❖ Washington State Board on Geographic Names ❖

 

The San Juan Archipelago.
The county of San Juan is  
the smallest in
Washington State by land area.
Click image to enlarge.

    

SAN JUAN ISLANDS

"This name, long accepted in popular usage, has finally appeared on NOAA chart 18400 (ex-6300) written vertically through Orcas and Lopez Islands. The Washington State Board on Geographic Names, at its meeting of March 14, 1979, confirmed "San Juan Islands" as the name for the area, and rejected both "Quimper Sound" and "Washington Sound" as names identifying the whole body of water in which the islands lie.

      Subsequently, an issue arose before the Board as to the proper application of the term "San Juan Islands," in the form of a request that "the Board reviews its decision to confine the "San Juan Islands" to those islands within San Juan County." Minutes of the Board, March 14, 1979. At the meeting of the Board on June 22, 1979, the Acting Chairman, Robert Hitchman, commented that the critical feature in any such decision would be the "usage" of the term by persons in the area of the islands. the Board accepted the present author's offer to attempt to determine such usage, and a report was written and distributed in advance of the Board's September meeting.

      Specifically, the aim of the request was to include in "San Juan Islands" those islands, or some of them, that lie to the east of Rosario Strait, principally Guemes, Cypress, and Sinclair islands, although Lummi, Vendovi, Fidalgo, Allen, and Burrows islands might also be included.

      The report, entitled "Usage of the Term 'The San Juan Islands,'" found that, in the view of historical societies in the islands, and in the opinions of real estate dealers and newspaper figures, there was near unanimity that no change should be made in the current designation that limited the San Juan Islands to those west of Rosario Strait. The Board, at its September 1979 meeting, approved the report and decided against any change in the coverage of "San Juan Islands" on the charts."

Text by small craft mariner Bryce Wood.
Formerly of San Juan Island.

Coastal Place Names and Cartographic Nomenclature

1980. Published for the Washington State Historical Society.

❖ DEADMAN BAY ❖ SAN JUAN ISLAND

Deadman Bay, San Juan Island,
San Juan Archipelago, Washington.
Photo by Ellis. Undated.
Click photo to enlarge.
Original photo postcard from the collection of
the Saltwater People Log©

"This small bay, under Mt. Dallas, was earlier called Deadman's Bay, Dead Man's Bay, and Dead-Man's Bay. In accordance with general practice, the possessive form was gradually dropped by cartographers, probably for simplicity, and to save space by shortening names on the charts. Edmond S. Meany states: 'It is claimed that the first white man known to have died on the island was buried there. He was a working man killed by a cook.' Meany does not identify his source. Walter Arend, retired postmaster at Friday Harbor, considers that this local name probably was used to identify the place where a man's body had drifted ashore. However, Etta Egeland states that an unnamed white man criticized a Chinese cook at the Lime Kiln, who killed him with a knife. The Chinese was aided to escape from San Juan Island by a farmer named Bailer, who hid him in a wagon until he found a vessel that was leaving from Friday Harbor. This occurred about 1890, and indicates the state of law enforcement on that island at the time."

Bryce Wood. San Juan Island Coastal Place Names and Cartographic Nomenclature. Published in Ann Arbor, Michigan for Washington State Historical Society by University Microfilms International. 1980.

❖ BROWN ISLAND you say

"BROWN'S" ISLAND
As McCormick spelled the name verso.
48.53803ºN
123.00370ºW
c. 70 acres
Located E-NE of Friday Harbor, San Juan Archipelago.
San Juan Channel and Shaw Island
in the center background.
Photo by James A. McCormick,
a professional photographer who set up shop
in Friday Harbor in 1906.
He did studio portraits in town but escaped
to the field in the summer to record on glass negatives,
fish trap workers, the 'Mosquito fleet', civic events,
and scenery shots for travel brochures.
His work was often conducted while camping and
rowing a small craft between the islands.
Original photo from the Saltwater People Hist. Society©

"This name for the island at the entrance to Friday Harbor appears on the Wilkes chart dated 1841. Professor Meany states that 'The honor was intended for John G. Brown, the Mathematical Instrument Maker on the VINCENNES, one of the ships of the U.S. Exploring Expedition. The name was accepted by all later cartographers, and its first Admiralty usage appears to be in the log of H.M.S. PLUMPER, 20 March 1858. On that day the officer of the watch called the island 'ROBERT'S' but it was corrected to 'Brown's,' and the log for 25 March stated the vessel was 'at anchor inside of Brown Island.'

