In Search of an Olympic Peninsula Pioneer:
The Forgotten First Forks Postmaster
Sometimes it seems like some long-forgotten soul from the past wants to be found. That's how it
seemed when recently finding a 140-year-old handwritten record that had been completed, all those years
ago, by Forks pioneer William Durkee Waterhouse (1843–1909). I was looking for something else in
the National Archives records, in the Records of the Post Office Department, when I came across the form
that he had completed. The form was a Post Office Site Location Report Form (Form No. 1004), which he
had completed in January 1884, for the proposed establishment of the first post office at Forks, Clallam
County, Washington Territory. The top part of the form was filled out and signed by Frank Hatton
(1846–1894), First Assistant Postmaster General, and dated December 6, 1883. The form was then
mailed, “To Mr. Wm. D. Waterhouse, ‘West of Willamette Meridian’ care of the
Postmaster of Port Townsend, who will please forward to him.” William D. Waterhouse then
completed and signed the Site Location Report Form, on January 2, 1884, as the prospective postmaster
of the proposed Forks Post Office. William D. Waterhouse wrote on the form that the proposed Forks Post
Office would be located in the SW¼ of Section 3, Township 28 North, Range 13 West. He also wrote
on the form that a population of 51 people were to be supplied by the proposed post office. William D.
Waterhouse also drew a diagram map, on the back side of the Site Location Report Form, showing the site
location for the proposed Forks Post Office in the NE¼SW¼, of Section 3, Township 28 North,
Range 13 West, Willamette Meridian. Also shown on the diagram map, on the back side of the Site Location
Report Form, was the location of the Quillayute Post Office, which already existed at the time, on Quillayute
Prairie. The Quillayute Post Office is shown on the diagram map as having been about 8 miles away, in a
westerly direction, from the proposed Forks Post Office site location and a little over 1 mile north of the
Quillayute River. The form was then examined and certified for accuracy by Alanson Wesley Smith
(1854–1938), as postmaster of the Quillayute Post Office (located in the SE¼NE¼ of
Section 8, Township 28 North, Range 14 West). When the returned Site Location Report Form was received
back at the Office of First Assistant Postmaster General the form was stamped February 2, 1884. The Post
Office Department Topographer then stamped the hand-drawn diagram map February 15, 1884.
William D. Waterhouse seemed to have been one of the forgotten pioneers in Forks history, even though he
was the early resident who completed the Post Office Site Location Report Form to establish the location of
the first Forks Post Office. None of the local Forks, Washington, history that I am aware of has mentioned
anything about William D. Waterhouse. Intrigued by another good history mystery, I decided to do some
research to try to bring to light some local pioneer history that seemed to have fallen through the cracks.
William D. Waterhouse was born on April 7, 1843, in Bangor, Penobscot County, Maine, according to the
three-volume manuscript titled Descendants of Richard Waterhouse of Portsmouth, New Hampshire:
[…], compiled by George Herbert Waterhouse (Wakefield, Mass: G. H. Waterhouse, 1934). The birth
record for William D. Waterhouse is found among the saved family records from volume 2, part 2, pages
1059–1060. His parents were George Waterhouse (1813–1889) and Mahala (Gray)
Waterhouse (1810–1881). The 1850 federal census shows William and five siblings living with their
parents, George and Mahala Waterhouse, in Bangor, Penobscot County, Maine. The 1860 federal census
shows William (age 17) and his siblings living with their parents, George and Mahala Waterhouse, in Bangor,
Kenduskeag Stream, Penobscot County, Maine. The Maine State Archive has an American Civil War Soldier
Index Card for William D. Waterhouse, which notes the following: he was born in and was a resident of
Bangor, Maine; he enlisted on April 25, 1861; he mustered in on May 28, 1861, at Willets Point,
New York; he was a private in Company A, 2nd Maine Infantry Regiment; and he mustered out,
was honorably discharged, and left service at Bangor, Maine, on June 9, 1863. The Maine State Archive also
has an 1861 Maine soldier enlistment paper for William D. Waterhouse, which notes the following: his full
name was William Durkee Waterhouse; he was born in Bangor, Maine; he was age 19, at the time
of enlistment; he enlisted on April 25, 1861; and his father was George Waterhouse. A complete
enlistment roll of the 2nd Maine Infantry Regiment, as appearing in the pay rolls, was published on the front
page of the May 20, 1861, Bangor Daily Whig and Courier newspaper, with William D. Waterhouse
listed as a private in Company A. William D. Waterhouse was photographed in 1861 by Bangor photographer
Manly Greenleaf Trask (1837–1919), who made 1861 portrait photographs of some of the soldiers of
Company A, 2nd Maine Infantry Regiment. The 1861 soldier portrait photographs are in the collections of the
Bangor Historical Society.
