Josiah Keller-Founder of Port Gamble, WA
Josiah Keller (Captain J. P. Keller) and Emma Caroline Foster Talbot (Josiah's 2nd. wife). The 3 photos above are from: Port Gamble Museum, Port Gamble, Washington. The two portraits are mounted on the wall of their museum.
Original partner in Puget Mill Company. Bought first mill machinery from Boston in schooner 'L.P. Foster.' First manager of Pope & Talbot Mill. She and her daughter were the first white women to visit Port Gamble site. Later she sent out Maple tree slips from E. Machias, Maine that became huge trees that shade Port Gamble streets today."
In late summer, 1853, 154 days out of Boston with no port calls between, 42 year-old Capt. Josiah P. Keller brought the schooner L. P. Foster to anchor off a sand spit at the entrance to a bay in Puget Sound, Kitsap County, Washington Territory. The location would become known as Port Gamble, site of a steam sawmill owned by the Puget Mill Company. The Foster was loaded with the machinery and supplies needed to construct the mill, and aboard were workers from Maine to build and operate it. As the resident partner and superintendent, Capt. Keller had also brought his family. In little more than a week, he had the mill operational. Before his death nine years later, the mill had become the largest single industrial enterprise in Washington Territory; Port Gamble was well on its way to becoming a model company town; and the Puget Mill Company was established as a major factor in Kitsap County’s ranking as the richest county in proportion to population in the country, a position it held for a quarter century. Before closing in 1995, the Port Gamble mill was the longest continuously operated sawmill in North America.
In this city, June 11 at 10 1/2 a.m. of heart disease Capt. J.P. Keller of Teekalet, W.T., aged 50 years and 11 months." (From the Victoria, B.C., June 17, 1862, Weekly Colonist).
Keller, Emma Talbot, Mrs. Emma Talbot Keller, widow of Capt. Josiah Keller of East Machias, who died recently at the age of 84 years, was a remarkable woman and part of her life was spent in a strange land. She belonged to a well known Maine family, being the daughter of Judge Coffin Talbot of East Machias. She married Capt. Josiah Keller in the early fifties. Immediately after her marriage she started with her husband on a sailing vessel for their distant home on Puget Sound. Capt. Keller being one of the early pioneers in that country. They arrived at their future home after a voyage of five months, during which his vessel did not once weigh anchor. She was one of the first white women to land there. Remaining there until the death of her husband, she then returned East, and with her two sisters made her home in Boston, where for many years she was prominent in literary circles. Of rare quality of mind and intellect, she was admired and beloved by all who knew her. She belonged to a family remarkable for literary talent and longevity.
JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE FROM BOSTON TO PORT TOWNSEND, WASHINGTON TERRITORY,
COMMENCED SEPT. 23, 1858 and ENDED MARCH 29th, 1859
Kept by Josiah H. Munson on board the Schooner
TOANDO of East Machias, Maine.
About setting out on a voyage around Cape Horn, from Boston, towards Oregon, I shall commence a sort of Abstract Log or Journal, giving weekly our position in Latitude and Longitude, our course and distance made, the bearing and distance of the nearest land, noting any and every event and incidence of importance or interest, which may come under my notice, such as a description of any land or sight, of vessels we chance to meet or speak, of birds, whales, sharks, etc.
As it will be written at sea in all kinds of weather, without a chance for correction, and by one not able to do it justice, even with the best of chances, it will contain many imperfections, more especially in writing composition and punctuation, which I hope my friends will kindly overlook and excuse.
In the first place some description of the little craft, so long to be our home, will not be out of place. She is a strong, well built fore and aft schooner of 160 tons burthen, built by Mr. Wm. Cunningham, and owned by Mr. Charles Foster, of the firm of Foster and Keller, and commanded by Capt.’s G.D. and A.W. Keller, all of East Machiasi. The Capt.’s Keller are gentlemen highly esteemed and worthy of the trust imposed in them. The schooner Toando, I wish she had a better name, Lucy would sound much better, is well fitted out, victualed and manned for the voyage, though about the men I can’t say, they count well by numbers, but thin for sailors.
As they are all from about home, you can judge for yourselves when you see their names. Her cargo consists of coal, nails, spikes, pine boards, oak and ash planks, boats and oars on deck. She is very deep, I think much too deep for so long a voyage, this with the name she has already of being a very dull sailer, rather discourages us about a passage being a little ambitious, and serious of making it not uncommon long.
We cherish hopes of making the passage somewhere near the L.P. Foster’s time, about five and one-half months, yet we would be content to do it in six. At any rate we shall do the best we can, improve all slants, and try to have no lost or misspent time to reflect upon. Our company, officers, passengers and crew are 17. Capt. G.D. Keller, wife and family. I will give you their names, Betsey, his wife; Emily; Goddard, Jr.; Betsey; John; and Helen, the youngest, the pet and play thing of all. Little Kittie Clydeii, we all call her, is about 2_ years old and loves everyone best. Capt. A.W. Keller and Laura, his wife [and Josiah Munson’s sister], and your humble servant, myself, make up the complement aft. Mr. Nathaniel Harmon, cook; Thomas Pierce; James Thompson; James Demmons; Martin V.B.Ames; Lewis Smith; and Edward Durgan comprise the list of sailors. In looking around for able seamen the Capt.’s Keller is all I can find though Demmons and Durgan will do, and in fact are all we can depend on at present, but I presume a month or two at sea will make things appear better.
Thursday, September 23, 1858, was our sailing day, consequently all on board were up earlier than usual doing their little errands, looking for hoped for letters and mailing theirs written to relatives and friends never perhaps to be met again, doing a little forgotten or neglected shopping etc.
At 1 o’clock Mr. Foster came with the tow boat Stag, made fast to us and away we went down the harbor, leaving Boston for years and probably some and perhaps all of us for ever. I know not what was passing through the minds of the ladies, whatever it might have been was neither pleasing or cheering, their eyes were filled with tears, and there seemed to rest a feeling of subdued sadness on the minds of all. My own regrets at leaving home would not be many, were it not for the sad reflections that I was leaving my father and mother alone for how long I know not, who now in their declining years, more than ever, need my assistance. It must indeed be lonely to them after having so many of us around, being entirely alone. For their sake I hope soon to return.
At 10 o’clock in the evening we passed Cape Cod. The wind for two or three days before had been out of the South and South East winds which made it very rough, and made our new sailors experience a delicate but not agreeable, sensation about the stomach.
Friday at 3:30 A.M. morning Cape Cod light bore West, distance 14 miles from which our departure is taken and of course shaped across the trackless waters.
Sunday, September 26, 3 days out - Latitude 39:38 N, Longitude 66:13 W course and distance sailed SE_E 270 miles from Boston Lighthouse.
Sunday, October 24, 31 days out, Latitude 21:07 N Longitude 30:00 W course and distance sailed SE_E 630 miles. Bearing and distance of Cape Verde islands SE_E 365 miles. Thursday at 2 A.M. crossed the parallel of 25N in Longitude 34:56. Friday at 9 o’clock A.M. crossed the tropic of Cancer. Another week has passed and we are not farther ahead than at its commencement. In fact according to Maury’s directions our last week’s position was much the best for making a quick run to the Equator. By the directions we ought to be in 35:00 Longitude, but we could not get there. We have had the winds from WSW to SW and very light, except Monday and Tuesday when it blew a strong gale and we could not make but little better than an East course. It is rather discouraging, in this time we hoped to be across the Equator, at least but are only 2/3 of the distance and in a hard position to make the remaining 1/3. However, we must make the best of it. It would not seem so bad if our little craft was a little swifter getting through the water. Wednesday forenoon saw a ship to weather on the same tack as ourselves.
Wednesday afternoon as we were at work on the Flying jibboom repairing some damage done in the gale, it being very rough and the vessel sailing at the rate of 5_ knots (not miles) per hour, she pitched into it and put us two or three feet under water. Albert not having a good hold was washed off. They on deck, hove the wheel down and threw him a line which he caught and we hauled him in aft of the main rigging. We got other duckings before finishing the job, but were more careful and at last got the thing fixed. As the preceding, this week was past without seeing a whale or shark and but little else. An occasional bird or flying fish is all. If this wind continues we shall probably sight the Cape Verdes Tuesday, but I hope that we will be favored with better wind before that time. The general health of the company has been and is at present good.
