❖ McCONNELL ISLAND ❖

McConnell Island, San Juan Archipelago, on left.

Original photo from the archives of the S. P. H. S.©

"This was the home of a family with the dubious distinction of being smugglers.
      Commander Wilkes had named the charming segment of land Brown Island in honor of 14 members of his crew with that surname. When the McConnell family took possession by squatting there in the 1880s their fame adhered to the place where they lived and it has been McConnell Island from then on.
      'You'll have to lock things up or McConnell will come,' was the saying around West Sound. McConnell had a reputation for helping himself to anything he needed, whether it was sack loads of fruit  from orchards or possessions left carelessly about.
      There were two sons and a daughter in the family. It is difficult to separate the legends and apply them to individuals, for some lived respectably.
      Kirk McLachlan remembered taking his horse to the island to help with some clearing. He entered the McConnell's boat house and saw it piled with boots and shoes. Next time he was there it was empty.
      Smuggling was done in both directions across the Canadian border, beginning about 1893. On a return trip the boats were reported to carry opium and whiskey, sugar, and wool.
      McLachlan recalled that one of the sons bought apples in the San Juans and sold them in British Columbia as produce of the Gulf Islands.
     'We had to be careful to keep our names off the boxes he bought on this account,' McLachlan said.
      More than once men of the family fell into the clutches of the law and served time. 'Old Man' McConnell apparently drowned near Oak Bay on Vancouver Island, the only trace left being his wrecked boat.
      McConnell Island in later years was acquired by Professor Thomas Thompson of the U of Washington's oceanography department."
Lucile McDonald. The Story of the San Juans.
1900, February.
Deputy Collector Culver and Lieut. Ballinger sized a sloop at West Sound, Sunday night, belonging to Victor McConnell, and with which he has long been violating both the US and Canadian custom laws. The sloop was beached at the mouth of a little creek when seized and as it could not then be floated one of the men from the launch was left in charge of it and the officers returned for it from Friday Harbor about daylight Monday morning. The sloop was taken over to Port Townsend by the revenue launch, Monday, Mr. McConnell being taken over at the same time to make his explanations, if he has any, to the collector."
The San Juan Islander newspaper. 


––An earlier post by local mariner Skip Bold, writing about the next inhabitants of McConnell Island, can be viewed here.
––Jack Thompson, son of Professor Thomas Thompson, wrote about the steamboat he and his brother Tommy operated from their summer home on McConnell Island. Click here.


   

❖ Live-Steamers from McConnell Island ❖ 1952

Thomas G.  Thompson Jr.  and family
next to his driftwood-engined steamboat
FIRE CANOE on John's Island beach, 1952.

Bunkers were empty so they landed for 15 armloads of driftwood; 

they could steam ca. 1.5 miles on one armload. 

Each autumn FIRE CANOE was hauled up

into the timber and covered for the winter.

"Come the apple blossoms, she'll be painted and polished and ready

to add to the 2,611 nautical miles she has sailed since 1949." TGT.

Cropped original photo from the archives of the S. P. H. S.©

" Seeing this photo of FIRE CANOE on John's Island, collecting driftwood and stone brought back a flood of memories of Tommy Thompson and FIRE CANOE.
      After Tommy graduated from the U of WA in the late 1940s with a degree in mechanical engineering, he needed to get the cobwebs of academia out of his head, so he took a couple of years off and headed for the San Juans.
      During this time he constructed his parent's lovely, architect designed home on McConnell Island.
      This place was unique, not only in its site sensitive placement and form, but also in that it was massively constructed almost entirely of beach combed materials. Floors were sandstone flags [2.5 tons] from Stuart Island, roof beams were large fir timbers from many island beaches, and walls and fireplaces were beach granite. All of this was hauled to McConnell via FIRE CANOE.
      What you see in this photo is one of the many collecting expeditions. The double ended steamer is an ex-Coast Guard wooden lapstrake surf boat. Tommy built the Roberts style boiler from iron pipe and burned driftwood for fuel. The engine was a 1905 Thorneycroft compound of 12-15 HP±
      The box-ey boat along side was actually two boats. These were WW II surplus assault boats. The two were bolted together transom to transom. I suspect in this elongated fashion they towed easier than two separate boats. The military used these boats for everything from ferrying troops across rivers with paddles or outboards, or even as pontoons for floating bridges. They were built light of plywood with little framing and could be hand carried with enough men. They might also have been "nestable" like a banks dory (?) The last I remember they were upside down, side by side, next to the lagoon on McConnell, c. 1960.
      Colonel Thompson, Tommy's dad passed away 12 August 1961 and Tommy inherited the house he had beach combed.
      Tommy and Anne's young family (five children) lived and worked on Fidalgo Island and for the next 35 years± they would commute to McConnell on summer weekends. They put so many miles on FIRE CANOE that they wore out 3 or 4 boilers. Of course it didn't help that the fuel of choice was salt soaked wood! En route, stops at beaches on James Is or perhaps Spencer Spit, Lopez Island were mandatory to keep up steam.
      One of the joys of living on Wasp Passage was watching for FIRE CANOE, west bound, towards dusk, on a summer Friday evening. If we happened to be about in the boat we would get an enthusiastic whistle! More commonly we would just see her slipping along the Crane Is. shore with the flood. It would usually be calm and you could just make out the sweet, quiet, thump, thump, thump of the compound engine. On rarer occasions, someone might be practicing on the 10-whistle steam calliope!
      There was a peaceful appropriateness to that kind of boating that always had its charm.
      Tommy passed away in the mid 1990s and FIRE CANOE is mouldering away in the trees on McConnell. Steam has not left the Wasp Islands however, but that's another story!"
Text kindly submitted by Skip Bold©, Wasp Passage, San Juan Archipelago, 2014.
For the Saltwater People Historical Society.