The book A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion, by Frederick H. Dyer (Des Moines, Iowa: The
Dyer Publishing Company, 1908), has a regimental history for the 2nd Maine Infantry Regiment, in Part 3
(Regimental Histories), on page 1219. That book notes that some of the American Civil War military
engagements that the 2nd Maine Infantry Regiment was engaged in included the First Battle of Bull Run (First
Battle of Manassas), the Siege of Yorktown, the Battle of Hanover Court House, the Battle of Gaines'
Mill, the Battle of Malvern Hill, the Second Battle of Bull Run (Second Battle of Manassas), the Battle of
Antietam, the Battle of Shepherdstown Ford, the Battle of Fredericksburg, and the Battle of Chancellorsville.
The names of each of those battles that the 2nd Maine Infantry Regiment was engaged in are also engraved
in the granite of the American Civil War memorial, for the valiant 2nd Maine Infantry Regiment, at the Mount
Hope Cemetery, in Bangor, Maine. A descriptive account of the service of the 2nd Maine Infantry Regiment,
in the American Civil War, is in the book Maine in the War for the Union: A History of the Part Borne by
Maine Troops in the Suppression of the American Rebellion, by William E.S. Whitman and Charles H.
True (Lewiston, Maine: Nelson Dingley, Jr., & Co., 1865), on pages 37–57. Included among the
American Civil War battles that the 2nd Maine Infantry Regiment was engaged in is the Battle of Antietam,
which was the bloodiest single-day battle in American history.
Not long after the American Civil War, William D. Waterhouse had moved all the way across the country to
Clallam County, in Washington Territory. The tract book for Township 30 North, Range 3 West, on page 188,
has a handwritten record entry that shows that William D. Waterhouse, by October 15, 1869, had acquired
80 acres comprised of the E½NE¼ of Section 8, Township 30 North, Range 3 West. Also, at
the bottom of page 188, there's a handwritten record entry that shows that William D. Waterhouse had
acquired 160 acres, by October 26, 1870, comprised of the SW¼ of Section 9, Township 30 North,
Range 3 West. His 80 acres in Section 8, Township 30 North, Range 3 West, was located along what is now
present-day Holland Road and Woodcock Road, within the part of the present-day Sunland subdivision golf
course community that is located on the south side of Graysmarsh Farm. His 160 acres in Section 9,
Township 30 North, Range 3 West, was located along what is now present-day Holland Road, within the
present-day wooded Gierin Creek drainage. At the time of the 1870 federal census, William D. Waterhouse
was working as a farm laborer for William H. Gray, who was a neighboring farmer and a fellow Mainer.
The tract book shows that William H. Gray had acquired 155.75 acres, by June 17, 1863, comprised of the
N½NW¼, NW¼NE¼, and Lot 1, all in Section 9, Township 30 North, Range 3
West, which included therein much of Gray's Marsh. At the time of the 1871 Washington Territory
census, William D. Waterhouse was working as a farmer on the land that he had acquired. A notice in the
Puget Sound Weekly Argus newspaper, on September 14, 1877, on page 4, noted that William D.
Waterhouse was also at that time a Clallam County deputy sheriff. The following month, a notice in The
Daily Intelligencer newspaper, on October 11, 1877, on page 3, noted that he had raised that season
over 100 bushels of oats to the acre. By the time of the 1880 federal census, William D. Waterhouse was still
working as a farmer on that land that he had acquired, located northeast of Sequim Prairie, mostly in the
Gierin Creek drainage basin. Although he had apparently raised oats with a yield of over 100 bushels to the
acre, at least once, the unwooded and arable portion of his total 240 acres was likely at that time quite
limited.