Emily’s Journal: Wednesday, Nov. 24, 1858. = Lat 32_ 03' = Longitude 36_ 56'
We reckon up everything we had even to a needle. Heavy Westerly gales and passing clouds and heavy sea quite cool, have thought of putting on some extra clothing, saw some birds called the Albatross. Sewing has been our chief occupation for to-day. Laura & I have been figuring this afternoon to see how much our clothes have cost for the last two years. Laura’s cost $135.36. Mine cost $76.97, some difference. I cannot write any more to night, for it is too rough, Josiah has had to hold me up, while I’ve been writing this.
Emily’s Journal: Saturday Dec. 25, 1858. Lat 55° 65' Long 63° 30'
Today we have had a strong breeze from the W.N.W. The weather has been quite pleasant and sea rough. We’ve seen a ship and a bark and a full rigged brig. We think they are the same ones that we saw Wednesday, they are bound the same way we are. The ship came quite near. Wed. the men killed one of the pigs. We had a pot pie made of feet, if it is for supper it was only big enough for two messes. Today is Christmas. I wish you all a “Merry Christmas” and I’ve no doubt but it will be merrier than ours. I suppose there is a tea party in Pope’s Hall and you are all preparing to go about this time. A year ago tonight, Thankful and I took a walk around the square with F. Huntley and sunbeam Whittmore. Bet got a dress skirt, two books, a book mark and a pickle and hard tack bread in her stocking. I got a present (I dare not tell you what) from Josiah, but the best present we received was a fair wind. We doubled Cape St. John, the eastern end of Staten Island, Mother and Laura been sewing. I finished my stocking. I haven’t anything more to say to night so I’ll “turn in.” Good night.
Sunday, December 26, 94 days out, Latitude 56:05S, Longitude 66:39W, course and distance sailed, SSE½E, 295 miles. Bearing and distance of Cape Horn, west 120 miles. My closest hope of last week not yet realized, yet we are now in the broad road to the Pacific, having yesterday “doubled” St. John, the Eastern end of Staten Island. I think I never saw so much disagreeable weather and heavy head winds before. . . . By carrying every inch of canvas we dared show, and sometimes more, and what I considered good management, we kept quite near the land, and though we could not keep a position to go through the Straits (of Magellan), we were in a good place to take a fair wind which came yesterday morning being off the East end of Staten Island. At noon we doubled Cape St. John with a fine, fair wholesail breeze. At 6 PM it died away calm and at 10 it changed, breezed up suddenly SW, directly ahead, with heavy rain. We got her under snug reefs as soon as possible. . . .
Yesterday was Christmas. It passed off quite pleasant but not so pleasant I think if we had been home, or even been favored with a fair wind and pleasant weather where we are. As we must have a “Christmas Dinner” Captain Keller killed the fatted pig which was enjoyed very much after living so long on salt provisions. Some of the children, though so far at sea, did not forget Santa Claus, and accordingly hung up their stockings, and he though not very liberal with his presents showed that he did not forget them. All the company seem to enjoy better health in this cold weather than they did in the warm, and if we could be blessed with the same fair winds and smooth water, we should enjoy ourselves very much, but it is very rough and uncomfortable all the time. No more this week.
Sunday, January 16, 1859, 115 days out, Latitude 55:41 S. Longitude 80:16W. Course and distance sailed N by W 3/4 W, 189 miles. Bearing and distance off Cape Horn East 435 miles. This has been the hardest, roughest and most stormy week of all. It commenced with an awful gale of wind, almost a hurricane, by far the heaviest we have experienced at all, and like the rest directly ahead. Our little craft behaves finely, much better than we could expect, so deep and with this deck-load.
Three or four seas boarded her aft and came near making our number 3 or 4 short. Pierce and Smith were both washed away from the wheel and Pierce came near going overboard, he caught the lee rail with his hand and Capt. Keller, standing in the gangway, caught him by the leg. I saw the sea when it struck him and I thought he was surely gone. Captain Keller got knocked down under the wheel and hurt quite bad. It was the ugliest sea that I ever saw, so short and coming from all points of the compass, foaming as if bound to destroy all that should stand in its way. Split the new mainsail and that three reefed. Set the storm tryssail. It was a horrid gale and I never desire to see another like it. The wind through the week has varied only from NW to WSW and only part of one day did we have the whole lower sail set. When we shall have a slant to get into better weather is more than I can tell, but I hope this week is the last we shall have so stormy. Such weather lengthens our passage awfully. Tuesday evening saw a Bark under short sail trying with us to get out of the bad weather.
Wednesday evening split the flying jib all to pieces, sent it in, bent a new one and set it, also shook out a reef or two. Plenty of Albatross around us as usual and a few penguins. Yesterday afternoon saw a sail to windward. This is awful weather, hard to describe. Blowing a gale most of the time, either steady, stormy or hail, rain and snow squalls. The sun above the horizon two thirds of the time, but seldom seen, have had a poor chance for observations for nearly a month past. We seldom see a star or the moon, much less to think of getting an observation of them. The company are all well as usual with the exception of a few boils among the men, and a breeding sore on Captain Albert’s thumb. They are tired and about discouraged.
Emily’s Journal: Saturday, February 12, 1859. Commenced with light airs from S.E. its fair what there is, but it’s nearly calm, weather pleasant. Saw two whales and a tropic bird. I’ve been embroidering, the rest of the [women] folks sewing. Dear me, I wish we could have a breeze of wind so that we could get along for I’m sick of the sea. I’d like to get ashore and have a good run. There’s nothing to write as usual, so good night, pleasant dreams be thine, is my sincere wish. Lat 28° 25'–Long 95° 29 Feb. 12
Sunday, March 6, 1859, 164 days out, Latitude 8:05 N. Longitude 121:08 W. Course and distance sailed NNW_W 680 miles. Tuesday at 8 P.M. crossed the Equator in 115:55 W. Longitude. Friday at 11:15 A.M. crossed 5N Latitude in Longitude 121:08 W. Monday evening at half past 7 spoke the Mexican bark Ranger, 26 days out from San Francisco bound to Valparaiso. Our Longitudes were alike, within 5 miles. This week we have had calm, light variable winds, squalls and towards the last part heavy breezes, which I hope to be the Southern edge of the NE trades, though far to the Northward. I hope they will soon check to the Southward in our favor and let us finish up this long and tedious passage. Friday morning saw a ship about 10 miles off on our lee bow, so far that we could only see her top gallant sails above the water. Large schools of porpoises, some whales, a few dolphins which made us a very nice fresh fry although very dry. A very few tropic birds have been around, one of which gave us a call. He came on board, stopped an hour or so to get some breakfast and left again. The weather has been very hot, especially the first part of the week, while so calm. We constructed a shower bath, which I think we ought to have done long before. It was very refreshing those warm mornings and evenings to step in and take a cool bath, though not very cold as the temperature of the water is about 80. The girls enjoy it very much. The whole company is in good health and spirits.
Tuesday, March 29, 1859, 187 days out. Latitude and Longitude being Port Townsendiii. Arrived at last all in good health and spirits after so long a voyage. We came to anchor for the first time in more than seven [sic] monthsiv at half past 9 this morning in the fine harbor of Port Townsend where we shall receive orders about discharging. Our passage has been long and rather hard and uncomfortable, owing to the small size of the vessel, and being so deeply laden. Yet we have done very well considering everything and we lived more comfortable than we expected when we left. Though there has been a large family of us there seems to have been room enough for all.
As we have arrived all right I will consider the voyage ended and close up the journal hoping that if any of you take the trouble to follow through the crooked and wild scribbling you will have the kindness to overlook the many imperfections which it contains. I shall try to send it in this mail, as soon as it reaches you all write in return. While here in this country I leave off journalizing and write to all as often as I can. No more at present.
(Signed) Josiah H. Munson
Josiah and Emily were married soon after their arrival and settled in Washington Territory, as did Goddard Sr. and his family. Goddard Jr. became a sea captain and was lost as sea. Laura died of consumption and complications after the birth of twins, who also died. Albert lived a long life, commanding many vessels for the Pope and Talbot Company.
i. The Toando was new, built at East Machias that year and probably at the shipyard of Charles Foster and Capt. Josiah P. Keller. Foster and Keller were each ½-owners in her. In 1852, they had joined with fellow East Machias natives Andrew Pope and William Talbot in forming the Puget Mill Company, a successful lumber manufacturing and marketing enterprise. The mill was located at Port Gamble on Puget Sound with company headquarters in San Francisco. Josiah Keller was partner in residence and mill superintendent at Port Gamble, the Toando’s destination.
