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Skagit River Journal

of History & Folklore
Subscribers Edition
The most in-depth, comprehensive site about the Skagit
Covers from British Columbia to Puget Sound. Counties covered: Skagit, Whatcom, Island, San Juan, Snohomish & BC. An evolving history dedicated to committing random acts of historical kindness

Noel V. Bourasaw, editor

810 Central Ave., Sedro-Woolley, Washington, 98284
Home of the Tarheel Stomp

Mortimer Cook slept here & named the town Bug

Archive links for Skagit River Journal
Skagit County-wide features
Issues 1-40, Jan. 1, 2001 to August-October 2007

Due to continued popular demand, in the interest of furthering our "open source" policy, we have assembled a collection of CDs that will include MS Word files of our pioneer profiles and town profiles from years 1-5, so that you can print them individually at your convenience. They are organized by region: Sedro-Woolley & surrounding area; Upper Skagit River from Utopia to Cascades; western Skagit County. CD 1 is completed and the other two will be finished in time for Christmas season of 2009. Inquire for details today via email or see our site about the planned >CDs offering and you will qualify for a pre-publication discount

Reorganized archives
We are now half way through with our ninth year of the Journal Subscribers-Paid Magazine Online. Two years ago, we changed the nature of our archives. With more than 400 articles that originated in the Subscribers Editions, the old method of listing them by Issue Number required readers to sort through all issues. With this system, the links are to all stories in all our past issues, sorted by geographical area and/or subject, rather than by issue.
These links are only for our subscribers edition articles only, so if you do not find the story you want in the articles links in the pages below and you are looking for more links about a person or area or town that interests you, we have two options for you. We suggest, first off, go back to our Free Home Page and peruse the links to Portal Pages we present for more than a dozen categories. If you do not find the story you want at those Portals, then use our search box below.
Because there are so many Subscriber Story links, we have separated them into six groups, as indicated below. Click the link for the area that most interests you. Please keep in mind that some of these links are from our old domain. On some of those pages, the links will not work. In that case, return to the ree Home Page to use the Portals or the Search Box. Please note: some of the stories linked from these archives pages have been extensively updated and moved from the old Stumpranchonline domain to our new domain. Most will automatically direct you. If you are not redirected, please email us and we will connect you with the page.

Skagit County-wide features

Genealogy features, Skagit county
Library: Newspaper transcriptions 1878-1910
and authors and editors
Library: Illustrated History of Skagit and Snohomish Counties, 1906
Library: Railroad features
Skagit county-wide features
Logging features
Skagit County pioneers who lived in more than one place
Features about the Skagit river
Features about Indians in the area

Skagit County-wide features
Genealogy features, Skagit county
John Conrad obituary notes Pioneer Picnic 1949-73

Profile of the late John Conrad, memorialist of the Skagit County Historical Society from 1949-73, who wrote these obituary notes for the annual Pioneer Picnic, staged annually on the first Thursday in August. And the story of his father, Charles, an orphaned Swedish immigrant who farmed near Pleasant Ridge. The notes were in handwritten form, courtesy of Morris Erickson, his nephew. Issue 7, updated issue 22
1949 Pioneer Picnic notes. Issue 8, updated issue 22
1951 Pioneer Picnic notes. Issue 11, updated issue 22
1963 Pioneer Picnic notes. Issue 10, updated issue 22
1968 Pioneer Picnic notes. Issue 9, updated issue 22
1970 Pioneer Picnic notes in two parts. Started in Issue 10, completed issue 25
1970 Pioneer Picnic John Conrad obituary notes in two parts. Issue 26
These notes will continue again in 2007.

Other county-wide genealogy features

Banking in Washington territory until 1889 and in Washington state through 1913. The first part in a series transcribed from the late John Higgins's unpublished manuscript about Skagit County from 1962. Issue 27
A profile of the Skagit Valley Genealogical Society, possibly the best such society in the state. Their publications and their section at the Burlington Public Library are very valuable tools for the researcher. Issue 22
Our most ambitious project so far. A collection of 20 photo essays about how women adapted to the Skagit County frontier. Issue 8
Early Skagit valley settlers from New Brunswick, Canada, Grand Manan Isle and Maine. Issue 23

Library: Newsaper transcriptions 1878-1910
and authors and editors
Also see more transcriptions in the free pages
Transcripts of Mount Vernon newspapers

