Told by the Pioneers: Reminiscences of Pioneer Life in Washington, vol. 2 (WPA, 1938)

A letter from Penn Cove, Whidbey Island, printed under the heading "A Pioneer Writes to His Mother": "(This letter was written by E. Holbrook, brother of Captain Robert [sic] Holbrook, who was one of the first pioneers on Whidby Island)." Read 13 Oct 2026 in the Washington State Library's scan (PDF pp. 150-151).

Penn's Cove, W. T., Jan. 26, 1854

Dear Mother: I now sit down to write you again, to let you know that I am stopping yet with Richard on this cove, That we are all well and have a plenty to eat and drink and have a good comfortable log house to live in. We have had no news since I have been up here and we have some trouble to get letters to and from the postoffice, which is near one hundred miles from here, and letters are brought down by private conveyance. This spring or summer there will be one in this place. ...

Governor Stevens visited this place last week in company with Judge Lancaster, the democratic candidate for delegate to Congress. ... Governor Stevens is a very small man in stature, but in mind appears to be above the common run. ...

The land along the Sound is heavily timbered with fir, cedar, and occasionally yew, oak and white pine. The soil is rather poor, not much if any better than in New England. The best soil I have seen is on this (Whidby) Island; it is considered the best in the Territory.

Richard has a good farm, all good soil, nearly all cleared land, and one side of it is on the cove, which is a large and beautiful harbor.

The climate here is much milder than in Massachusetts, nearly all December the weather was very like that of May at home, and I could pick as many blackberries as I wanted from the bushes. ... The last of February is the time for planting.

There are 31 sawmills in the Territory, and a number building. There are about 30 vessels running between here and San Francisco. Most of them are barks and ships.

Give my best respects to Luther, Aunt Lucy and to all hands. Most affectionately, your son, E. Holbrook.

Which brother "E." was, Elisha or Eliphalet, the letter doesn't say. The Huntington Library holds two letters of E. Holbrook to his mother (mssHM 24543-24544), this one and another from Sonora, California, 26 Apr 1854, and pages of an E. Holbrook journal, 1846-1863 (mssHM 2280), as its catalogue describes them; not yet seen.

Robert Hill, "The Murder of Colonel Ebey," Island County (pp. 115-118). Hill farmed next to the Ebeys. The northern people, he says, came back to the Sound the year after the Massachusetts killed their chief at Port Gamble, and camped at Admiralty Head for several days, "but were driven away by a number of us settlers on account of the fear among our families." When two of them asked Tom Hastie whether Ebey, at work in a field, was a chief, he "thoughtlessly replied: 'Yes, he is a hyas tyee.' (Big chief.)" That night they called Ebey out: "'What do you want?' 'We want your head!' came the answer in jargon (this was afterward related by Mrs. Ebey)," and he "fell, dead, at his own door." Marshal Corliss and his wife ran to Hill's house; Hill, his brother, William B. Engle and Judge Crosby made for the beach with their guns, but "the Indians were aboard their canoes and so far out in the fog we could not see them. None of us at that time knew what had been Colonel Ebey's fate." Two years later his head was returned through the Hudson's Bay Company. "For several years thereafter, no northern Indian ever set foot on Whidby Island and lived to return to his native northern home." (Hill dates Port Gamble to the fall of 1855; it was November 1856.)

Flora A. P. Engle, "Pioneer Privations and Pleasures," Island County (pp. 118-120). In 1852-53 "flour was $40 a barrel and scarce at that; salt pork was $20 a barrel"; the island lived on venison, salmon and potatoes; furniture came round the Horn by way of San Francisco. Families went "six or seven miles" by farm wagon to spend the day with a neighbour: "Hospitality was unbounded and every man was the close friend and comrade of his neighbor. ... The afflictions of one household became a common cause of sorrow and the good fortune of a neighbor brought rejoicing to all." "When a candidate for office came to the island to speak, everybody attended to hear him exalt his own party and abuse the opposing party." Read 14 Oct 2026.