The Reverend Who Hated Grays Harbor
A disgruntled preacher trashed Aberdeen in a Minnesota paper after he failed to find success in the Pacific Northwest—and local editors didn't take it lying down.
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.
The Albert Lea (Minn.) Enterprise printed a scurrilous communication from J.R. Colley, a Congregational minister, giving his opinion of Grays Harbor. The reverend claims he expected a bonanza but found Aberdeen 'built on stilts' and Hoquiam 'the dullest, deadest affair you could ever dream of.' He called Ocosta-by-the-Sea a 'tide-flat location' with an abundance of clams and saloons but no churches. He complained of living on 'puddle avenue,' off 'stump street,' and relying on boats for travel. The Aberdeen Herald notes that Colley is a former acquaintance of Rev. Butler who arrived in town asking for charity, only for his host to discover Colley had been ousted from his previous denomination. After failing to find financial success in Ocosta or along the Johns River, he 'silently stole away' to a supply job in Oregon, venting his personal spite against the communities that fed him for three months.
“A man who would thus deceive his friend would not hesitate to misrepresent the people who fed him three months.”
Every boomtown in history has its 'croakers' who complain about the mud and the lack of amenities. This 1892 local editorial retort captures the classic Pacific Northwest defensive pride against outsiders who don't 'get' the frontier lifestyle—a sentiment that still echoes in debates over growth and gentrification in the Harbor today.
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