A Hearty Welcome to the Newcomers
Fourteen New Brunswick immigrants arrived and built an 18-foot skiff to scout Puget Sound farmland.
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.
Fourteen people arrived here on the last ocean steamer from New Brunswick, and judging from their enterprise and sagacity they belong to that class of immigrants to whom Puget Sound offers unexceptionable advantages, and to whom we all offer a hearty welcome. They possess much of that indomitable perseverance and enterprise which are indispensable to success in a new and growing country like ours. For, coming determined to make the most of our advantages and in search of a home, which they were willing to make by their own labor, they did not go loitering about town waiting for something to turn up, but immediately collected the information about our wild lands, and concluded to start off on a cruise of investigation about the Sound and inquire into the advantages of different sections for farming. Pursuant to this determination they purchased a quantity of lumber Saturday morning, and commenced the construction of a skiff, on the wharf just back of the New England Hotel. By evening they had it all completed, excepting the sail and oars. The craft was 18 feet long, and well and substantially built, and they propose to start off immediately. In a few days they will probably be located somewhere up the Sound, and at work on their own wild lands. Of this class of immigrants we cannot have too many.
“They did not go loitering about town waiting for something to turn up.”
The contrast between these 'do-it-yourself' settlers and the idle 'loiterers' of 1876 highlights the intense boosterism of the territorial era. It serves as a reminder of how quickly the waterfront was built and how rapidly settlers were expected to claim the surrounding landscape.
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