Capt. Goddard D. Keller, probably a first cousin of Josiah Keller, was a seasoned master mariner. Machias vessel registration and enrollment records show that from 1841 to 1858 he was master of at least seven vessels: brig Juan J. De Cartegena; schooner Charles L. Vose; schooner George Evans; brig Miranda;brig Eureka; brig Celt; and now the schooner Toando. He had owned shares in the Cartegena and the Vose. All were Machias or East Machias-built.
Albert W. Keller would serve as first mate during the Toando voyage. He had been to Puget Sound in 1853 with his uncle Josiah when the mill equipment was brought out from Boston on the schooner L.P. Foster. Now at 26 and having had his own previous command, he would be his father’s mate and navigator. He was the only one on board to have been around the Horn.
Josiah Munson himself served as second mate.
ii. An apparent allusion to Kitty Clyde, a sentimental song of the period composed by L.H.V. Crosby and published in sheet music in 1853.
iii. Port of Entry for the Customs District of Puget Sound, Washington Territory.
iv. 187 days would be more than six, rather than seven, months.
Port Gamble represents one of the few remaining examples of company towns, thousands of which were built in the nineteenth century by industrialists to house employees. Founders Josiah Keller, William Talbot, and Andrew Pope planned the town to reflect the character of their hometown, East Machias, Maine, where many of the early employees originated. For 142 years, the community existed to support sawmills that produced lumber for the world market. The mill closed in 1995, but as a National Historic Site, the townsite has been preserved to reflect an authentic company mill town. The first known residents of Port Gamble were members of the Nooksclime, Clallam, or S'Kallam tribe who fished and gathered food along Hood Canal. The S'Klallams belonged to the linguistic group, South Coast Salish, which populated Puget Sound. Tribes traded and intermarried and generally experienced little conflict except for raids from outside the region. In 1841, a U.S. Navy expedition led by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes (1798-1877) named the two-mile-long bay at the mouth of Hood Canal after Navy Lieutenant Robert Gamble, who was wounded in the War of 1812.
In the summer of 1853, San Francisco lumber merchant and sea captain William Talbot (1816-1881) spotted the sand spit at the mouth of the bay as a likely place for a lumber mill. Talbot was a partner of Josiah Keller (d. 1862), Andrew Pope (1820-1878), and Charles Foster in the Puget Mill Company. They planned to cut the abundant trees of Oregon Territory into lumber for sale in California and across the Pacific. The sand spit sheltered ships and was close to stands of timber.
S'Klallams already lived on the spit and on the bluff above. Keller induced the natives to move across the bay to Point Julia in exchange for free lumber, firewood, and Christmas gifts. The S'Kallams called the site Teekalet, "brightness of the noonday sun," for the way the water and sand reflected light on sunny days. Talbot borrowed that name for the mill.
Puget Mill Co.
Talbot's partner Keller soon arrived in another ship with the boiler, engine, and muley saw. By September 1853, the mill at Teekalet was cutting logs into lumber. The muley saw was a single blade that moved up and down in a mechanical version of a sawpit. The initial output was modest, 2,000 board feet a day -- about a tenth of the lumber needed to build a five-room house of the time. The first lumber went to enclose the mill and to build cabins, a bunkhouse, and a cookhouse. In January, Keller and his assistant superintendent Cyrus Walker (1827-1913) installed a sash saw that was lighter and 10 times more productive.
On January 26, 1854, the Treaty of Point No Point ceded the land around Port Gamble to the United States and relegated the S'Klallams to a reservation with the Skokomish at the bend of Hood Canal. The S'Klallams were not interested in sharing a small reservation with another tribe and they continued to reside at Point Julia, which came to be called Little Boston.
The small community of two-dozen whites on the sand spit included Joshua Keller, his wife and two children, and men from the partners' hometown of East Machias, Maine. The store offered goods for sale to settlers and natives, but other amenities were sparse. Single workers lived in the bunkhouse and families had small cabins. During the Indian War of 1855-1856, Keller ordered construction of a wood blockhouse against an attack. A raid by the Haidas of Canada came in November 1856. The settlers held their own until the arrival of the steam sloop U.S.S. Massachusetts. One sailor, Gustavus Englebrecht, was killed in that encounter. He became the first burial in a cemetery on the bluff.
Men for the Mill
Staffing the mill proved to be a challenge. The newly organized Washington Territory was wilderness and there were few men available for work. Keller hired settlers, most of whom worked only long enough to earn cash and file claims on land of their own, and S'Kallams from Point Julia. One early worker was Dexter Horton (1825-1904), who ran the cookhouse. He saved his wages and moved to Seattle where he opened a store and later a bank.
With the help of their Maine-based partner, Charles Foster, Pope, Talbot, and Keller recruited experienced mill workers from East Machias to come West. A common device was a six-month contract with the employers paying the cost of passage. The employee was obligated to work off the expense over a period of six months. Workers wrote home of the opportunities and steady employment. (Water-powered Maine sawmills closed in the winter; the steam-powered mill at Teekalet ran year round). By necessity, Puget Mill Co. established a company town to provide housing and food for workers who had no other place to live.
In 1858, the partners added a second mill farther out on the spit. That operation used newly developed circular saws, and as a result both production and the payroll increased. Keller also built a mill to grind grain into flour for the cookhouse. The flour sold for many years under the Kitsap brand. That same year, Keller filed a plat with the territorial government for a town called Teekalet. The town plan followed the grid pattern common to new cities of the West.
The company built houses for managers and married workers up on the bluff with the bunkhouse and cookhouse down on the spit close to the mill. A dance hall provided entertainment. Andrew Pope wrote, "We have really got some very valuable men here, and if we can make them contented by laying out a few hundred doll[ar]s I think it is a good investment." In 1859, Puget Mill Co. built the first school in Kitsap County. In 1860, a community hall went up for "those who desire public worship, social enjoyment or fraternal communion and to educate the children" (Eakins, 25). That year the Census counted 15 married couples and 15 children in the town, with a total population of 202.
Work
Every morning at 6:20 a.m., the workers woke to the mill whistle. At 6:40 a.m., the whistle signaled a breakfast often consisting of "boiled corn beef, potatoes, baked beans, hash, hot griddle cakes, biscuits, and coffee" (Coman, 70). The men had 20 minutes to eat and report for a 11½-hour day. A good worker earned $30 a month and he was paid in fifty-cent pieces, daily if he chose. Many other Puget Sound mill workers received warrants that they had to take to Seattle to cash. According to Pope and Talbot historian Edwin Coman Jr., "four-bit" pieces became a symbol of employment at Puget Mill.
The employees worked hard and were paid well, but sawmills of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were dangerous places. Saws and other machinery lacked protective shielding and men often worked inches from sharp blades that could in an instant snatch a finger, an arm, or even a life. Company records show that 10 to 20 men quit every day, but were immediately replaced by new workers.
The oscillating sash saws, spinning circular saws, and planing mills generated sawdust, which fueled the steam boilers. Wood waste, called slabs, could be used in the boilers of steamships and the rest was burned in open fires that blazed continuously from 1855 to 1925. Unless the wind blew it away, a pall of woodsmoke constantly hung over the mill and the community. The mill at Teekalet was a cargo mill and cut lumber to load on ships, some owned by the partners. The ships carried Puget Mill cargoes to San Francisco, the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), Australia, and Asia.
Keller was superintendent of the Teekalet mill, but he was often gone. Fellow "Mainer" Cyrus Walker, a member of the founding crew of 1853, filled in during those absences. When Keller died in 1862, Walker became superintendent. Under Walker's management, the town of Port Gamble grew and prospered.
The Town of Port Gamble
In 1868, Walker took down the old mill and replaced it with components from another operation. That year, the Territorial Legislature approved a new name for the town -- Port Gamble. Most of the workers had Maine origins, but Chinese, Hawaiians, and at least one African American worked there as well. Members of the S'Kallam tribe also found employment and were well regarded as workers. The S'Klallams built a village at Point Julia called Boston -- later Little Boston -- just across the bay with lumber provided by Puget Mill. They commuted to work by canoe.
In the 1870s, Port Gamble boasted a Dramatic Club, a baseball team, a reading room, a circulating library, and a 14-piece brass band. The general store supplied food and other goods and posted newspaper clippings for all to read. In 1879, the Union Congregational Church was built in a style reminiscent of New England churches. The pastor doubled as company physician.
Superintendent Walker saw that housing reflected the social and ethnic distinctions of the community. Managers had the best homes on the high ground, the superintendent's home being the largest and best sited of all. Skilled workers and their families got the next best dwellings. In the 1880s, Scandinavian immigrants and their families arrived on the transcontinental railroad along with Germans, Swiss, Slovaks, and Greeks. They moved into homes built on the other side of second-growth forest to the west and south of town in neighborhoods called New England and Murphy Row.