Transcripts of the Mount Vernon Record, predecessor of the Argus, from the October 7, 1897, issue, illustrating life in Skagit County as the pioneers struggled out of the nationwide Depression and began to enjoy the golden fruits of the Klondike that would soon bring an economic boom. Please mail us Xeroxed copies of any old newspaper you find, especially copies of the Chronicle, Record, Post and Argus. Issue 21

Transcripts of LaConner newspapers

James Power's Puget Sound Mail was the main medium for news of the valley and the sound and these transcripts are from January through June 1890, after Fred Leroy Carter bought the Mail. If your family saved any of the famous old annual August Pioneer Picnic issues of the Mail, please mail us Xeroxed copies of those or any other Mail issues that you find. Issue 21

Transcripts of rural newspapers

Deanna Ammons shares the long-lost, rare inaugural issue of Bow's newspaper, the Northwest Skagit Advocate, Oct. 10, 1908. Part One: Publisher's plans, local news and a recap of early pioneers of the Fidalgo Island area. Issue 33
Part Two, the Northwest Skagit Advocate, Oct. 10, 1908: early days of town of Bow and environs. Issue 33
Part Three, the Northwest Skagit Advocate, Oct. 10, 1908: early days of town of Edison, at the delta of the Samish River. Issue 33
Part Four, the Northwest Skagit Advocate, Oct. 10, 1908: advertisements of Samish Valley towns. Includes the newly discovered explanation of the names of the railroad stops and towns of Roray and Allen. Issue 33

Transcripts of upriver newspapers June 5, 1890, Skagit County Logger, Hamilton, oldest newspaper yet found

Publisher details about this issue and promotional stories about Lyman at the peak of the 1890 boom, including promotion of coal and iron mines across the Skagit River. Issue 23
Advertisments, organized by area. A wealth of details and names from Hamilton and towns all over the county. Includes legal ads for homesteads and timberland purchases. Issue 23
News of the day. Locally and all over upriver. Issue 23

Transcriptions of Sedro-Woolley newspapers

Transcripts of various issues of Seneca G. Ketchum's 1899 Skagit County Times newspapers. These were the first newspapers after the merger of Sedro and Woolley. Issue 25
Transcription of the April 2, 1903, edition of the Skagit County Times of Sedro-Woolley. Includes the first mention of the Dempsey Brothers upper-Skagit River logging operations, several stories about logging and mills, and copies of actual ads. Issue 34

Transcripts of Skagit magazines

A comprehensive history of Skagit county, written in 1902, chapter one in series from Sebring's Skagit County Illustrated magazine. Issue 21

Authors and editors

A collection of biographers of pioneer women, including Lewis Kirkby, 1888 Sedro pioneer, and writing by Joanna Stratton, Lavinia Gates Chapman and Lilla Day Monroe. Issue 9, updated Issue 32.
Seneca G. Ketchum Biography Part 1. Feisty pioneer 1899 Sedro-Woolley newspaper editor in his years before arriving in Washington Territory in 1888. And his family, 17th-century English immigrants, pioneer settlers of Toronto, Ontario, and businessmen of New York State. Updated with more original information in 2009. Issue 35
Seneca G. Ketchum Biography Part 2. Feisty pioneer 1899 Sedro-Woolley newspaper editor in his years after arriving in Fairhaven, Washington; his adventures in Nelson, B.C. and Spokane, and his publishing years in newly merged Sedro-Woolley. Issue 35
A profile of Eldridge Morse, who settled in old Snohomish City in 1872 and founded The Northern Star newspaper in Snohomish City, one of the most important sources about Northwest history. His tours and reports of other Washington counties, including Skagit, provides exquisite details of pioneer life.Issue 18, updated issue 25
A profile of William Cox Ewing, who founded the Skagit News in Mount Vernon in 1884 mdash; in which the careful reader will also learn about U.S. politics and government in the 19th century; the Ewing family's influence on Abraham Lincoln, the defense of Dr. Samuel Mudd and President Andrew Johnson; Washington territory and the first successful ascent of Mount Rainier. Issue 17
George Bacon, early Northwest mortgage lender, who helped settlers finance their land and homesteads, and his book, Booming and Panicking on Puget Sound. Issue 17
John Muir and David Douglas, two Scotsmen who explored and wrote about the virgin old-growth forests of Washington and the greater Northwest. Excerpt from Muir's 1918 book, Forests of Washington. Issue 1, updated Issue 16.
Chuck Easton's history of Skagit County, written 1976. Issue 34

