A Sunday Journey to Whidbey Island in 1885

I found myself in the pleasant little town of Coupeville, in Island county, at the hands of many. The Post-Intelligencer can be found in every family in that county. A trip through all the farms adjacent revealed the fact that there is not a more thrifty country settlement in the Territory. A glance at the farm-houses and barns indicates thrift and comfortable circumstances. The surface is comparatively level, diversified with woodlands and prairies. I was surprised to find it so old a settled country, the Keye, Crockett and others who are there today having been on the ground more than thirty years. At the Crockett homestead are the blockhouses which were erected thirty years ago as a safeguard against the Northern Indians. The pear trees are still vigorous, but the apple trees appear to be deteriorating. Oak Harbor is seven miles north of Coupeville, and is equally an old settled community. At high tide, steamboats readily ride up to the wharf, but when the tide is out it is an ugly place of approach. Dense fog having delayed our boat, the Washington, we had to go from the steamer in a skiff and then wade several hundred yards through the mud. The deck hand who took the mail ashore carried a fellow on his back from the skiff almost to dry ground, and then fell sprawling with him.