The Colony Train Bound for Whidbey Island

MANY NEW CITIZENS. Foreign Colonists Coming From the Eastern States. THE HOLLAND PARTY ARRIVING. Advance Guard of Whidby Island Colony Is Here—Praising the Rich Washington Valley.

Immigrants of an eminently desirable class are coming into the Puget Sound country in great numbers, most of them from the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. Eighteen well-to-do farmers arrived last evening from Grand Rapids, Mich., and will take land on Whidby [Whidbey] Island from the area held by the Holland Colony Company near Oak Harbor. They will leave this morning for that place on the steamer Idaho. The newcomers were in charge of B. A. Workman, manager of the company and one of the most assiduous workers in his line in the United States.

Mr. Workman said that in about a month thirty-five families will come to join the colony from the Dakotas, and by May 1 about fifty more families will start West for the same purpose from Michigan. Many of them have already sold their farms and stock, but are waiting until the advance guard, which arrived last evening, can send back a report of what the country is really like. Mr. Workman says that he expects 1,000 or 1,500 families will be in the colony before the year is ended. Many farmers in the states mentioned, to Mr. Workman's personal knowledge, are only waiting for a chance to sell out at a fair price and come West. Most of those who are already here will go into dairying and fruit raising.

All of the men who are joining the colony are well-to-do, and several of the individual members can command from $5,000 to $10,000, while none have less than $2,500. An impetus to the Whidby Island colony project was given a few days ago when there arrived from Maasland, Netherlands, Simon Hulsman, an experienced cheesemaker. He was sent to this country from Holland to pick out a site for a colony, and he represents about fifteen or twenty well-to-do Dutchmen, all of whom are only waiting for Mr. Hulsman, when they will sell out and emigrate. Mr. Hulsman has met those interested in the Holland Colony Company and is so impressed with the country and the project that he will write his friends that he has found an ideal country.

Farmers from the East are also flocking into Whatcom and Skagit counties, and, as the railroads, both the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific, are offering inducements to all good immigrants, the chances are that before another winter sets in there will be a general movement of desirable Easterners to the Sound. It is estimated by some persons familiar with the spirit prevailing in many rural districts of the East that the year will witness an increase of population in the state of from 10,000 to 15,000 desirable new people.

The Rapperswyl colony, in the Nooksack valley, in Whatcom county, will eventually develop the agricultural resources of that rich valley and benefit not only the members of the colony but the county as well. It is related that even now the little town of Acme, of which the colonists have changed the name to Rapperswyl, and where they have purchased 30,000 acres of land, is a flourishing place and several houses are being built. One big building is in course of construction, which will be utilized as a hotel as the colonists arrive. Later the farmers will build their own houses on the land allotted to them.

Another colony company which is handling a good many immigrants is the Whatcom Colonization Manufacturing Company, of which Charles O. Scott, of this city, is secretary and treasurer. This company has been doing much for Whatcom county and especially certain portions of the Nooksack valley. The company has four whole sections at its disposal, on which it has already located fifteen desirable farmers of the East. A gentleman from Duluth was out here a few weeks ago and looked over some of the land held by this company and was so impressed with the character of the soil and the climate that he returned to his Eastern home with a glowing account of what he had seen. He wrote to Mr. Scott a few days ago that during April or May a colony of fourteen farmers with their families would be on their way West to settle on the land. Most of the farmers already have holdings in Minnesota, but they will sell out as soon as possible and most of them have already offered their farms for sale. Two carloads of colonists from that section arrived last week as the advance guard of the immigrants.

Farmers in drought-stricken Kansas and Nebraska are also looking toward the West, with Puget Sound as the objective point, and it is said several farmers, representing about thirty families, will arrive here before the summer begins to look over the country and see what inducements can be offered for their immigration.