Vancouver’s 1792 Exploration of Port Orchard
A historic excerpt from Captain George Vancouver’s 1792 journals describing the discovery and naming of the harbor we know today as Port Orchard.
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.
One hundred years ago Monday, the British ships Discovery and Chatham, in command of Captain George Vancouver, lay at anchor near Port Madison. On Thursday, May 24, 1792, Vancouver examined an opening in the western corner of a cove. The inlet divided into two branches, constituting a most complete and excellent port, perfectly free from danger. This harbor, after the gentleman who discovered it, obtained the name of Port Orchard. The country that surrounds this harbor varies in elevation, thickly wooded with trees, mostly of the pine tribe, and with some variety of shrubs.
“This harbor, after the gentleman who discovered it, obtained the name of Port Orchard.”
This article serves as a centennial reflection published in 1892, looking back at the maritime exploration that shaped the geography of the Puget Sound. It provides a rare, firsthand 18th-century glimpse of a landscape that is now densely populated but still defined by the same inlets and bays.
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