❖ Thomas Thompson's STEAMBOAT ❖ by brother Jack

Thompson steamboat.
Leaving cove at Neck Point to attend the
9th annual Puget Sound Live Steamers Meet,
McConnell Island, San Juan archipelago.
Photo by Joanne (Patterson) Ridley©, 1979.

Thomas Thompson at Shaw Island,
steaming to the 1965
Puget Sound Live Steamers Meet,
McConnell Island, WA.
Photo by Jo Ann (Patterson) Ridley©

The Tommy Thompson steamboat that some people called FIRE CANOE, was a well-known character in the San Juan Islands from 1949-1997; if not seen, we were often brought to attention by the sound of her beautiful whistle. 
      We are honored for these words from Thomas' brother Jack. 

"My favorite story of my sister, Harriet, running Thomas’ steamboat is as follows. Thomas told this story:

      One day Thomas had gone over to Friday Harbor to get a haircut and was sitting reading a magazine. Also, a few old-timers were sitting in the barbershop talking among themselves. They were commenting about his steamboat and didn’t know Thomas was the owner. Several days earlier Harriet had steamed into the public float near where the Coast Guard tied their vessel in Friday Harbor.  She was in her usual summer clothes –short, short, Levis and her grey and black heavy knitted Indian sweater. She had her usual deep tan. She had an eagle feather stuck in one of her pigtails.  One of the men said, “ Did you see that good looking babe running the steamboat. Man, I sure would like a date with her.” – Another of the men said, “Hey you better stay away from her. She’s related to one of the Haida chiefs. If you even THINK about her, that Haida chief will have your scalp (or other parts).” The men talked for another minute about her. Thomas just listened and related the story the following evening at dinner on McConnell Island.
      We bought the surf boat at a war surplus for $400 and were going to the U of WA. It had a Buda four-cylinder gas engine in it. For two years it was run with the gas engine, then Thomas finished his rebuilding of the engine and built the boiler. When it was installed I sold the gas engine and the boat became Thomas’.
      Incidentally, Thomas never called his steamboat the FIRE CANOE. Someone started calling it that, but Thomas and the family called it the Steamboat or the Boat.
      Actually, Thomas got me and many other persons interested in steamboats. The poor old surf boat finally succumbed about 1999 to dry rot. His son has the engine. Thomas fired the steel boiler with beach wood. Obviously, the pipe boiler rusted out so, every several years, he would build a new boiler. The steam drum was of good steel and was always way over-strength, but he always replaced the new boiler entirely. I think he went through 5 or 6 boilers.
      Incidentally, Thomas worked on the locomotives in Iran during WWII. The Army took over the railroad and hauled war supplies to the Russians. I believe the rail line was about 900-miles long and climbed over 2 or 3 passes of 7000 (?) feet. That must have been some real railroading! 
      I was on an Army operated railroad in France. After Antwerp was liberated I was in Belgium, then in Germany. Thomas and I had many letters back and forth about railroading.
      Thomas was known pretty well through the US regarding steam locomotives and readily shared his knowledge with others, all over the country."
Above text by the late live steamer Jack Thompson, brother to Thomas.
For the Saltwater People Historical Society/March 2013