Page 1 - 2022 SWHS Spring Newsletter for website

South Whidbey Historical Society
Now &TheN
Now &TheN

Early Spring 2022 www.SouthWhidbeyHistory.org www.facebook.com/SouthWhidbeyHistory

Founder of one of South Whidbey’s earliest towns that no longer exists
The mysterious disappearance of John G. Phinney

Phinney might have become South land grant.The Canadian Phinney fam- Over the years Arthur’s fortunes
Whidbey's best known town instead of ily branch increased over the genera- waxed and waned, but then recovered
Langley had its founder, John G. Phin- tions. John's parents had 13 children: to the point where he purchased the
ney, not mysteriosuly disappeared. eight sons and five daughters. mill outright in 1875.
In fact, it was Phinney who, in At the time of his death in 1877,
1881, sold 120 acres to 16-year-old Heading West to Seek Their Fortunes Arthur owned 11,000 acres in five
Jacob Anthes, who later became the The three oldest sons, Arthur, John counties in Washington Territory, in-
founder of Langley. and James journeyed west: Arthur in cluding more than 2,974 acres in Island
By then, Phinney had already es- 1849, John in 1861, and James in 1862. County, much around Oak Harbor,
tablished a logging camp, wharf, At age 22 Arthur sailed around Cape Useless Bay and at Port George.
store, and later a post office in 1884. Horn and on up to San Francisco, CA Port George was the area that later
Few people know anything about where he engaged in several ventures became known as Phinney–for a while
the fledgling town of Phinney situat- for about a decade. at least. Old islanders may remember
ed on what is now Columbia Beach, the Columbia Beach property as the
In 1858 he came north to Washing-
because it became overshadowed by ton Territory and formed a partnership site of the area's first automobile fer-
its neighbor, Clinton, two miles to ry dock in 1919, and later as Jim and
the north. (This is the waterfront loca- with Zacharia Amos (and later Wil- John's Resort from 1946 to 1963.
tion known as Brighton Beach or ‘Old liam Hooke) to lease and operate a
Clinton’.) sawmill in Port Ludlow that had been Arthur Phinney was a man held in
built in 1852. high esteem in WA Territory. His death

Deep Colonial Roots In those days sawmills sought tim- in 1877 received a lengthy and lofty
John Phinney’s family heritage bered land to purchase or stake claims write-up in the Seattle Post-Intelli-
stretched back to the Plymouth Colo- on. Arthur obtained an 89-acre timber gencer as a man of “untarnished integ-
ny of Massachusetts. grant on South Whidbey that ran from rity, straightforward in all his dealings,
John’s eighth great-grandfather, from Columbia Beach down near Glendale honorable in the highest degree, and
Nottinghamshire, England, set sail for signed by President Abraham Lincoln. (Continued next page)
Plymouth colony in 1608. His son
was born there in 1609, and for gen-
erations the Phinneys lived in nearby
Barnstable, MA.
In 1760 the English recruited farmers
to inhabit land in Nova Scotia forcibly
taken from the Acadians. (French de-
scendants who had lost the French and
Indian War against the British.)
Isaac Phinney (John G. Phinney’s
great-grandfather) moved to Wilmot, Loggers such as Samuel Blakelin shown above at Useless Bay in 1887 put together
Nova Scotia and settled on a 500-acre log booms that were floated to sawmills such as the one in Port Ludlow.
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