The Strange Fortune of 'Blanket Bill' Jarman
A pioneer who once lived among the Samish people as a captive, then as a squatter, discovers he is an heir to English estates.
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.
W. R. Jarman, of Port Angeles, a longtime pioneer on Puget Sound, has been named heir to three large estates in England. He left England fifty years ago and came to the Northwest. In 1845, he was on a vessel that was wrecked on the coast of Vancouver Island; he was held captive by the Indians for a few weeks until Sir James Douglas, governor of British Columbia, procured forty-two blankets as his ransom. He then came to Puget Sound and went up the Samish River, Whatcom county, where he spent four years with the Indians, during which period he did not see the face of a white person. He later claimed land at Point Williams near Seattle, which he subsequently relinquished. In the early days of Puget Sound history, he was singularly known as 'Blanket Bill.' Jarman's whereabouts remained unknown to his relatives until his nephew, who had been searching for him, encountered Jarman's sister in San Francisco by accident. Jarman, who had been employed at C. M. Bradshaw's mills in Port Angeles, has now purchased a ticket for London to claim his inheritance.
“In the early days of Puget Sound history, he was singularly known as 'Blanket Bill.'”
This story reflects the deep, often disorienting collision between colonial encroachment and Indigenous territory in the 19th-century Puget Sound. While today's headlines focus on real estate valuation in Seattle, the narrative of 'Blanket Bill' serves as a reminder of how land was acquired through squatting and colonial ransoms, far removed from the legal titles defining the region's urban footprint today.
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