Library: Illustrated History of Skagit
and Snohomish Counties, 1906

We start our Chapter one of our transcription of the 1906 book includes: first settlers in county from 1870; allegedly insane storekeeper Campbell; first election in the county, 1871; transition from canoes to steamboats; Skagit valley in the grip of the 1873 Depression; First Settlers on Fidalgo Island; First Steam Thresher; Settlement of Padilla; Arrival of Whitney.. Whitney, Sisson &: Company; First Settlers in Skagit Valley. Issue 46. This story has been updated as part of our Illustrated History of Skagit & Snohomish Counties transcription project. Issue 46
Chapter 2: 1874-83 continues with: Coal mines; Prices in 1876; Pioneers clear the log jams at Mount Vernon by hand; Sincere thanks but little compensation for the jam heroes; Early farmers on the flats produce record yields; Jennie Gorsage gets her homicidal revenge, 1899; 1900 population of county towns; Upriver coal mines; Gold excitement and Ruby Creek 1877-80; Logging and the Nookachamps; Birdsview — von Pressentin, Minkler and Kemmerich, and early upriver settlers; Future Sedro and other early upriver settlers; Courts of Whatcom County (pre-Skagit county); Northern Pacific relinquishes government land; Sternwheelers and early landings; Homemade entertainment and culture; Mining continues upriver and transportation; The Indians rebel; Early mail routes; Memorial to Congress to establish mail route from Mukilteo, Snohomish County, to Lyman, Whatcom County, via Port Susan; Abundant crops on the Padilla flats; Logging camps and mills.. Issue 46

Railroad features

Part One of our totally updated story of the Fairhaven & Southern Railway, which chugged into old Sedro on Christmas eve, 1889, as the first standard-gauge railroad in the state, north of Seattle. Includes profiles of F&S pioneers Nelson Bennett and John J. Donovan and the birth of the two Sedro towns. Includes illustrations of the old Sedro depot. Issue 28
Part Two of the F&S story: Skagit County and Sedro's preparation; how the two towns of Sedro boomed almost overnight in 1889; how developer Norman R. Kelley almost brought the project to a halt at the last moment; how John J. Donovan rode through a snowstorm to defeat Kelley's injunction; details about how the F& went into decline and disappeared by the turn of the 20th century. Issue 28
Nelson Bennett, the man who built the Northern Pacific railroad across the plains; masterminded the Fairhaven & Southern, the first standard-gauge railroad to Northwest Washington; developed the Cokedale mines and boomed the town of old-Sedro by the river. Transcription of an 1889 biography by Elwood Evans. Issue 25
Seattle Lake Shore & Eastern completes its line to Snohomish in 1888, on its way to Sedro and Sumas, and a song is struck to mark the occasion. Issue 26
The birth and boom of Ship Harbor and Anacortes and the Seattle & Northern train that finally chugged into Woolley in April 1890, the second of three rail lines in town. Transcripts from the 1906 Illustrated History of Skagit and Snohomish counties. Issue 5.
On March 2, 1890, Col. Frank Wilkeson, Skagit county's most esteemed early writer, profiled Nelson Bennett in a New York Times column. Bennett was the founder of the Fairhaven & Southern railroad, and boomed old Sedro after a long career as contractor the Northern Pacific railroad as that company built their line across the plains and the Rockies. Issue 16
Our three major features on the Fairhaven & Southern, Great Northern/Seattle & Northern, and Seattle Lake Shore & Eastern lines are still in the final research process. Thank you for your patience. If you have documents, articles or scans of photos about any of those lines, please let us know.
Part 1, biography of D.C. Linsley. Issue 32
Part 2, 1870 survey of the Skagit River, North Cascades and lake Chelan by D.C. Linsley, Frank Wilkeson and others for the Northern Pacific Railway. Issue 32

