The Pioneer’s Tale: A Life in the Early Puget Sound
Captain Henry Roeder, one of Whatcom County’s earliest settlers, recounts his journey from the California gold fields to establishing the region’s first sawmill.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Mrs. Kate Waller of Point Roberts, E.A. Boblet of Blaine, and Captain Henry Roeder of Whatcom arrived at the Arlington Hotel last night. Mr. Boblet explained that Mrs. Waller, the first white woman to live on Point Roberts, was facing a land protest from a newcomer despite having occupied her claim for sixteen years. Captain Roeder, a pioneer of the state born in Germany in 1824, shared his story. After mining in California, Roeder came to the Pacific Northwest in the early 1850s, hauling his belongings through the mud at Cowlitz Landing and paddling to Olympia. He ultimately founded a sawmill in Whatcom in 1853, paying 30 cents a pound for machinery in San Francisco. He noted the harsh justice of the era, recounting a visit to a Victoria prison where Sir James Douglas ordered a prisoner to be lashed for breaking Hudson's Bay Company law.
“We went to North bay and hauled our craft across the neck into Hood's canal—and harder hauling I never did in my life.”
Captain Roeder’s career reflects the quintessential 19th-century Pacific Northwest 'booster' life: moving from mining to logging to land development. His mention of the 'mud' at Cowlitz and the struggle to find basic provisions illustrates how isolated the settlements of the 1850s were, long before the urban density of modern Seattle.
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