LEAVING HOME ON THE MAILBOAT

Mailboat M.V. CHICKAWANA
Arriving Orcas Island, WA.
Click image to enlarge.
Original photo from the archives of 
the Saltwater People Historical Society©
Photograph by Mr. Geoghagen of Orcas Island.

Chickawana in 1933.

"I had lived above the bay since childhood and was familiar with its beaches and nearby islands, but I never had to venture farther than could be seen from the tallest hill in the city.
      That was to change, however, when I first met the Chickawana, a mailboat that served the San Juan Islands in the 1930s.
      It was early on a cool misty morning in September when we arrived at the dock where she waited.
      She was due to sail at seven, and while we waited, I watched in fascination as the freight and produce were loaded, swinging beneath the tall derrick to be deposited on the deck to the hoarse commands of the deckhand.
      I studied the Chickawana, a typical mailboat of the time. Thirty-five feet long with an open deck behind the wheelhouse in the bow, she carried a crew of three.
      Other than a covered engine well in the center of the deck the only part below decks was the low-ceilinged passenger cabin, lined with benches below the portholes, entered by a short stairway at the stern.
      Since there were no other passengers that morning I would occupy it by myself until, getting bored, I ventured forth to view the scenery and visit the crew on the bridge.
      Eventually, all was in order and I made my way across the gangplank, which was then hauled aboard.
      Lines were cast off, the boat gave a shrill whistle, and we were underway. It would be the first time in my 19 years to live away from home.
      The Chickawana plied the Sound between Bellingham and the San Juan Islands, making three round trips weekly and laying over each second night in Friday Harbor.
      My destination was the next to the last stop, which would take seven hours to reach as we sailed into inlets and harbors among the islands, delivering and picking up freight and mail and an occasional passenger.
      Some of the ports of call were indistinguishable villages above a single dock, but the names linger in my memory like a litany: Eastsound, West Sound, Orcas, Deer Harbor, Roche Harbor. All in exquisite settings.
      Eventually, we rounded a small island and entered beautiful little Prevost Bay, in the most northwesterly corner of the contiguous US.
      As the motors slowed and we drifted up to the dock I could see a small group of curious strangers, some of the thirty-odd residents of Stuart Island who had come to see the new schoolteacher.
      The landing was without incident for the tide must have been just right so that the 
gangplank reached across to the level of the dock.
      If the boat lay a few feet below the dock I might have to perch precariously on the rail and be helped across the narrow gap, clutching strong hands extended for support.
      If the tide was completely out the gangplank could be laid from the roof of the wheelhouse, but I had to clamber up there to get it.
      Sometimes I started the trip in the passenger cabin but was careful not to be caught there after the time we carried a young heifer to one of the islands.
      I watched her being lowered to the deck, her legs dangling below the sling, until she was set down on the slippery surface where her hooves tended to slide out from under her.
      It must have been a frightening experience, for she responded during the long hours by making frequent and copious deposits that spread from port to starboard.
      I was unaware of this state of affairs until I came up on deck and found my way completely cut off.
      I was held hostage below until we reached the port where the cow was to be delivered and the crew had sluiced the deck clean enough to walk on.
      I imagine the Chickawana was old in 1933, and probably she has retired now for many years, but she will always have a special place in my memory."
      Words by Esther R. Ditmer. Guest column Friday Harbor Journal, 8 February 1987.

The Chickawana was lost to fire in 1948.

 

❖ NO ROADS? With June Burn ❖

 

CHICKAWANA
San Juandering with writer June Burn on 
Orcas Island, San Juan Archipelago, WA.
Click image to enlarge.
From the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©