Unmarried men lived in bunkhouses and cabins on the spit. Hotels on the spit accommodated loggers, longshoremen, and sailors who often constituted a third of the population. Chinese employees always lived in separate quarters. Residents enjoyed modern conveniences such as indoor plumbing and clean water. The children could go to school and the company took care of virtually every need, from childbirth to a mortuary and burial services.
Company policy prohibited gambling and women of questionable character. Sailors and loggers rowed to Point Julia for the female companionship lacking in Port Gamble. In spite of Cyrus Walker's opposition to alcohol, the company store offered liquor for sale.
In 1888, the original partners replaced their 68-year-old brother-in-law Cyrus Walker as superintendent with East Machias native Edwin Ames. Ames ran Puget Mill Co. and Port Gamble until 1925 and contributed his name to the superintendent's house built in 1888. Ames instituted some technical innovations that Walker had resisted, particularly electric lighting. Incandescent lights in the mills served an important safety function because the risk of fire was so great in mills. Before long employee homes glowed with electric lighting as well. Walker had also resisted installing band saws that cut faster and wasted less of the log. That innovation did not arrive until just before World War I.
Community
Puget Mill Co. sponsored celebrations every Fourth of July. Employees had the day off and families from other company mills at Port Ludlow and Utsalady rode company tugs and steamers to Port Gamble. Some years, one of the other towns played host. Company cooks and housewives prepared picnic feasts, baseball teams competed, and at dark, fireworks lit the sky -- all paid for by the company. After the children were put to bed, music and dance filled the social halls. Christmas was another important holiday, again with a community feast, caroling, and gifts for every child.
A centerpiece of the town was the general store on Rainier Avenue. Here residents purchased all their supplies and received news of the world from newsclippings on a bulletin board. The largest structure, aside from the mill was the Puget Hotel built in 1907 on the bluff overlooking Hood Canal. The hotel was intended for tourists and to house visiting company officials. An annex had rooms for single workers. The hotel was operated as a concession and fell outside the company restrictions on gambling and alcohol. As a result, the saloon and small games flourished.
In the 1930s, there was a Masonic Order, an Odd-Fellows, an Orthopedic Guild to support the Children's Orthopedic Hospital in Seattle, a Church Guild, Scouts, and a Community Club. Monday was library night at the Community Hall. Tuesdays and Thursdays were men's athletics. Wednesday night, the Scouts met. On Fridays, movies were shown. Saturday nights were for dances, card parties, and other social events.
Unions
Labor organizers tried their best to unionize Port Gamble workers in the 1880s, but Cyrus Walker and Edwin Ames resisted fiercely. The Knights of Labor pushed mill operators for a shortened workday but Cyrus Walker beat them to the punch by cutting Puget Mill's hours. The shorter day (which resulted in an increase in production) did not end demands for higher wages. Puget Mill Co. steadfastly blocked all efforts by unions by using detectives who infiltrated logging camps, mills, and meetings seeking intelligence on organizing efforts. Compared to conditions at other mills, Port Gamble residents led the good life.
In July 1917, just after the U.S. entered World War I, the Industrial Workers of the World and a union affiliated with the American Federation of Labor struck the Northwest lumber industry. Port Gamble workers did not strike, but they benefited when owners accepted an eight-hour day in exchange for a government crackdown on the unions. Wages also went up at Port Gamble, but so did charges for room and board. Port Gamble workers were nominally unionized through the company-sponsored Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen.
The hard times of the 1930s triggered a resurgence in unionization efforts throughout American industry. In May 1935, McCormick Lumber broke with tradition and recognized the Lumber and Sawmill Workers Union (American Federation of Labor). A contract granted workers an eight-hour day and set the base wage at 50 cents an hour. This did not prevent a shutdown by the AFL's rival, Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1937. But when the strikers were asked to return to work, Port Gamble reopened on a single shift. Thereafter, unionized workers and management acknowledged each other's rights and roles in the workplace and contracts were negotiated annually.
Zenith
New homes in Port Gamble were built as needed by contractors hired by the company. Some managers built their own homes. Reflecting the changes that swept America at the time, the company erected a service station and garage in 1920. Some homes from Puget Mill's Port Ludlow were moved to Port Gamble to add to the housing stock in the 1920s. The service station, however, was the last new construction by the company in Port Gamble. The automobile solved the transportation problem for workers who wanted more than a small company house.
The residents of Port Gamble prospered when the mill prospered. During the Panic of 1893, Port Gamble avoided closure by supplying the Hawaiian market. The Klondike Gold Rush of 1897 got things going again in the Puget Sound region. The Panic of 1907 compelled management to close the mill for six months, however. Many skilled employees moved on and when the mill reopened, some, but not all returned. The good times for the Puget Mill Co. had ended.
By the 1910s, Port Gamble's aging mills (1858 and 1870) could no longer compete with more modern operations and direct connections to transcontinental railroads. Despite a determined sales effort and increased production in the early 1920s, Puget Mill Co. still lost money. Portland lumberman Charles R. McCormick stepped forward and offered to buy Puget Mill Co. and Pope and Talbot accepted.
On October 16, 1925, Charles R. McCormick Lumber Co. took possession of the mill and the town at Port Gamble. McCormick retained the work force and proceeded to invest $2 million to replace the mill with a modern electric operation. In 1927, 1,000 people worked at Port Gamble, up from 100 three years before. But the Great Depression (1929-1939) and McCormick's ambitious plans for renovation and expansion left the company in desperate financial straits. The Port Ludlow mill closed at the end of 1935. Residents at Port Gamble could buy their homes for $35 on condition that they haul the buildings away.
Pope and Talbot Returns
On February 15, 1938, Puget Mill Co. foreclosed on the Charles R. McCormick Lumber Co. and took back control of Port Gamble. In 1940, Puget Mill Co. consolidated and became Pope and Talbot, Inc. World War II provided a boost to production and to employment. As much as 60 percent of the lumber produced during the war years went to build housing for Naval personnel and war workers in Bremerton. Robert Mahaffay of The Seattle Times wrote in 1944:
"The high screech of the band saws in a hundred Pacific Northwest mills is a battle song. The slam and thud of logs on a sawmill's carriage, the groaning of the bull chain, the rattle of lumber on metal rollers, are undertones in the raw-melody singing of pontoon planks across which tanks will rumble, and of dock timbers for invasion beaches scattered around the world... "(Stein, 86).
After World War II, economic growth meant home construction, so the Port Gamble mill continued to produce lumber. In 1962, the massive Columbus Day Storm downed billions of board feet of timber that had to be salvaged quickly. The Forest Service sold its timber overseas to the highest bidder and the price of logs climbed. Timber that fed Northwest mills was loaded onto ships for Japan. The Columbus Day Storm also damaged the Puget Hotel beyond repair and the structure was demolished.
Pope and Talbot, Inc. shifted its business focus by shedding its shipping business, one of the mainstays since the Gold Rush. In 1967, the company invested $1.7 million to convert the Port Gamble mill from processing old-growth timber to processing smaller second-growth logs, a recognition of the looming exhaustion of virgin forests. In 1975, the company added a $3 million hardwood chip facility, the first to make a commercial use of alder which grew on logged off lands. More upgrades to the sawmill increased output in 1979 by 70 percent. Modern equipment required fewer workers however, and the payroll at Port Gamble slumped. The development of Kitsap County allowed workers to own homes and to commute to work, so the significance of company town ebbed.
In December 1985, in its tradition of flexibility, Pope and Talbot, Inc. reorganized. Pope and Talbot, Inc. separated its assets and transferred major properties to Pope Resources. Pope Resources, Inc. took over the Port Gamble townsite and the mill as well as 78,000 acres of timber and the real estate development at Port Ludlow. Port Gamble and the mill were then leased to Pope and Talbot, Inc., which continued to saw logs and make hardboard.
In 1966, the town of Port Gamble was acknowledged for its contribution to the heritage of the region by being included on the National Register of Historic Places. The community continued to function in its traditional role as a home for mill workers, but also addressed its historical significance with a museum.
End of an Epoch
Changes in the timber business dogged profitability at the Port Gamble Mill. The price of logs was up and the price of finished lumber was down. After a month-long shutdown in 1990, the work force was cut from 175 to 71 and from two shifts to one. Thirty-three employee families still lived in Port Gamble.