William D. Waterhouse, by late 1883, was living on remote Forks Prairie, where he was the local resident
who completed and signed, on January 2, 1884, the Post Office Site Location Report Form to establish the
location of the first Forks Post Office. The place name Forks comes from the 1870s place name Forks
Prairie, which was the name for the local silty clay loam prairie that was around 1000 acres in size. The
Quileute people even earlier called the prairie Kit'layakwokw, which means upstream prairie. A
newspaper article in The Daily Intelligencer, on May 31, 1877, on page 2, notes that Forks Prairie was
occupied by five settlers and explains the origin of the place name. The place name Forks Prairie originated
from the fact that the prairie was situated directly between the Calawah River and the Bogachiel River, above
the confluence where the two rivers unite. A newspaper article in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, on
August 13, 1892, on page 2, notes that the first pioneer explorers to visit Forks Prairie were Dungeness
area pioneers John Weir, George Lawrence, and Alexander Rollins. The three of them (according to the
newspaper article) had traveled cross country, in August 1870, from Quillayute Prairie to Forks Prairie.
According to the August 13, 1892, newspaper article, Van Buren McCollum was supposedly the first settler
on Forks Prairie, followed by Peter Fisher, and then came Ole Nelson and Ely “Eli” Peterson.
Van Buren McCollum had been sheriff of Clallam County for a while in the late 1860s, when he settled east of
Bagley Creek (along the Strait of Juan de Fuca). If Van Buren McCollum was the first settler on Forks Prairie,
then he probably relocated there soon after he had to relinquish his early 1870s West End preemption land
claim and improvements, in 1873, when the unsurveyed Makah Reservation was enlarged.
It says on the Site Location Report Form (Form No. 1004) to, “Select a short name for the
proposed office, which when written, will not resemble the name of any other post office in the United
States.” In those instructions “short name” had been underlined in pen. That's
probably why the place name Forks Prairie was shortened to Forks, for the name of the post office. In the
1890s, as the number of post offices increased, the instructions for selecting a post office name became
less strict, instructing prospective postmasters to select a post office name that will not resemble the name
of any other post office in the State. The diagram map, on the back side of the Site Location Report Form,
shows the proposed Forks Post Office location to be in the NE¼SW¼, of Section 3, Township
28 North, Range 13 West. The tract book for Township 28 North, Range 13 West, on page 85, has a
handwritten record entry that shows that William D. Waterhouse had acquired 136.32 acres, by May 25,
1885, comprised of Government Lots 3 and 4, the SE¼NW¼, and the NE¼SW¼,
all in Section 3, Township 28 North, Range 13 West. Government Lots 3 and 4 of his land adjoined the south
side of the Calawah River, for around 0.4 miles downriver from around the mouth of Elk Creek.
What I had previously read about the first Forks Post Office mentioned that the post office was located in the
home of Ole P. Nelson and also that he was the first postmaster. The tract book for Township 28 North, Range
13 West, on page 87, has a handwritten record entry that shows that Ole P. Nelson had acquired 160 acres,
by October 27, 1883, comprised of the SW¼ of Section 9, Township 28 North, Range 13 West. The
old handwritten records of the Post Office Department actually record though that the first Forks Postmaster
was William D. Waterhouse, so the first Forks Post Office was likely briefly located at the home where he
lived. Those old handwritten records, of the postmaster appointments for Clallam County, record that William
D. Waterhouse became the first postmaster of the first Forks Post Office, on February 8, 1884, followed by
Ole P. Nelson, on June 23, 1884. The Oregon Washington and Idaho Gazetteer and Business Directory
1884-5, Volume 1, published by R. L. Polk & Company and A. C. Danser, lists, “FORKS. A
recently established post office in Clallam County.” The 1884 establishment of the first Forks Post
Office seems to have been how the place name of Forks generally came about and began appearing on
maps and in print. The place name Forks was labeled on a few maps by 1884, as the name of the local post
office.
Forks appears on the 1884 Post Route Map of the State of Oregon and Territory of Washington: showing
post offices with the intermediate distances and mail routes in operation on the 1st of December 1884.
The 1884 post route map shows that mail was transported then once a week on the Strait of Juan de Fuca,
between Port Townsend and Neah Bay and the way ports of New Dungeness, Port Angeles, Crescent Bay,
Pysht, and Hoko. Mail was transported, at that time, along that part of the isolated north Olympic Peninsula
coast, usually on the steamer Dispatch (66.71 tons), by Captain James Morgan (1840–1912).