In the old days, there were no roads. Many now living can remember when the first wagon was driven from Olga to East Sound. "No limousine ever looked so bright and beautiful and luxurious," said one of those early settlers.
      I suppose the earliest settlers boiled over from the Fraser River goldrush into this section as they had come to the Olga neighborhood. Mr. King, who settled here over 45 years ago, said he came to Orcas instead of to Whatcom county because it was so easy to get here. There were no roads back into the vacant land of Whatcom in the early 1880s, but the road to the islands has always been clear. Somebody had told him he ought to come to see the islands. He came, he saw and was conquered, and he and his wife live yet in the cedar log house which he built down by the bay way back yonder in 1885 or '86.
      We drove in the 75-cent moon down to the King Ranch, going on up first to see the moon path across Cascade Lake and saw instead the long white tracks where the skaters had been.
      This beautiful house, built of squared cedar logs, stands as securely as it stood forty years ago, the very same mortar perfectly solid in the chinks. Mr. King and a helper got the cedars out of the woods, squared them with an ordinary ax, set them up, and finished the house in two months. Logs go all the way to the points of the gables and inside the house, the walls are whitewashed logs, very attractive. Even the cracks in the logs (not between them) are interesting, and the huge fine old square piano set against one of these handmade walls books perfectly at home, as if music were no hifalutin' snob.
      On the wall inside the piano hangs a panel on which five pairs of deer horns are mounted. Mr. King killed them all one night thirty years ago, though he says he shares the honors with his wife. "Yes," she agrees," I held the lantern while he shot them and I stumbled over one dead deer after another following after him and I got my skirts bloody." The deer these days ate the gardens faster than the settlers could eat the deer. The Kings were raising strawberries and blackberries for the market. Also, there was road work. These two slender sources of income plus the garden and the deer made up their living. The schools lasted only three or four months, Mrs. King used to teach the school at Doe Bay for $23 a month and her board. When the three-month term was out then she would come over to East Sound and teach for another four months. At Doe Bay, she used to board around between the Vierecks, the Moores, and the Greys, walking to school of course--walking, if need be, all the way to East Sound.
      The mailman used to walk, too, with his pouch of mail on his back, following that long road three times a week. Sometimes he rode what Mr. King calls a cayuse.
      

Eastsound, Orcas Island, 
San Juan Archipelago, WA.
Click image to enlarge.
Original photo from the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©

      There used to be a lime quarry near East Sound and the limerock is still there in paying quantities. But a syndicate bought up the land, stopped work for some reason, and so we still have as much limerock as ever. Shattuck kept store in the old days. He had a bolt of calico, a strip of bacon, and a pair of overalls," and what else was there to want?
      The Kings have lived off the land a good deal trying to keep up with their children in their goings and comings. But now that the children are all settled the two young old people have come back to the log house where they spent their first years together. Mrs. King is busy piecing a quilt of the pattern "glittering star," her stitches tiny and many. There are the flowers, too, and the grapes, the garden, the wood-getting, the canning and a swarm of things to keep them as busy as they used to be, and I declare they seem as happy as any young couple I ever saw just starting out. I tell you, there is some magic about this pioneering way of life which for the right people makes the most real happiness anybody can know.
      It was the gayest, warmest sunniest morning of the "cold spell" when I took the Chickawanna once more to go on to Orcas another village at which I had never stopped. East Sound slipped back against the bright background of island green as the little boat clicked off down the bay and disappeared as we rounded the west prong of the big island. There are worlds of interesting things and people at Olga and East Sound which I have not mentioned but there will be times again to come San Juandering. See you tomorrow. June.

June Burn 

Puget Soundings

22 January 1930

❖ With June on the CHICKAWANA ❖

                                   

Mailboat Chickawana
cruising through her stops in the
San Juan Archipelago
with June Burn aboard.
Click image to enlarge.
Original photo from the Saltwater People Log collection.

"An ecstatic day aboard the Chickawana. The sun straight down on Bellingham from behind the clouds.
      At last, I am off to the biological station at Friday Harbor, where I shall be for six weeks reporting adventures in science, talks with scientists from all over the world.