On November 30, 1995, the 20 remaining employees reported for the last day of work at the Port Gamble mill. The mill could not remain profitable and Pope and Talbot had to cease operations and sell off the equipment. The mill at Port Gamble was the oldest continuously operating sawmill in the U.S., at 142 years
Original partner in Puget Mill Company. Bought first mill machinery from Boston in schooner 'L.P. Foster.' First manager of Pope & Talbot Mill. She and her daughter were the first white women to visit Port Gamble site. Later she sent out Maple tree slips from E. Machias, Maine that became huge trees that shade Port Gamble streets today."
In late summer, 1853, 154 days out of Boston with no port calls between, 42 year-old Capt. Josiah P. Keller brought the schooner L. P. Foster to anchor off a sand spit at the entrance to a bay in Puget Sound, Kitsap County, Washington Territory. The location would become known as Port Gamble, site of a steam sawmill owned by the Puget Mill Company. The Foster was loaded with the machinery and supplies needed to construct the mill, and aboard were workers from Maine to build and operate it. As the resident partner and superintendent, Capt. Keller had also brought his family. In little more than a week, he had the mill operational. Before his death nine years later, the mill had become the largest single industrial enterprise in Washington Territory; Port Gamble was well on its way to becoming a model company town; and the Puget Mill Company was established as a major factor in Kitsap County’s ranking as the richest county in proportion to population in the country, a position it held for a quarter century. Before closing in 1995, the Port Gamble mill was the longest continuously operated sawmill in North America.
In this city, June 11 at 10 1/2 a.m. of heart disease Capt. J.P. Keller of Teekalet, W.T., aged 50 years and 11 months." (From the Victoria, B.C., June 17, 1862, Weekly Colonist).
Keller, Emma Talbot, Mrs. Emma Talbot Keller, widow of Capt. Josiah Keller of East Machias, who died recently at the age of 84 years, was a remarkable woman and part of her life was spent in a strange land. She belonged to a well known Maine family, being the daughter of Judge Coffin Talbot of East Machias. She married Capt. Josiah Keller in the early fifties. Immediately after her marriage she started with her husband on a sailing vessel for their distant home on Puget Sound. Capt. Keller being one of the early pioneers in that country. They arrived at their future home after a voyage of five months, during which his vessel did not once weigh anchor. She was one of the first white women to land there. Remaining there until the death of her husband, she then returned East, and with her two sisters made her home in Boston, where for many years she was prominent in literary circles. Of rare quality of mind and intellect, she was admired and beloved by all who knew her. She belonged to a family remarkable for literary talent and longevity.
JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE FROM BOSTON TO PORT TOWNSEND, WASHINGTON TERRITORY,
COMMENCED SEPT. 23, 1858 and ENDED MARCH 29th, 1859
Kept by Josiah H. Munson on board the Schooner
TOANDO of East Machias, Maine.
About setting out on a voyage around Cape Horn, from Boston, towards Oregon, I shall commence a sort of Abstract Log or Journal, giving weekly our position in Latitude and Longitude, our course and distance made, the bearing and distance of the nearest land, noting any and every event and incidence of importance or interest, which may come under my notice, such as a description of any land or sight, of vessels we chance to meet or speak, of birds, whales, sharks, etc.
As it will be written at sea in all kinds of weather, without a chance for correction, and by one not able to do it justice, even with the best of chances, it will contain many imperfections, more especially in writing composition and punctuation, which I hope my friends will kindly overlook and excuse.
In the first place some description of the little craft, so long to be our home, will not be out of place. She is a strong, well built fore and aft schooner of 160 tons burthen, built by Mr. Wm. Cunningham, and owned by Mr. Charles Foster, of the firm of Foster and Keller, and commanded by Capt.’s G.D. and A.W. Keller, all of East Machiasi. The Capt.’s Keller are gentlemen highly esteemed and worthy of the trust imposed in them. The schooner Toando, I wish she had a better name, Lucy would sound much better, is well fitted out, victualed and manned for the voyage, though about the men I can’t say, they count well by numbers, but thin for sailors.
As they are all from about home, you can judge for yourselves when you see their names. Her cargo consists of coal, nails, spikes, pine boards, oak and ash planks, boats and oars on deck. She is very deep, I think much too deep for so long a voyage, this with the name she has already of being a very dull sailer, rather discourages us about a passage being a little ambitious, and serious of making it not uncommon long.
We cherish hopes of making the passage somewhere near the L.P. Foster’s time, about five and one-half months, yet we would be content to do it in six. At any rate we shall do the best we can, improve all slants, and try to have no lost or misspent time to reflect upon. Our company, officers, passengers and crew are 17. Capt. G.D. Keller, wife and family. I will give you their names, Betsey, his wife; Emily; Goddard, Jr.; Betsey; John; and Helen, the youngest, the pet and play thing of all. Little Kittie Clydeii, we all call her, is about 2_ years old and loves everyone best. Capt. A.W. Keller and Laura, his wife [and Josiah Munson’s sister], and your humble servant, myself, make up the complement aft. Mr. Nathaniel Harmon, cook; Thomas Pierce; James Thompson; James Demmons; Martin V.B.Ames; Lewis Smith; and Edward Durgan comprise the list of sailors. In looking around for able seamen the Capt.’s Keller is all I can find though Demmons and Durgan will do, and in fact are all we can depend on at present, but I presume a month or two at sea will make things appear better.
Thursday, September 23, 1858, was our sailing day, consequently all on board were up earlier than usual doing their little errands, looking for hoped for letters and mailing theirs written to relatives and friends never perhaps to be met again, doing a little forgotten or neglected shopping etc.
At 1 o’clock Mr. Foster came with the tow boat Stag, made fast to us and away we went down the harbor, leaving Boston for years and probably some and perhaps all of us for ever. I know not what was passing through the minds of the ladies, whatever it might have been was neither pleasing or cheering, their eyes were filled with tears, and there seemed to rest a feeling of subdued sadness on the minds of all. My own regrets at leaving home would not be many, were it not for the sad reflections that I was leaving my father and mother alone for how long I know not, who now in their declining years, more than ever, need my assistance. It must indeed be lonely to them after having so many of us around, being entirely alone. For their sake I hope soon to return.
At 10 o’clock in the evening we passed Cape Cod. The wind for two or three days before had been out of the South and South East winds which made it very rough, and made our new sailors experience a delicate but not agreeable, sensation about the stomach.
Friday at 3:30 A.M. morning Cape Cod light bore West, distance 14 miles from which our departure is taken and of course shaped across the trackless waters.
Sunday, September 26, 3 days out - Latitude 39:38 N, Longitude 66:13 W course and distance sailed SE_E 270 miles from Boston Lighthouse.
Sunday, October 24, 31 days out, Latitude 21:07 N Longitude 30:00 W course and distance sailed SE_E 630 miles. Bearing and distance of Cape Verde islands SE_E 365 miles. Thursday at 2 A.M. crossed the parallel of 25N in Longitude 34:56. Friday at 9 o’clock A.M. crossed the tropic of Cancer. Another week has passed and we are not farther ahead than at its commencement. In fact according to Maury’s directions our last week’s position was much the best for making a quick run to the Equator. By the directions we ought to be in 35:00 Longitude, but we could not get there. We have had the winds from WSW to SW and very light, except Monday and Tuesday when it blew a strong gale and we could not make but little better than an East course. It is rather discouraging, in this time we hoped to be across the Equator, at least but are only 2/3 of the distance and in a hard position to make the remaining 1/3. However, we must make the best of it. It would not seem so bad if our little craft was a little swifter getting through the water. Wednesday forenoon saw a ship to weather on the same tack as ourselves.
Wednesday afternoon as we were at work on the Flying jibboom repairing some damage done in the gale, it being very rough and the vessel sailing at the rate of 5_ knots (not miles) per hour, she pitched into it and put us two or three feet under water. Albert not having a good hold was washed off. They on deck, hove the wheel down and threw him a line which he caught and we hauled him in aft of the main rigging. We got other duckings before finishing the job, but were more careful and at last got the thing fixed. As the preceding, this week was past without seeing a whale or shark and but little else. An occasional bird or flying fish is all. If this wind continues we shall probably sight the Cape Verdes Tuesday, but I hope that we will be favored with better wind before that time. The general health of the company has been and is at present good.
Emily’s Journal: Wednesday, Nov. 24, 1858. = Lat 32_ 03' = Longitude 36_ 56'
We reckon up everything we had even to a needle. Heavy Westerly gales and passing clouds and heavy sea quite cool, have thought of putting on some extra clothing, saw some birds called the Albatross. Sewing has been our chief occupation for to-day. Laura & I have been figuring this afternoon to see how much our clothes have cost for the last two years. Laura’s cost $135.36. Mine cost $76.97, some difference. I cannot write any more to night, for it is too rough, Josiah has had to hold me up, while I’ve been writing this.