      Originally Brown's Island, the apostrophe was later dropped, as on US Coast and Geodetic Survey chart 6400 (1886). 

       Brown Island offers an interesting case of a name under siege. David Richardson, in Pig War Island, Orcas Island, 1971, perhaps unconsciously raises a fundamental question in stating that Brown's Island has been "renamed Friday Island by real estate promoters." There is an entry in the directory of the Inter-Island Telephone Co (1978) for an individual who is "Caretaker, Friday Island." So far, however, Friday Island has been named only "among" and not "by" real estate promoters. USC&GS Special Report, 1951, states that Brown Island was then in undisputed local usage." 

BROWN ISLAND
From the inside shore looking towards Friday Harbor,
including photographer J.A. McCormick on the beach.
A selfie from over one century ago. "Mac" addressed
and mailed this photo card from Friday Harbor
to a customer in Anacortes, WA., January 1913.
Click image to enlarge.
From the Saltwater People Historical Society©

Above quoted text––Wood, Bryce. San Juan Island, Coastal Place Names and Cartographic Nomenclature. Washington State Historical Society. 1980.
      
In retirement years, Mr. Wood also did some serious summer camping and rowing solo in his small craft among the Gulf and San Juan Islands from his home base in the county seat of Friday Harbor, San Juan Island, WA.

❖ BATTLESHIP ISLAND ❖ San Juan Archipelago

Battleship Island, WA.
48°37'26" N
123°10'59"W
The entire island is a Washington State bird sanctuary.
Upper left corner; click to enlarge.

The emergence of this name on the charts is an example of a rare occurrence––the changing of names on San Juan Island from those that were settled on by the British and American surveyors before 1870.    
The original name of Morse Island was given by Wilkes, and it appeared on Admiralty and USC&GS charts for the following three-quarters of a century. About 1920, however, it was found by Professor  Meany and McLellan that, as the latter put it in a letter to Meany, 12 Feb. 1925; 
      'Morse Island...presents such a remarkable likeness to a modern battleship in its appearance, that it is locally known by no other name than Battleship Is...which appears in all the local advertising literature, and is so strikingly appropriate that it is very doubtful if any other name will ever come into common usage.' (Files of US Board on Geographic Names). These considerations, brought to the attention of the Board, resulted in the change of name on the charts about 1930.
      Meany relates that following his arrangements for erecting monuments at American and English Camps on San Juan Is. in 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt had ordered the monitor, WYOMING, Cdr. V. L. Cottman, to attend the ceremony at English Camp. Edmond Meany had been led to expect that a British battleship from the naval base at Esquimalt would attend the ceremonies, and so informed Cdr. Cottman. Meany later wrote to the Board on Geographic Names, 17 Feb. 1925, that 'in passing from American Camp around to British Camp on a misty morning, Commander Cottman received a notice, 'battleship ahead, Sir.' He said:
      'I gave orders for the saluting crews to go to their stations and in another moment would have fired the salute for that British battleship which Meany was so sure would appear. Just in time, we discovered it was an island.' Commander Cottman in relating his experience to me made this statement: 'Meany, if I had given the order to fire that salute I would never live it down the rest of my days in the Navy, saluting an island for a battleship.' (Files of US Board on Geographic Names).

Battleship Island
Photographs by James A. McCormick
From the archives of the S. P. H. S.©

      It seems that what Richards in 1864 described as 'a small, flat, cliffy island' had nurtured trees that provided a superstructure for a rock whose outline as a whole, viewed from certain angles, looked like a battleship of the pre-WWI era. Shortly after the name was changed, however, Walter Arend reports that a fire destroyed the two trees that looked most like the lacy masts, and at the present time, the four remaining trees on the island provide no more than a fair suggestion of a bridge and deckhouse, when seen from a favorable easterly vantage point, such as on entering Spieden Channel from Roche Harbor. 
      It is interesting to note, however, that the principle on which the Board made its decision was that of the ultimate superiority of local usage over an explorer's designation. This principle seems to have become firmly established as paramount in the judgments made by the Board.
      Meany, in Origins of Washington Geographic Place Names (1923), lists Battleship both as a small islet north of San Juan Is., and Morse as north of Henry Is. He recognized they were the same only at a later date.
Above text from San Juan Island, Coastal Place Names and Cartographic Nomenclature. Wood, Bryce;  University Microfilms International for the Washington State Historical Society, 1980.

2007-2008:
The Morse family made a formal request to the US Board of Geographic Names to change the name of 3-acre Battleship Island to Morse Island. The board ruled in favor of keeping the name of Battleship Island as the name used by the people of the county.