U of WA Oceanic Laboratories
Friday Harbor, San Juan Archipelago.
Original photo dated August 1931.
From the archives of the Saltwater People Log

      How good it always is to walk down a little gangplank into one of the little Sound boats and come swinging off down-harbor, blue water glimmering in our wake. Bill, Hally, and Heinie, friendly, casual crew of the Chick, take it so much for granted that I am shamefaced to be so excited about just going to Friday Harbor.
      A little way out we cross a line of foam, on one side of which the water is blue and on the other brown. Heinie says it is where the muddy waters of the Nooksack come down and spread themselves thinly over the heavier salt water. The eye can follow its course to the end, which is a definite line below Eliza Island. The boys say they have never seen the line quite so distinct before. In the brown water, it feels exactly like being on a river and one can almost feel the current washing the boat downstream!
      When you are too tired to carry on; when you are lonely, depressed, or sad; when you want to feel the lift of ecstasy in your heart, get up at daylight, board the 7 o'clock boat and come out into the islands. It will recreate you. Even if you do not leave the boat, just the sting of salt air on your cheek will renew you. Bring along a heavy coat, for it is always cold on the water. Bring a hearty lunch, too, for you will not get to Friday Harbor until nearly 2 o'clock and there is not the time for dinner if you are to return on the same boat on which you came. You will get back home at 6 or 7 in the evening, tired, and rested if that makes sense. There are Sunday excursions now, but it is more fun to snatch a holiday out of an everyday week to come San Juandering.
      The dark forms of the islands are blue against the horizon. they creep closer, loom up sheer and green at the bow of the boat, and presently slide behind in leisurely fashion. Sedum, bright yellow on the gray rock cliffs, Madrona (Arbutus) trees shining, sleek against the slopes. Firs in erect military ranks marching up the slopes. Long curves of graveled bench sloping down into the water. Little nooks between the points of land to catch and hold the sunshine. A village now and then cuddled against the hills. Seven seagulls gone to sea on a plank––life flows by while one sits on an orange crate feeling as if the whole show were just for one's self. Oh, come to the islands for just one day! It costs 75 cents one way to Friday Harbor, or for 50 cents you can come part way, stopover at one of the radiant villages on Orcas, Sinclair, Shaw, or Lopez. (The Chick does not stop at Lopez but the ferry does, if you are leaving from Anacortes. Perhaps some of the other boats also stop.) On any one of a hundred beaches, you can build your fire. But always be sure to build below the highwater line so that the incoming tide will put out every vestige of your fire. Only very thoughtless persons build fires up against the banks, where it is exceedingly dangerous. There is an abundance of driftwood. Coffee can boil in five minutes. You can huddle around such gracious warmth to eat your sandwiches while you watch the flowing shadows on waters and slopes so beautiful that it takes years and years to realize their perfection. And, when the boat comes back on its return voyage, you can walk back to the village, get aboard, and go home along the way you came, trying your best to soak your memory in those vistas. To have a rich, full memory is the final best good, isn't it?
      At 11 o'clock on Friday, June 27, there is a tide lower than it has been in many a year. The tide book gives it as a minus 3.3 which means that thirteen or fourteen feet of bluff and beach will be exposed below the highwater line. Tiny scarlet starfishes in clusters on the rocks will look like flowers, the bright green seaweed and algae, the foliage. Under every rock and stick, in the sand, everywhere there will be a wealth of life and movement. You will see animals and plants you never saw before and dine on steamed or roasted clams. Or, if you have sharp eyes, you can find deliciously sweet rock oysters on the rocks and feast on them.
      Strangers from all over the world come to see these islands, these waters, to feel the thrill of travel on small boats whose decks are close to the blue water. Why shouldn't we have these adventures, too?
      ...We have left Deer Harbor behind and are crossing San Juan Channel now. Just around the next point, Friday Harbor will be in sight. And the biological station. See you tomorrow. June."
June Burn. Puget Soundings. 17 June 1930. 

❖ ABOARD LITTLE SOUND BOATS ❖ June Burn 1930

ISLANDER, Obstruction Pass,
between Orcas and Obstruction Islands.
Original photo by James A. McCormick from the 
Saltwater People Historical Society© archives. 

I am off San Juandering again. I have always dearly loved San Juan Island, Speiden, Stewart, Johns, Sentinel, and Cactus Islands, and supposed Orcas and Lopez and the rest could not possibly be so nice, or their people so friendly and lovable.