Emily’s Journal: Saturday Dec. 25, 1858. Lat 55° 65' Long 63° 30'
Today we have had a strong breeze from the W.N.W. The weather has been quite pleasant and sea rough. We’ve seen a ship and a bark and a full rigged brig. We think they are the same ones that we saw Wednesday, they are bound the same way we are. The ship came quite near. Wed. the men killed one of the pigs. We had a pot pie made of feet, if it is for supper it was only big enough for two messes. Today is Christmas. I wish you all a “Merry Christmas” and I’ve no doubt but it will be merrier than ours. I suppose there is a tea party in Pope’s Hall and you are all preparing to go about this time. A year ago tonight, Thankful and I took a walk around the square with F. Huntley and sunbeam Whittmore. Bet got a dress skirt, two books, a book mark and a pickle and hard tack bread in her stocking. I got a present (I dare not tell you what) from Josiah, but the best present we received was a fair wind. We doubled Cape St. John, the eastern end of Staten Island, Mother and Laura been sewing. I finished my stocking. I haven’t anything more to say to night so I’ll “turn in.” Good night.
Sunday, December 26, 94 days out, Latitude 56:05S, Longitude 66:39W, course and distance sailed, SSE½E, 295 miles. Bearing and distance of Cape Horn, west 120 miles. My closest hope of last week not yet realized, yet we are now in the broad road to the Pacific, having yesterday “doubled” St. John, the Eastern end of Staten Island. I think I never saw so much disagreeable weather and heavy head winds before. . . . By carrying every inch of canvas we dared show, and sometimes more, and what I considered good management, we kept quite near the land, and though we could not keep a position to go through the Straits (of Magellan), we were in a good place to take a fair wind which came yesterday morning being off the East end of Staten Island. At noon we doubled Cape St. John with a fine, fair wholesail breeze. At 6 PM it died away calm and at 10 it changed, breezed up suddenly SW, directly ahead, with heavy rain. We got her under snug reefs as soon as possible. . . .
Yesterday was Christmas. It passed off quite pleasant but not so pleasant I think if we had been home, or even been favored with a fair wind and pleasant weather where we are. As we must have a “Christmas Dinner” Captain Keller killed the fatted pig which was enjoyed very much after living so long on salt provisions. Some of the children, though so far at sea, did not forget Santa Claus, and accordingly hung up their stockings, and he though not very liberal with his presents showed that he did not forget them. All the company seem to enjoy better health in this cold weather than they did in the warm, and if we could be blessed with the same fair winds and smooth water, we should enjoy ourselves very much, but it is very rough and uncomfortable all the time. No more this week.
Sunday, January 16, 1859, 115 days out, Latitude 55:41 S. Longitude 80:16W. Course and distance sailed N by W 3/4 W, 189 miles. Bearing and distance off Cape Horn East 435 miles. This has been the hardest, roughest and most stormy week of all. It commenced with an awful gale of wind, almost a hurricane, by far the heaviest we have experienced at all, and like the rest directly ahead. Our little craft behaves finely, much better than we could expect, so deep and with this deck-load.
Three or four seas boarded her aft and came near making our number 3 or 4 short. Pierce and Smith were both washed away from the wheel and Pierce came near going overboard, he caught the lee rail with his hand and Capt. Keller, standing in the gangway, caught him by the leg. I saw the sea when it struck him and I thought he was surely gone. Captain Keller got knocked down under the wheel and hurt quite bad. It was the ugliest sea that I ever saw, so short and coming from all points of the compass, foaming as if bound to destroy all that should stand in its way. Split the new mainsail and that three reefed. Set the storm tryssail. It was a horrid gale and I never desire to see another like it. The wind through the week has varied only from NW to WSW and only part of one day did we have the whole lower sail set. When we shall have a slant to get into better weather is more than I can tell, but I hope this week is the last we shall have so stormy. Such weather lengthens our passage awfully. Tuesday evening saw a Bark under short sail trying with us to get out of the bad weather.
Wednesday evening split the flying jib all to pieces, sent it in, bent a new one and set it, also shook out a reef or two. Plenty of Albatross around us as usual and a few penguins. Yesterday afternoon saw a sail to windward. This is awful weather, hard to describe. Blowing a gale most of the time, either steady, stormy or hail, rain and snow squalls. The sun above the horizon two thirds of the time, but seldom seen, have had a poor chance for observations for nearly a month past. We seldom see a star or the moon, much less to think of getting an observation of them. The company are all well as usual with the exception of a few boils among the men, and a breeding sore on Captain Albert’s thumb. They are tired and about discouraged.
Emily’s Journal: Saturday, February 12, 1859. Commenced with light airs from S.E. its fair what there is, but it’s nearly calm, weather pleasant. Saw two whales and a tropic bird. I’ve been embroidering, the rest of the [women] folks sewing. Dear me, I wish we could have a breeze of wind so that we could get along for I’m sick of the sea. I’d like to get ashore and have a good run. There’s nothing to write as usual, so good night, pleasant dreams be thine, is my sincere wish. Lat 28° 25'–Long 95° 29 Feb. 12
Sunday, March 6, 1859, 164 days out, Latitude 8:05 N. Longitude 121:08 W. Course and distance sailed NNW_W 680 miles. Tuesday at 8 P.M. crossed the Equator in 115:55 W. Longitude. Friday at 11:15 A.M. crossed 5N Latitude in Longitude 121:08 W. Monday evening at half past 7 spoke the Mexican bark Ranger, 26 days out from San Francisco bound to Valparaiso. Our Longitudes were alike, within 5 miles. This week we have had calm, light variable winds, squalls and towards the last part heavy breezes, which I hope to be the Southern edge of the NE trades, though far to the Northward. I hope they will soon check to the Southward in our favor and let us finish up this long and tedious passage. Friday morning saw a ship about 10 miles off on our lee bow, so far that we could only see her top gallant sails above the water. Large schools of porpoises, some whales, a few dolphins which made us a very nice fresh fry although very dry. A very few tropic birds have been around, one of which gave us a call. He came on board, stopped an hour or so to get some breakfast and left again. The weather has been very hot, especially the first part of the week, while so calm. We constructed a shower bath, which I think we ought to have done long before. It was very refreshing those warm mornings and evenings to step in and take a cool bath, though not very cold as the temperature of the water is about 80. The girls enjoy it very much. The whole company is in good health and spirits.
Tuesday, March 29, 1859, 187 days out. Latitude and Longitude being Port Townsendiii. Arrived at last all in good health and spirits after so long a voyage. We came to anchor for the first time in more than seven [sic] monthsiv at half past 9 this morning in the fine harbor of Port Townsend where we shall receive orders about discharging. Our passage has been long and rather hard and uncomfortable, owing to the small size of the vessel, and being so deeply laden. Yet we have done very well considering everything and we lived more comfortable than we expected when we left. Though there has been a large family of us there seems to have been room enough for all.
As we have arrived all right I will consider the voyage ended and close up the journal hoping that if any of you take the trouble to follow through the crooked and wild scribbling you will have the kindness to overlook the many imperfections which it contains. I shall try to send it in this mail, as soon as it reaches you all write in return. While here in this country I leave off journalizing and write to all as often as I can. No more at present.
(Signed) Josiah H. Munson
Josiah and Emily were married soon after their arrival and settled in Washington Territory, as did Goddard Sr. and his family. Goddard Jr. became a sea captain and was lost as sea. Laura died of consumption and complications after the birth of twins, who also died. Albert lived a long life, commanding many vessels for the Pope and Talbot Company.
i. The Toando was new, built at East Machias that year and probably at the shipyard of Charles Foster and Capt. Josiah P. Keller. Foster and Keller were each ½-owners in her. In 1852, they had joined with fellow East Machias natives Andrew Pope and William Talbot in forming the Puget Mill Company, a successful lumber manufacturing and marketing enterprise. The mill was located at Port Gamble on Puget Sound with company headquarters in San Francisco. Josiah Keller was partner in residence and mill superintendent at Port Gamble, the Toando’s destination.
Capt. Goddard D. Keller, probably a first cousin of Josiah Keller, was a seasoned master mariner. Machias vessel registration and enrollment records show that from 1841 to 1858 he was master of at least seven vessels: brig Juan J. De Cartegena; schooner Charles L. Vose; schooner George Evans; brig Miranda;brig Eureka; brig Celt; and now the schooner Toando. He had owned shares in the Cartegena and the Vose. All were Machias or East Machias-built.
