CHAPTER XXIV.
THE WASHINGTON COAST.
In order to visit the two most important points on the coast of Washington Territory, we will return to the Columbia River and Astoria. Crossing over by the mail-steamer to Baker's Bay, we find a stage awaiting us by which we are to be conveyed to Oysterville on Shoalwater Bay. The entrance to this bay is twenty-seven miles north of the Columbia, though it extends down to within three or four miles of Baker's Bay, leaving a long strip of land, from one to one and a half miles in width, between itself and the ocean. It is on this long peninsula that Oysterville is situated, and the drive to it is along the beach nearly the whole distance. Of a fine summer's day the excursion is an exhilarating one. The town is upon the inside of the peninsula, and fronts the bay and the main-land opposite. Its distance below the entrance to the bay is about eight miles.
Although the county-seat of Pacific County, and, like Port Townsend, a place for the receipt of customs, it is but a small village, and depends on the oyster trade for its chief support. The annual shipment of oysters to San Francisco is estimated at forty thousand baskets. Quite a number of visitors may be found here in the summer, who come to the coast to escape the heat of the valleys in the months of July and August. The drive on the beach, and the privilege of boating on the bay, are about the only amusements.
Shoalwater Bay is about twenty-five miles long by from four to seven wide. As its name indicates, the bay has many shoals, but with numerous deep channels, which make it easily navigable. There is plenty of water on the bar—mean low-water being eighteen feet, and mean high-water twenty-four. There is a light-house on Toke's Point, the extreme north-west point of Cape Shoalwater, at the north side of the entrance. The light is of the fourth order, fixed and varied by a flash. There are many fine sites for building, both on the peninsula and on the main-land opposite.
Several rivers empty into Shoalwater Bay—North, Cedar, Willopah, Palix, Nema, Nacelle, and Bear. Of these, the Willopah is most important. Its whole length is not more than forty miles, yet it is navigable for vessels of twelve feet draught for a distance of fifteen miles from its entrance; and its valley contains a large amount of the richest land in the Territory. Next to the Willopah is the Nacelle. A portion of the Nacelle Valley is prairie, and the remainder covered with Cottonwood. This country is rapidly settling up, and is represented as being very handsome, with a soil of rich, black loam. The valley, it is thought, affords room enough for about one hundred farms. There is a large amount of Government land in these small valleys, of the best character, on which colonies of farmers might find excellent farms, at Government price.
Fourteen miles north of Shoalwater Bay is a smaller, but more important one, called Gray's Harbor, covering an area of about eighty square miles. The country between these two bays is a narrow strip of sandy prairie near the sea, and back of it small lakes, and cranberry marshes; in all respects resembling the plains south of the Columbia River. Both have evidently been formed by the sand brought down by the Columbia, and other rivers, and moved by wave and wind into its present position.
The entrance to Gray's Harbor is about three-fourths of a mile in width, with twenty-one feet on the bar at mean low-water, and thirty-one feet at mean high-water. It is considered a good and safe harbor. That which makes the importance of Gray's Harbor, is the fact that it lies only about sixty miles directly west of the head of the Sound; and that it can easily be brought into connection with the Northern Pacific Railroad by means of the Chehalis River, which empties into it. This river, as perhaps the reader will remember, we crossed twice in going from the Columbia to the Sound. At the first crossing is the little village of Claquato, in the valley of the Chehalis, near the junction of the Newaukum with the latter river. Either at this point, or a few miles to the east, in the Newaukum Valley, there must be a station on the Northern Pacific Railroad, the distance from which to Olympia is thirty-seven miles. The Chehalis River being navigable for light-draught steamers for a distance of sixty miles, in a meandering course, leaves but a short distance to be overcome in reaching the railroad, which would give communication with either the Sound or the Columbia River. It was this fact which induced a company to buy up a large tract of land on Gray's Harbor only a few months ago; and the probabilities are that they will make it one of the most important harbors on the whole coast.
Tide-water extends twenty miles up the Chehalis River, and also into some of its tributaries, making them also navigable. The valley of the Chehalis is the most extensive of any in Western Washington. Nor is its beauty or fertility exceeded by any others. It belongs to the coast only through the circumstances we have named, the greater portion of its extent being cast of the Coast Mountains. Gray's Harbor is in Chehalis County, the shire-town of which is Montesano. The population of both Pacific and Chehalis counties will not amount to more than twelve hundred.
North of Gray's Harbor, until we come to the Straits of Juan de Fuca, the coast is unsettled. There is, however, a large amount of fine, level country between the sea and the Coast Range—a much greater extent than anywhere on the Oregon coast. It would also appear from the last census returns that grain-raising is carried on no more extensively in the coast counties of Washington than Oregon. Chehalis County contains 77 farms, on which were raised 785 tons of hay, 3,345 bushels of wheat, 4,235 bushels of oats, 475 bushels of barley. Pacific County contains 56 farms, on which were raised 384 tons of hay, 1,100 bushels of wheat, 1,586 bushels of oats, 30 bushels of barley. Taking into consideration the isolation of these farms, and that probably they do not depend on grain-raising for the profit of their farms, the showing is very good. Pacific County returns 58 horses, 2 mules, 447 cows, 94 oxen, 389 young cattle, 981 sheep, 144 hogs. The proportion of horses to the number of farms reveals the fact that but little farm-work is done which requires horse-power to do; and the amount of stock, that cows, sheep, and beef-cattle are more profitable than farm crops. But as a great many of the inhabitants of these coast counties scarcely farm at all, doing just enough farm labor to supply their families with provisions, which they eke out by hunting and fishing, the returns of the census, always below the actual figures, give an idea of the productiveness of the country by no means discouraging. And again, most of the settlers prefer to take up the rich alluvial bottom-lands, which, before being plowed and sown, have first to be cleared; consequently, their first grain-fields are small.
From what we have seen, we can safely assert that every part of Western Washington can be made not only self-supporting, agriculturally, but something more. All the grains, hardy fruits, and vegetables will grow luxuriantly, and ripen well, in almost any part of it where settlements can be made. But the great wheat, corn, and sorghum region lies east of the Cascade Mountains, in the Walla Walla, Yakima, and other valleys. Peaches and grapes, too, will be generally raised east of the mountains. Beef, mutton, and wool can be produced both east and west of the mountains, of excellent quality. Yet Eastern Washington will excel in the production of these articles; while the coast country will furnish the dairy products. So happily have the climate and productions of Oregon and Washington been arranged, that almost every luxury the world's markets afford can be obtained within their own borders.