       But just as soon as each little bay and each high sunny point is peopled with friends these other islands will become precious, too. And so for the first time, I'm off to browse among the gnarled madronas to climb the high hills, to see the far views of Orcas.
      I never come aboard one of these little Sound boats but I marvel that I've been able to stay off them for so long. How is it I've walked city streets, turned the pages of dusty books, talked about business things when all this time these little boats are going up and down, up and down, and I not aboard one of them? How do we resist the lure of these channels and the wheedling appeal of island coves?
The sun is warmer out here on the bay, the wind softer, the lift and fall of the waves sweeter than the nicest swing father ever made.

SAN JUAN II
With winter weather,
scan courtesy of Charles Torgeson©

       
The Chickawana has taken the run of the San Juan II with the Tulip King to pinch-hit for the Chick. We did not come past the old hulk of the San Juan, where she lies naked and broken in Peavine Pass, but I heard stories of her last trip. One said she was driven ashore a scant few feet from a sharp ledge off which she would have gone to the bottom and all with her if the sea had not carried her to safety. But from the crew of the Chickawana, I could get no stories. Maybe they want to forget that wild night. Or maybe it was all in a day's work to them. But certain it is they won't talk much about it though you'd think each of them would have a tale all made up trimmed with thrills and horrors. The adventure of a shipwreck is wasted on folks who don't know they've had one!

OLGA DOCK, ORCAS ISLAND, WA.

original photo from the archives of
the Saltwater People HIstorical Society©

      I left the boat at Olga, the second stop on Orcas, the first being Doe Bay. The sun shone brightly on this new snow of the dock but icicles tinkled on the edges of the north wind and I was glad to find the fire in the big fireplace of the hotel kept by Mrs. Alexander and her daughter, Fairy Burt.
      I had stopped at Olga to see Mr. Ferri, the great artist of whom lately I'd heard and whom I met one day on a Bellingham street. But he is gone now and his pictures gone, too. A fire in his studio a few weeks ago destroyed pictures and sketches and dreams of a lifetime. His studio had burned to the ground and I did not go to see the ashes. He is gone too, though I think he will be back. For the sun still shines on this matchless point of earth and the Olympics still notch the horizon to the south. Who has once loved and lived in such a spot cannot long stay away. Mr. Ferri is not an old man for all his long years of work and his pictures were but the body of his dreams--the essence of them is here yet. Please come back to the islands Mr. Ferri, wherever you have gone, and trap some of this beauty on canvas again! The radiance is wasted upon just us who without an artist's eyes cannot see a complete glory.

       A chance encounter had given me the acquaintance of Dr. Madison, also of Olga, a physician, and writer. So that failing to find Mr. Ferri I still had one small excuse for stopping here. What was my surprise and delight, upon telephoning Mrs. Madison, to be invited to a dinner being given that evening to local friends. Nowhere else in the world, perhaps, would it have happened. Nowhere else have there been such things to eat. And nowhere else could I have gone in breeches and boots to dine with ladies in velvet. Nowhere else have stories that went round that table, of deer eating up the cabbages in the game warden's garden and he says all he can do about it is to plant more next time! See you tomorrow. June."

❖ CAPTAIN CHARLES ELLSWORTH MAXWELL ❖ TRANSPORTING THE US MAIL ❖

Because of the recent kindness of the descendants of the Charles E. Maxwell family we have this bounty of early San Juan County transportation records to add to our county maritime archive. 
      "Charles E. Maxwell was born on 5 September 1884, near Caineyville, OK, when Oklahoma was still Indian Territory and a part of the western frontier. His parents moved to Magdalena, NM, where his mother died when he was three years old.
      Charles and his father, Willard Maxwell, then journeyed to Kansas to live with his father's family on the banks of the Missouri River. Here is where the foundation was laid for Charlie's future nautical career. As the family was all boat builders, the lad grew up playing in rowboats and sailboats. He learned his lessons well and like a veteran seaman, kept his boats and gear shipshape and in perfect order at all times. 
      Becoming restless Charles and his father decided to heed the words to "go west." They hove-to at New Whatcom, WA (later to become Bellingham) in April 1901, and afterward settled at Van Zandt, where they cut shingle bolts for a livelihood.
      Wrestling shingle bolts was wholly lacking in romance, presenting nothing but a back-breaking future, so Charles took up photography and went to California for a while, but the irresistible call of Puget Sound was not to be denied. It was in reality, the call of the sea, a natural culmination of rowboat days; on his return to Bellingham, Charles and his father purchased the FOX, a 37-ft boat and established a freight and passenger run to the San Juan Islands.