Skagit county-wide features

The History of Skagit County, written by Concrete Heraldpublisher Charles Dwelley in 1953 to help celebrate the centennial of Washington territory. Issue 6, updated issue 11
Jon Jech helps us inaugurate our new reader's poetry and essay section with his poem, Reunion on Hartz Island. Issue 5
Pioneer songs and Big-Band standards from radio days, pre-TV, including Big Rock Candy Mountain and Once upon a time. Issue 8
John Higgins explains how money was exchanged on the frontier and Skagit banks were formed, an unpublished manuscript from 1962 while he was manager of SeaFirst bank in Sedro-Woolley — the outgrowth of C.E. Bingham's 1890 bank. Two parts. Issue 2
George Savage, early upriver pioneer, tells about how he was a shill for the backroom leaders of the revolt to split off Skagit County from Whatcom in the fall of 1883. Issue 4
Saloons and liquor licensesof Skagit County from 1876 to the 1890s, including the first in many towns. Issue 9. Also includes description of saloons of the frontier and a list of them in Sedro-Woolley and the upper Skagit River, including the first one in each town, from the 1870s to the turn of the century. Issue 12
The early history of Conway, its schools and the founders, Thomas P. Jones and Charles Villeneuve Sr., written by historian John Conrad in 1950. Issue 3
See the story about the first school in Skagit county, on Fidalgo island, from Issue 8 along with all the other early schools of Whatcom and Skagit.
Marv Olsen, our Monte Cristo-Bennettville correspondent, tells an honest-to-God, true story about his late father leash-trained his pet salmon. Issue 14

Logging features

Articles profiling the history of the Goodyear-Nelson mill of Sedro-Woolley, and Journal research about this company, which became the town's first "modern" mill in 1928. Issue 33
A brief history of the Dolbeer steam donkey, and the Ephraim Shay/Lima locomotive, which revolutionized logging methods from the 1880s onwards. Issue 18
Otto Klement came to Washington territory in 1873 and this excerpt from his 1926 diary details the logging methods that he encountered on the Olympic Peninsula that year before paddling across Puget sound to the Skagit valley. Issue 21
Early logging history and methods by W.E. Crosby, Editor, West Coast Lumberman; from oxen to steam donkey to steam railroad, two parts. Issue 3
The story of early ox-team logging, from the Dec. 25, 1890, issue of the The Aberdeen Herald, and photos of logging equipment from before the turn of the 20th century. Issue 3
Five early mills in Sedro and upriver, with photos and details about crews and locations. Issue 10. This story is being updated and split into several features. See the Journal Logging Section.
Logging and Sawmill photos by Darius Kinsey and other photographers before and after the turn of the 20th century. Issue 2, updated issue 5. This story is being updated and split into several features. See the Journal Logging Section.
Logging and mill photos, including photos of the Willis Rogers & Pearson mill on Jameson street in Sedro-Woolley, Butler Logging crews and old Sedro-Woolley mills. Issue 5. This story is being updated and split into several features. See the Journal Logging Section.

Skagit County pioneers
who lived in more than one place

J.J. Van Bokkelen, sheriff of Jefferson County and a key player in early exploration of Skagit County and the 1858 Fraser River gold rush. Issue 21
Dr. Horace Downs, pioneer of LaConner and Mount Vernon and longtime Skagit County auditor. Issue 22
Lafayette Stevens, the Sterling-area pioneer from 1873 who used his Nevada mining skills to find the coal fields that led to Cokedale and became the most noted mining speculator on the Skagit River and a hotel owner in Clear Lake. Issue 11
Samuel Shea, the man who homesteaded part of the land that became Birdsview and later owned a Sedro-Woolley saloon and pool hall. Issue 10
A profile of the first settler in northern Whatcom County and on the mainland of what would become Skagit County — William "Blanket Bill" Jarman. June 27, 2009, Jarman history show, Burlington.
James Cochrane, a key volunteer on the Mount Vernon logjam clearing team of 1877-79, and Hamilton and LaConner pioneer. Issue 5

Features about the Skagit river

Joshua Green, who became purser on the Henry Bailey sternwheeler at age 19 in 1888, then mate, captain and owner of his own steamboat, then became a leader in the conversion of steamboats to ferries on Puget Sound, then became a leading Northwest banker, and lived to be 105. Issue 13.
The manifest of Joshua Green's first trip north on the Henry Bailey sternwheeler on Oct. 14-15, 1888. Issue 13. This story is being updated and will soon be re-posted under a new file name.

Features about Indians in the area

Story of a 1990 discovery of an Indian Loom that helps us understand the Indian culture of the Skagit River and the dogs of the area that gave their fur for clothing. Issue 36

Story posted on January 29, 2006, last updated July 4, 2009
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Archive links for Skagit River Journal Skagit County-wide features Issues 1-40, Jan. 1, 2001 to August-October 2007

Archive links for Skagit River Journal
Skagit County-wide features
Issues 1-40, Jan. 1, 2001 to August-October 2007