Albert W. Keller would serve as first mate during the Toando voyage. He had been to Puget Sound in 1853 with his uncle Josiah when the mill equipment was brought out from Boston on the schooner L.P. Foster. Now at 26 and having had his own previous command, he would be his father’s mate and navigator. He was the only one on board to have been around the Horn.
Josiah Munson himself served as second mate.
ii. An apparent allusion to Kitty Clyde, a sentimental song of the period composed by L.H.V. Crosby and published in sheet music in 1853.
iii. Port of Entry for the Customs District of Puget Sound, Washington Territory.
iv. 187 days would be more than six, rather than seven, months.
Port Gamble represents one of the few remaining examples of company towns, thousands of which were built in the nineteenth century by industrialists to house employees. Founders Josiah Keller, William Talbot, and Andrew Pope planned the town to reflect the character of their hometown, East Machias, Maine, where many of the early employees originated. For 142 years, the community existed to support sawmills that produced lumber for the world market. The mill closed in 1995, but as a National Historic Site, the townsite has been preserved to reflect an authentic company mill town. The first known residents of Port Gamble were members of the Nooksclime, Clallam, or S'Kallam tribe who fished and gathered food along Hood Canal. The S'Klallams belonged to the linguistic group, South Coast Salish, which populated Puget Sound. Tribes traded and intermarried and generally experienced little conflict except for raids from outside the region. In 1841, a U.S. Navy expedition led by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes (1798-1877) named the two-mile-long bay at the mouth of Hood Canal after Navy Lieutenant Robert Gamble, who was wounded in the War of 1812.
In the summer of 1853, San Francisco lumber merchant and sea captain William Talbot (1816-1881) spotted the sand spit at the mouth of the bay as a likely place for a lumber mill. Talbot was a partner of Josiah Keller (d. 1862), Andrew Pope (1820-1878), and Charles Foster in the Puget Mill Company. They planned to cut the abundant trees of Oregon Territory into lumber for sale in California and across the Pacific. The sand spit sheltered ships and was close to stands of timber.
S'Klallams already lived on the spit and on the bluff above. Keller induced the natives to move across the bay to Point Julia in exchange for free lumber, firewood, and Christmas gifts. The S'Kallams called the site Teekalet, "brightness of the noonday sun," for the way the water and sand reflected light on sunny days. Talbot borrowed that name for the mill.
Puget Mill Co.
Talbot's partner Keller soon arrived in another ship with the boiler, engine, and muley saw. By September 1853, the mill at Teekalet was cutting logs into lumber. The muley saw was a single blade that moved up and down in a mechanical version of a sawpit. The initial output was modest, 2,000 board feet a day -- about a tenth of the lumber needed to build a five-room house of the time. The first lumber went to enclose the mill and to build cabins, a bunkhouse, and a cookhouse. In January, Keller and his assistant superintendent Cyrus Walker (1827-1913) installed a sash saw that was lighter and 10 times more productive.
On January 26, 1854, the Treaty of Point No Point ceded the land around Port Gamble to the United States and relegated the S'Klallams to a reservation with the Skokomish at the bend of Hood Canal. The S'Klallams were not interested in sharing a small reservation with another tribe and they continued to reside at Point Julia, which came to be called Little Boston.
The small community of two-dozen whites on the sand spit included Joshua Keller, his wife and two children, and men from the partners' hometown of East Machias, Maine. The store offered goods for sale to settlers and natives, but other amenities were sparse. Single workers lived in the bunkhouse and families had small cabins. During the Indian War of 1855-1856, Keller ordered construction of a wood blockhouse against an attack. A raid by the Haidas of Canada came in November 1856. The settlers held their own until the arrival of the steam sloop U.S.S. Massachusetts. One sailor, Gustavus Englebrecht, was killed in that encounter. He became the first burial in a cemetery on the bluff.
Men for the Mill
Staffing the mill proved to be a challenge. The newly organized Washington Territory was wilderness and there were few men available for work. Keller hired settlers, most of whom worked only long enough to earn cash and file claims on land of their own, and S'Kallams from Point Julia. One early worker was Dexter Horton (1825-1904), who ran the cookhouse. He saved his wages and moved to Seattle where he opened a store and later a bank.
With the help of their Maine-based partner, Charles Foster, Pope, Talbot, and Keller recruited experienced mill workers from East Machias to come West. A common device was a six-month contract with the employers paying the cost of passage. The employee was obligated to work off the expense over a period of six months. Workers wrote home of the opportunities and steady employment. (Water-powered Maine sawmills closed in the winter; the steam-powered mill at Teekalet ran year round). By necessity, Puget Mill Co. established a company town to provide housing and food for workers who had no other place to live.
In 1858, the partners added a second mill farther out on the spit. That operation used newly developed circular saws, and as a result both production and the payroll increased. Keller also built a mill to grind grain into flour for the cookhouse. The flour sold for many years under the Kitsap brand. That same year, Keller filed a plat with the territorial government for a town called Teekalet. The town plan followed the grid pattern common to new cities of the West.
The company built houses for managers and married workers up on the bluff with the bunkhouse and cookhouse down on the spit close to the mill. A dance hall provided entertainment. Andrew Pope wrote, "We have really got some very valuable men here, and if we can make them contented by laying out a few hundred doll[ar]s I think it is a good investment." In 1859, Puget Mill Co. built the first school in Kitsap County. In 1860, a community hall went up for "those who desire public worship, social enjoyment or fraternal communion and to educate the children" (Eakins, 25). That year the Census counted 15 married couples and 15 children in the town, with a total population of 202.
Work
Every morning at 6:20 a.m., the workers woke to the mill whistle. At 6:40 a.m., the whistle signaled a breakfast often consisting of "boiled corn beef, potatoes, baked beans, hash, hot griddle cakes, biscuits, and coffee" (Coman, 70). The men had 20 minutes to eat and report for a 11½-hour day. A good worker earned $30 a month and he was paid in fifty-cent pieces, daily if he chose. Many other Puget Sound mill workers received warrants that they had to take to Seattle to cash. According to Pope and Talbot historian Edwin Coman Jr., "four-bit" pieces became a symbol of employment at Puget Mill.
The employees worked hard and were paid well, but sawmills of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were dangerous places. Saws and other machinery lacked protective shielding and men often worked inches from sharp blades that could in an instant snatch a finger, an arm, or even a life. Company records show that 10 to 20 men quit every day, but were immediately replaced by new workers.
The oscillating sash saws, spinning circular saws, and planing mills generated sawdust, which fueled the steam boilers. Wood waste, called slabs, could be used in the boilers of steamships and the rest was burned in open fires that blazed continuously from 1855 to 1925. Unless the wind blew it away, a pall of woodsmoke constantly hung over the mill and the community. The mill at Teekalet was a cargo mill and cut lumber to load on ships, some owned by the partners. The ships carried Puget Mill cargoes to San Francisco, the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), Australia, and Asia.
Keller was superintendent of the Teekalet mill, but he was often gone. Fellow "Mainer" Cyrus Walker, a member of the founding crew of 1853, filled in during those absences. When Keller died in 1862, Walker became superintendent. Under Walker's management, the town of Port Gamble grew and prospered.
The Town of Port Gamble
In 1868, Walker took down the old mill and replaced it with components from another operation. That year, the Territorial Legislature approved a new name for the town -- Port Gamble. Most of the workers had Maine origins, but Chinese, Hawaiians, and at least one African American worked there as well. Members of the S'Kallam tribe also found employment and were well regarded as workers. The S'Klallams built a village at Point Julia called Boston -- later Little Boston -- just across the bay with lumber provided by Puget Mill. They commuted to work by canoe.
In the 1870s, Port Gamble boasted a Dramatic Club, a baseball team, a reading room, a circulating library, and a 14-piece brass band. The general store supplied food and other goods and posted newspaper clippings for all to read. In 1879, the Union Congregational Church was built in a style reminiscent of New England churches. The pastor doubled as company physician.
Superintendent Walker saw that housing reflected the social and ethnic distinctions of the community. Managers had the best homes on the high ground, the superintendent's home being the largest and best sited of all. Skilled workers and their families got the next best dwellings. In the 1880s, Scandinavian immigrants and their families arrived on the transcontinental railroad along with Germans, Swiss, Slovaks, and Greeks. They moved into homes built on the other side of second-growth forest to the west and south of town in neighborhoods called New England and Murphy Row.