Masters License, Willard Maxwell
Courtesy of the Charles Maxwell family©.
to S.P.H.S. April 2015.
Click to enlarge.

FOX
37-ft Maxwell family home, freight & passenger vessel.
Early photo courtesy of Charles Maxwell family©
To S.P.H.S.  April 2015.

       In the summer of 1907, they ran an excursion from Lopez Island to Bellingham. It was on this trip that Charles met his future wife Miss Bessie Larrabee; two years later they swallowed the anchor (as the nautical saying goes) and were married at Friday Harbor. The FOX was their home until 1913 when the SAN JUAN II was built, affording better living facilities. The FOX was disposed of and the SAN JUAN II was operated between Bellingham and Victoria, BC. 

SAN JUAN II
Operated here by San Juan Transportation Co.
Louis Borchers fine photo courtesy of
Charles Maxwell family©
To S.P.H.S. April 2015.

SAN JUAN II
ON 210893
Built in Bellingham, WA. (1913-1929)
Operated here by San Juan Transportation Co.
Fine photo courtesy of Charles Maxwell family©
To S.P.H.S. April 2015.

      In the spring of 1914, the stork stopped by and left little Dorothy with the Maxwells. Also, Uncle Sam stopped by with the mail contracts the same year and renewed them every year since, which spoke well for the brand of service which the Maxwells gave.
      April 1919, the stork presented the Maxwells with Florence. Both little girls were raised on the boat, father stating 'they are the best little sailors on Puget Sound'.

ISLANDER
Built at Friday Harbor, San Juan Island, WA.
For San Juan Transportation Co.
Photo courtesy of Charles Maxwell family©
to S.P.H.S. April 2015.

1921: San Juan Transportation Co was incorporated and the ISLANDER was built for them at Friday Harbor. She was 88.6' OA, with twin engines, semi-Diesel, for operating between Bellingham and Seattle via the San Juan Islands. Maxwell and his little family lived aboard the ISLANDER for a while, and the story goes the rounds that during October 1922, the stork followed the ISLANDER for two weeks with little Gordon Maxwell before he found out that the family had moved ashore.
      A short-lived addition to their boats was the 127-ft ASTORIAN, purchased and outfitted at Astoria, OR and placed on the Seattle-Bellingham run. She made one trip to Bellingham and upon her return trip was rammed and sunk by an oil barge in a dense fog off Elliott Bay. It was discouraging, but Charles Maxwell had what it took, so nothing daunted, he purchased the CHICKAWANA and kept right on with his contracts.

Courtesy of Charles Maxwell family©
 to S.P.H.S. April 2015.
Click to enlarge.

CHICKAWANA
ON 210031
Running the US Mail for San Juan Transportation Co.
Courtesy of Charles Maxwell family©
to S.P.H.S. April 2015.

      They lost the SAN JUAN II in 1929 but salvaged the engine and installed it in the OSAGE, built at Decatur soon after. The OSAGE was 59-ft OA with the 150-HP Diesel engine from the SAN JUAN II to push the tide out from under her.

OSAGE
ON 230256
Built at Reed's on Decatur Island, 1930.
San Juan Transportation Co sold her in Dec. 1944 
to Thor B. Hofstad and C. M. Countryman,
both of Bellingham.
Operated here by S. J. T. Co.
Photo courtesy of Charles Maxwell family©
to S.P.H.S. April 2015. Click to enlarge.

      "When I raised chickens on Shaw Island, I shipped out 14 cases of eggs per week. That's 14 cases of eggs per week. That's 360 eggs per case. They went out on the OSAGE. I had the third largest poultry farm on the island." 
J. "Lee" Bruns to web admin March 1999.
      Captain Charles Maxwell had acquired a host of friends in his 36 years of carrying mail, freight, and passengers, and held an enviable position in the hearts of the San Juan County folks. 
Above text by Stewart C. Osborn "Scutt", for Marine Digest (?) May 1944.
Oceans of thanks for this generous contribution.