Hastings & Morgan, of Port Townsend, had been awarded that coastal mail service contract, on March
4, 1882, for steamboat mail service on Route No. 43095, from July 1, 1882, to June 30, 1886. The steamer
Dispatch had been sold to Hastings & Morgan, in 1882, by Captain James C. Brittain
(1834–1892), who had previously used that steamer for steamboat mail service, on Route No. 43095,
between Port Townsend and Neah Bay. The 1884 post route map also shows that mail was transported,
once a week, on a remote overland mail route (No. 43114) between the Neah Bay Post Office (est. 1874),
the La Push Post Office (est. 1883), and the Quillayute Post Office (est. 1879). Henry A. Lawton (a multistate
mail contractor) had been awarded that overland mail service contract, on March 4, 1882, for mail service on
Route No. 43114, from July 1, 1882, to June 30, 1886. Alanson Wesley Smith was one of the other bidders
on that mail contract, so he may have actually operated that mail route. A “Special Supply”
route, without regular contracted mail service, is also shown on the 1884 post route map as connecting
overland between the Quillayute Post Office (est. 1879) and the Forks Post Office (est. 1884). By 1886 mail
was transported, once a week, on an overland mail route (No. 43116) between the Quillayute Post Office and
the Forks Post Office. Oliver William Smith (1858–1925), of Quillayute Prairie, was awarded that
overland mail service contract, on February 23, 1886, for overland mail service on route No. 43116, from
July 1, 1886, to June 30, 1890. Around that time local endeavors at ranching, farming, and logging began to
increase in the remote wild West End.
A newspaper article in the Weekly Puget Sound Argus, on March 11, 1886, on page 3, notes that the
settlers of Forks Prairie had just raised the framework there for the Darling Brothers sawmill, which was said
to be the first sawmill in Clallam County. That newspaper article says that they were to be ready to cut lumber
in about two months and intended to erect a grist mill the next year. The 1887 Washington Territory census,
for Clallam County, notes both J. W. Darling and S. Darling as millwrights. The Darling Brothers small
water-powered pioneer sawmill, along Forks Prairie, was run by Joseph Warren Darling (1847–1911)
and Stuart Darling (1860–1930). The sawmill was likely located along the south edge of Forks Prairie,
by Mill Creek, in the SW¼SE¼ of Section 9, Township 28 North, Range 13 West. The sawmill
was later run for a while by James Sheridan Anderson (1861–1953) and was said to have had a
production capacity of about 1,000 board feet per day and provided lumber for many a house in the
Quillayute Valley, according to the newspaper article in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, on August 13,
1892, on page 2. A photograph of the first sawmill, which is captioned, “Ruins of First Saw Mill in
Clallam Co. Wash.,” is in the Bert Kellogg Photograph Collection, of the North Olympic Library System
(West End Book 2, page 98). That old photograph was captioned by forest ranger James Ora Forest
Anderson (1887–1967), who was the eldest son of James Sheridan Anderson. The photograph shows
the abandoned first sawmill ruins photographed in what appears to be a northeasterly direction, looking up
Forks Prairie to between Calawah Ridge and Elk Ridge.
William D. Waterhouse was enumerated in the 1885 and 1889 Washington Territory censuses, for Clallam
County, as a farmer living on Forks Prairie. William D. Waterhouse was enumerated in the 1890 federal
census, special schedule of surviving Union veterans of the War of the Rebellion, as one of four Union
veterans living in the Forks precinct. He was recorded in the 1890 Union veterans census as having a rank of
private, in Company A, 2nd Maine Infantry Regiment, from May 28, 1861, to June 19, 1863. He was also
recorded in that 1890 Union veterans census as having a rank of corporal, in Company G, 6th Regiment, U.S.
Veteran Volunteer Infantry, from April 14, 1865, to April 13, 1866. The 1890 federal census recorded the
population of the Forks precinct as 111 people, according to the 1890 census returns that were published in
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, on September 6, 1890, on page 2. William D. Waterhouse was in line
to be appointed as the Forks School District Director (in 1895), following J. S. Anderson (in 1893), and M.
Whittier (in 1894), according to page 377, of the Eleventh Biennial Report of the Superintendent of Public
Instruction of the State of Washington (1892).
The mail routes and frequency of delivery, during the 1890s, evolved with the travel routes (from trails to
roads) and with continued pioneer settlement. The 1891 Post Office Department post route map, updated to
October 1, 1891, shows that by then the overland mail route between Neah Bay and Quillayute was changed
over to an overland mail route (No. 71229) between the Pysht Post Office (est. 1878) and the post offices of
Beaver (est. 1889), Shuwah (est. 1890), Quillayute (est. 1879), Boston (est. 1891), and La Push (est. 1883).
