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    Oysterville
    Oysterville
    Oysterville
    Ebook186 pages1 hour

    Oysterville

    By Sydney Stevens

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    About this ebook

    For generations, Chinook Indians camped in the area that is now Oysterville, gathering oysters from the shallow waters of Shoalwater Bay. When tribal elder "Old Klickeas" introduced two young adventurers, Robert Hamilton Espy and Isaac Alonzo Clark, to the oyster treasure, the pioneer boom years began. Oysters were marketed in gold-rich, oyster-hungry San Francisco, where a plateful sold for $50. Within months, there were several hundred settlers, and in 1855, Oysterville was chosen as the seat of Pacific County, Washington Territory. Oysterville had many county firsts: a school, a college, a newspaper, a post office, and a church--but never a bank. When schooners arrived to pick up their oyster cargoes, oystermen were paid in gold coin that then might be buried or stashed under floorboards for safekeeping. Often there was more gold in Oysterville than in any town on the West Coast except San Francisco. Today the peaceful vistas along the lanes and shoreline of the village belie its tumultuous history. Oysterville was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9781439640227
    Oysterville
    Author

    Sydney Stevens

    Author and historian Sydney Stevens is a fourth-generation Oysterville resident. During her thirty-nine-year career as an elementary teacher, she wrote social studies texts and local history books. She has devoted herself to the research and publication of regional history, especially the stories of previous generations.

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      Book preview

      Oysterville - Sydney Stevens

      noted.

      INTRODUCTION

      From boomtown to ghost town to National Historic District, Oysterville on Washington’s Shoalwater Bay has had a long and colorful history. The village was founded in 1854 and immediately gained acclaim for the abundance of the Native oysters (Ostrea lurida) growing at its doorstep.

      In the fall of 1853, young Robert Hamilton Espy, recently from Pennsylvania, had been working near Bruceport, Washington Territory, on the east side of Shoalwater Bay. He was felling and limbing trees for an Astoria-based sawmill—trees destined to become pilings in San Francisco Bay. At that time, few white men lived in the Shoalwater region, and those who did were interested in the little Native oysters—also bound for the San Francisco market. The eight men of Bruceville, known as the Bruce Boys, were hospitable to Espy; they shared their hearth and their food, and invited him to sit in on their poker games of an evening. However, they were not willing to talk about their developing oyster business.

      Espy’s friend Old Klickeas, a Chinook Indian from the area, was more forthcoming. He told Espy that he could show him a fine stand of oysters on the other side of the bay—oysters that the Bruceport men knew nothing about. For generations, Klickeas’s people had hunted seal and gathered salmon berries on the western side of Shoalwater Bay, camping in the area that is now Oysterville. They called it tsako-te-hahsh-eetl, meaning place of the red-topped grass. Klickeas and Espy agreed to meet there the following spring.

      Espy wintered in Astoria, and there met Isaac Alonzo Clark, a young man of similar age and interests. They formed a partnership, and on April 12, 1854, they kept Espy’s rendezvous with Klickeas. They found that Klickeas had not exaggerated. The mudflats were covered with tiny Native oysters, there for the taking. Within weeks, Espy and Clark were marketing the bivalves in gold-rich, oyster-hungry San Francisco.

      Oyster schooners soon plied the waters between San Francisco and Oysterville on a regular basis, and ship captains paid $1 in gold for every bushel basket of oysters loaded aboard. Each basket brought $10 on arrival in San Francisco, and epicures in oyster bars and seafood restaurants there would pay a silver dollar for one oyster—an oyster smaller than the coin! A plateful sold for a Mexican slug, which was worth two-and-a-half times a $20 gold piece. For lack of a bank, gold receipts in Oysterville were stashed under mattresses or buried in old tin cans for safekeeping. It is said that there was often more gold in Oysterville than in any other anchorage on the West Coast except San Francisco.

      Within a few months, there were several hundred settlers in Oysterville, and in 1855, it was voted the seat of Pacific County, Washington Territory. In keeping with the town’s rough-and-tumble beginnings, the first business established was a saloon. In no time at all there were seven. Commercial enterprises of all types flourished, including boat shops, general stores, butcher shops, hotels, a restaurant, stage barns, a slaughterhouse, a clam cannery, a smithy, a print shop, a newspaper, and even a casket shop. But there was never a bank, a barbershop, a laundry, or a local doctor.

      The burgeoning community had many county firsts: a school, a college, a newspaper, and, finally, in 1872, a church—First Methodist. Oysterville was a rip-roarin’ town in those days. There were those who lived in sin, and those who lived to be saved; about an even division. When the church was dedicated, the hard drinkers abandoned the saloons, marched in a body to the church, put their gold pieces in the collection plate, and returned to what they considered more stimulating than praying—drinking.

      In the late 1880s, fate took a hand: the long-awaited railroad line ended at Nahcotta, an isolating 4 miles away. The Native oysters became scarce, and without the possibility of a local livelihood, residents moved out en masse. Finally, in 1892, the county electorate voted to move the county seat across the bay to South Bend. Oysterville residents challenged the election results, but a group later referred to as the South Bend Raiders grew tired of waiting for the slow wheels of justice to turn. On a slushy Sunday morning when most Oysterville folks were in church, two boatloads of South Benders converged on Oysterville, broke into the courthouse, and took the records back to South Bend. Gradually Oysterville slipped into decline.

      By the time Eastern oysters (Crassostrea virginica) were introduced to Shoalwater Bay in 1896, Oysterville had entered a period of quiet inactivity. Most oystermen and the businesses that supported oystering had moved on, and the majority of households now based their livelihood on subsistence farming. In the early 20th century, when the Easterns took hold, Oysterville was revitalized but never again equaled the prosperous years of the previous generation. When, in 1919, the Easterns, too, failed, it seemed that Oysterville was destined to disappear as well.

      Then, seemingly against all odds, a third oyster, the Japanese oyster (Crassostrea gigas), was introduced to Shoalwater Bay and immediately thrived. By then, just before the outbreak of World War II, the old-fashioned methods of oystering were beginning to change. Sails, oars, and paddles had given way to steam and gasoline power; handpicking and tonging were replaced by large, efficient oyster dredges; improvements in canning methods and in transportation possibilities changed and expanded the market. Once again, oystering made a comeback in Oysterville, and even though Japanese seed imports ceased during the war years, Oysterville canneries kept their work forces employed. Nevertheless, the community did not grow apace with the resurgence of the industry, and Oysterville again declined. This time felt final.

      Before oblivion became complete, R. H. Espy’s granddaughter came to the rescue. Dale Espy Little spent her retirement years on a mission of mercy for the village where she, and her father before her, had grown up. With enthusiasm and determination, she spearheaded a campaign to save the village for posterity. Her efforts and those of the community and its supporters were rewarded in 1976 when Oysterville was placed on the Register of National Historic Places by the U.S. Department of Interior’s National

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