Page 6 - SUMMER 2020 SWHS Newsletter revised (1)

half-Swinomish through her mother. Mutiny Bay for $1 to revert back to N.E. Porter not only prospered as
Her father, Robert Williams, had been them when it was no longer needed as a farmer and rancher, but also owned
a lumberman in Port Townsend. After a school. a schooner, no doubt to transport his
his death her mother Catherine (Katie, In December of 1911, the Porters sold goods to market. In 1896 he was elect-
Kittie) Nunn Williams married George a four-acre parcel of land a bit east and ed road supervisor of the Mutiny Bay
Finn, another early South Whidbey further from the shore than the previous District. South Whidbey residents long
settler who bought land from Edward 1897 school to School District #10. felt shortchanged by the county when it
Oliver and Thomas Johns. This two-room Mutiny Bay school- came to roads.
Mary Ann gave birth to Asa (aka house taught children from Freeland, Son Omer N. Porter, (1899-1980) re-
Acey) in 1881. She died in 1884 at the to Bush Point, to Double Bluff and was counted how when people in the area
age of 21. also used for Sunday School. had to travel to Coupeville to pay their
Five years later when 16-year-old Son Omer Porter was a student there taxes they rode a horse along the beach
Louisa married Nathaniel in 1889, until eighth-grade and remembered it from Mutiny Bay to Coupeville.
she had a ready-made family with a as having 40 students, eight grades and “Two or three or four would go to-
step-daughter Ellen who was one year one teacher. About half the children gether, for their own protection. It took
younger than herself and an eight-year- had Coast Salish mothers, and others one day to go up and another day to re-
old stepson Asa. included immigrant children from Ger- turn. There were no proper roads. You
Porter became a prosperous farmer many, Sweden and Norway as well as always took along an axe as you might
and the family flourished with ten chil- children from the nearby Free Land so- have to get down off your horse and
dren born to them (though her obituary cialist colony. clear a way to get through the brush.”
states 11), plus the previous two chil- The school was torn down in 1947 said in a South Whidbey Record article
dren of Nathaniel. His land holdings after all the South Whidbey schools by Christine Ferguson.
eventually included nearly 1,000 acres consolidated to Langley. Its lumber Nathaniel died in October 1916 at
between Mutiny Bay to Holmes Harbor. was incorporated into Langley’s new age 79. Louisa lived until 1938 and
Tragedy also struck Louisa’s house- Masonic Temple, now Langley City died at age 65. Her son Leo lived on
hold as it had her mother’s. On April Hall. Continued on page 8
19, 1901, while Nathaniel was working
in the fields and Louisa was busy in the
kitchen, 10-year-old Leo opened a clos-
et door beneath the stairwell and picked
up a loaded gun kept there for shoot-
ing crows. It suddenly went off and the
shot traveled through the wall to where
6-year-old Florence was sitting on the
sofa near two younger siblings. Flor-
ence died instantly. An inquest was held
in Langley by Justice of the Peace Hugh
McLeod the next week and the sad story
was recounted by Leo and his parents. It
was ruled an accidental death.
Another daughter, Elsie died at age
12 of tuberculosis in 1915.
Like her parents, Louisa and her hus-
band Nathaniel, were interested in the
education of their children. Nathaniel
had served as a school director along
with his future father-in-law, William
Johnson, and neighbor A. J. Deming
for the 1885 one-room schoolhouse in Omer Porter, pictured here with future wife Blonche Inley at Mutiny Bay School. They
Austin (school district #10). It operated are sitting on steps where wagons pulled up to drop off students. The school was built
until a new school was built in 1897. on land sold to the school district by Omer’s parents adjacent to the Porter arm. Omer
That year Louisa and Nathaniel do- would have liked to have gone on to high school but found that the then sole teacher,
nated a 210 foot by 105 foot parcel with a class of 40 students and teaching eight grades, was not able to spare the time,
near the shoreline between Austin and so he went to work on the family farm.
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