Unmarried men lived in bunkhouses and cabins on the spit. Hotels on the spit accommodated loggers, longshoremen, and sailors who often constituted a third of the population. Chinese employees always lived in separate quarters. Residents enjoyed modern conveniences such as indoor plumbing and clean water. The children could go to school and the company took care of virtually every need, from childbirth to a mortuary and burial services.
Company policy prohibited gambling and women of questionable character. Sailors and loggers rowed to Point Julia for the female companionship lacking in Port Gamble. In spite of Cyrus Walker's opposition to alcohol, the company store offered liquor for sale.
In 1888, the original partners replaced their 68-year-old brother-in-law Cyrus Walker as superintendent with East Machias native Edwin Ames. Ames ran Puget Mill Co. and Port Gamble until 1925 and contributed his name to the superintendent's house built in 1888. Ames instituted some technical innovations that Walker had resisted, particularly electric lighting. Incandescent lights in the mills served an important safety function because the risk of fire was so great in mills. Before long employee homes glowed with electric lighting as well. Walker had also resisted installing band saws that cut faster and wasted less of the log. That innovation did not arrive until just before World War I.
Community
Puget Mill Co. sponsored celebrations every Fourth of July. Employees had the day off and families from other company mills at Port Ludlow and Utsalady rode company tugs and steamers to Port Gamble. Some years, one of the other towns played host. Company cooks and housewives prepared picnic feasts, baseball teams competed, and at dark, fireworks lit the sky -- all paid for by the company. After the children were put to bed, music and dance filled the social halls. Christmas was another important holiday, again with a community feast, caroling, and gifts for every child.
A centerpiece of the town was the general store on Rainier Avenue. Here residents purchased all their supplies and received news of the world from newsclippings on a bulletin board. The largest structure, aside from the mill was the Puget Hotel built in 1907 on the bluff overlooking Hood Canal. The hotel was intended for tourists and to house visiting company officials. An annex had rooms for single workers. The hotel was operated as a concession and fell outside the company restrictions on gambling and alcohol. As a result, the saloon and small games flourished.
In the 1930s, there was a Masonic Order, an Odd-Fellows, an Orthopedic Guild to support the Children's Orthopedic Hospital in Seattle, a Church Guild, Scouts, and a Community Club. Monday was library night at the Community Hall. Tuesdays and Thursdays were men's athletics. Wednesday night, the Scouts met. On Fridays, movies were shown. Saturday nights were for dances, card parties, and other social events.
Unions
Labor organizers tried their best to unionize Port Gamble workers in the 1880s, but Cyrus Walker and Edwin Ames resisted fiercely. The Knights of Labor pushed mill operators for a shortened workday but Cyrus Walker beat them to the punch by cutting Puget Mill's hours. The shorter day (which resulted in an increase in production) did not end demands for higher wages. Puget Mill Co. steadfastly blocked all efforts by unions by using detectives who infiltrated logging camps, mills, and meetings seeking intelligence on organizing efforts. Compared to conditions at other mills, Port Gamble residents led the good life.
In July 1917, just after the U.S. entered World War I, the Industrial Workers of the World and a union affiliated with the American Federation of Labor struck the Northwest lumber industry. Port Gamble workers did not strike, but they benefited when owners accepted an eight-hour day in exchange for a government crackdown on the unions. Wages also went up at Port Gamble, but so did charges for room and board. Port Gamble workers were nominally unionized through the company-sponsored Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen.
The hard times of the 1930s triggered a resurgence in unionization efforts throughout American industry. In May 1935, McCormick Lumber broke with tradition and recognized the Lumber and Sawmill Workers Union (American Federation of Labor). A contract granted workers an eight-hour day and set the base wage at 50 cents an hour. This did not prevent a shutdown by the AFL's rival, Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1937. But when the strikers were asked to return to work, Port Gamble reopened on a single shift. Thereafter, unionized workers and management acknowledged each other's rights and roles in the workplace and contracts were negotiated annually.
Zenith
New homes in Port Gamble were built as needed by contractors hired by the company. Some managers built their own homes. Reflecting the changes that swept America at the time, the company erected a service station and garage in 1920. Some homes from Puget Mill's Port Ludlow were moved to Port Gamble to add to the housing stock in the 1920s. The service station, however, was the last new construction by the company in Port Gamble. The automobile solved the transportation problem for workers who wanted more than a small company house.
The residents of Port Gamble prospered when the mill prospered. During the Panic of 1893, Port Gamble avoided closure by supplying the Hawaiian market. The Klondike Gold Rush of 1897 got things going again in the Puget Sound region. The Panic of 1907 compelled management to close the mill for six months, however. Many skilled employees moved on and when the mill reopened, some, but not all returned. The good times for the Puget Mill Co. had ended.
By the 1910s, Port Gamble's aging mills (1858 and 1870) could no longer compete with more modern operations and direct connections to transcontinental railroads. Despite a determined sales effort and increased production in the early 1920s, Puget Mill Co. still lost money. Portland lumberman Charles R. McCormick stepped forward and offered to buy Puget Mill Co. and Pope and Talbot accepted.
On October 16, 1925, Charles R. McCormick Lumber Co. took possession of the mill and the town at Port Gamble. McCormick retained the work force and proceeded to invest $2 million to replace the mill with a modern electric operation. In 1927, 1,000 people worked at Port Gamble, up from 100 three years before. But the Great Depression (1929-1939) and McCormick's ambitious plans for renovation and expansion left the company in desperate financial straits. The Port Ludlow mill closed at the end of 1935. Residents at Port Gamble could buy their homes for $35 on condition that they haul the buildings away.
Pope and Talbot Returns
On February 15, 1938, Puget Mill Co. foreclosed on the Charles R. McCormick Lumber Co. and took back control of Port Gamble. In 1940, Puget Mill Co. consolidated and became Pope and Talbot, Inc. World War II provided a boost to production and to employment. As much as 60 percent of the lumber produced during the war years went to build housing for Naval personnel and war workers in Bremerton. Robert Mahaffay of The Seattle Times wrote in 1944:
"The high screech of the band saws in a hundred Pacific Northwest mills is a battle song. The slam and thud of logs on a sawmill's carriage, the groaning of the bull chain, the rattle of lumber on metal rollers, are undertones in the raw-melody singing of pontoon planks across which tanks will rumble, and of dock timbers for invasion beaches scattered around the world... "(Stein, 86).
After World War II, economic growth meant home construction, so the Port Gamble mill continued to produce lumber. In 1962, the massive Columbus Day Storm downed billions of board feet of timber that had to be salvaged quickly. The Forest Service sold its timber overseas to the highest bidder and the price of logs climbed. Timber that fed Northwest mills was loaded onto ships for Japan. The Columbus Day Storm also damaged the Puget Hotel beyond repair and the structure was demolished.
Pope and Talbot, Inc. shifted its business focus by shedding its shipping business, one of the mainstays since the Gold Rush. In 1967, the company invested $1.7 million to convert the Port Gamble mill from processing old-growth timber to processing smaller second-growth logs, a recognition of the looming exhaustion of virgin forests. In 1975, the company added a $3 million hardwood chip facility, the first to make a commercial use of alder which grew on logged off lands. More upgrades to the sawmill increased output in 1979 by 70 percent. Modern equipment required fewer workers however, and the payroll at Port Gamble slumped. The development of Kitsap County allowed workers to own homes and to commute to work, so the significance of company town ebbed.
In December 1985, in its tradition of flexibility, Pope and Talbot, Inc. reorganized. Pope and Talbot, Inc. separated its assets and transferred major properties to Pope Resources. Pope Resources, Inc. took over the Port Gamble townsite and the mill as well as 78,000 acres of timber and the real estate development at Port Ludlow. Port Gamble and the mill were then leased to Pope and Talbot, Inc., which continued to saw logs and make hardboard.
In 1966, the town of Port Gamble was acknowledged for its contribution to the heritage of the region by being included on the National Register of Historic Places. The community continued to function in its traditional role as a home for mill workers, but also addressed its historical significance with a museum.
End of an Epoch
Changes in the timber business dogged profitability at the Port Gamble Mill. The price of logs was up and the price of finished lumber was down. After a month-long shutdown in 1990, the work force was cut from 175 to 71 and from two shifts to one. Thirty-three employee families still lived in Port Gamble.
On November 30, 1995, the 20 remaining employees reported for the last day of work at the Port Gamble mill. The mill could not remain profitable and Pope and Talbot had to cease operations and sell off the equipment. The mill at Port Gamble was the oldest continuously operating sawmill in the U.S., at 142 years