s first
and native women with the knowledge home, 2b. his second home, 3. Porter - further north to Mutiny Bay, and 4. Johns.
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