An Early Exploration of the Quillehuyt River
James G. Swan documents his journey into the remote Quillehuyt River country, naming landmarks and describing the indigenous villages encountered.
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.
I left Port Townsend on the 18th of July in the clipper schooner Sarah Newton, Captain Phillip Beynon, and ran down the Straits of Fuca for Neah Bay. An arrangement had been made with an Indian to pilot us to Quillehuyt, but as he had gone to Clyoquot, we waited a week. On July 28th, we made sail and arrived the next morning. The Quillehuyt River lies south from Cape Flattery about 28 miles. We pulled the schooner into the river and anchored near the Indian village. I met the head chief, Howeyatl, who invited us to visit the lodges. On August 1st, I traveled up the river to Cammas Prairie. I identified a lake between the Quillehuyt and Flattery rocks, which I have named 'Webster' in honor of my friend Henry A. Webster. The Quillehuyt is a fine stream, twelve feet deep, with water remarkably pure. We passed fish weirs and Indian lodges before striking a trail through a forest of hemlock to the prairie, which I have named 'Laighton's Prairie.' The country south of the Olympic range is vast, rolling, and contains some of the best land for agriculture to be found west of the Cascades.
“The water is remarkably pure, and at low tide is fresh almost to its mouth. There are neither mud nor weeds in it, but its current flows over a pebbly bottom, which is distinctly seen sparkling through the transparent waters.”
James Swan's 1861 expedition into the Quillayute territory provides a rare, albeit colonial, account of the Olympic Peninsula landscape before it was fully mapped by settlers. Today, this region remains defined by its rugged isolation and the enduring sovereignty of the Quileute Tribe, whose lands surround the river Swan once navigated.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.