Merrill Whittier (1838–1924), of Forks, had been awarded that 46-mile overland mail service contract,
on February 20, 1890, for overland mail service on Route No. 71229, from July 1, 1890, to June 30, 1894.
The 1891 post route map also shows that by then that Forks mail was transported over another overland mail
route (No. 71230) that connected between the Shuwah Post Office (est. 1890) and the Forks Post Office
(est. 1884). Merrill Whittier had also been awarded that connected 8-mile overland mail service contract, on
February 20, 1890, for overland mail service on Route No. 71230, from July 1, 1890, to June 30, 1894. After
there had been four different postmasters at Forks, during the 1890s, William D. Waterhouse was briefly the
Forks Postmaster again from April 5, 1898, to June 4, 1898.
The 1900 federal census shows William D. Waterhouse (born April 1843) residing as a lodger in Seattle,
along Main Street, in Enumeration District 80 (Ward 1, Precinct 1). That 1900 census enumeration district
was located between the Seattle waterfront and Occidental Avenue South, in an area that is now within the
Pioneer Square Preservation District. Around 1900 there were at least three hotels along Main Street,
between the Seattle waterfront and Occidental Avenue South, according to Baist's Real Estate
Atlas of Surveys of Seattle (Philadelphia: G. Wm. Baist, 1905). Finding out that William D. Waterhouse
was in Seattle, by 1900, gave me pause to think about how he had previously moved all the way across the
country from Bangor, Maine, to the Sequim-Dungeness Valley and then moved way on out to remote Forks
Prairie, in the wild West End of the Olympic Peninsula. The 1900 federal census and the 1900 Seattle city
directory still listed his occupation as “Farmer,” even though at age 57 he had for some reason
ended up in Seattle. Polk's Seattle City Directory, for 1900, on page 1062, lists W. D.
Waterhouse, farmer, boards at the Alaska Commercial Hotel. Baist's 1905 atlas shows the brick
Alaska Commercial Hotel as located on the southwest street corner of Main Street and 1st Avenue South. A
circa 1901 photograph of the Alaska Commercial Hotel, by Curtis & Romans (C & R 569), shows
that the brick building back then looked much the same as it still does today. The historic building, built circa
1889, has for decades housed the Bread of Life Mission.
Polk's Seattle City Directories from 1901 through 1903 list William D. Waterhouse living in old
Ballard, along Brig (now NW 67th St), within the block between 6th Ave W and Earle (now 28th Ave NW and
Earl Ave NW). Only the street names are given for his Seattle city directory listings, for those years, with no
house address. William D. Waterhouse was also listed in Polk's Ballard City Directories from
1904 through 1907, in which during that last year Ballard was annexed into Seattle. Polk's Seattle
City Directories for 1908 and 1909 list William D. Waterhouse living in a house at 3608 W 59th St. That
same house address is written on a Bureau of Pensions “Army Invalid” Pension Payment
Card, which shows pension payments from 1907 through 1909. The hilltop house lot at 3608 W 59th St
(Lot 9, Block 1, Brygger's Second Home Addition to Ballard) was the second 50'-by-120'
house lot west of the present-day intersection of W 59th St and 36th Ave NW, along what was then the north
side of W 59th St. The old house address 3608 W 59th St no longer exists anymore, because W 59th St no
longer extends west of 36th Ave NW. That part of the street was vacated due to acquisition of railroad
right-of-way by the Great Northern Railway. The right-of-way acquisition was for the construction of the north
railroad alignment for the Great Northern Railway drawbridge, built from 1913 through 1914, spanning over
the Salmon Bay Waterway. The location of the former 50'-by-120' house lot is located along the
top of the slope break that is around 500 feet east of the Shilshole Bay entrance to the Salmon Bay
Waterway. The house and the 50'-by-120' lot are shown on a 1:3600 scale Seattle 1912 map,
which is Plate 14, in Baist's Real Estate Atlas of Surveys of Seattle (Philadelphia: G. Wm. Baist,
1912). The house and lot are also shown, with the house address 3608 labeled, on a 1:1200 scale Seattle
1917 Sanborn Map Company fire insurance map (Vol. 5, Sheet 518).
William D. Waterhouse died in Seattle, on December 13, 1909. In the King County probate records, for the
estate of William D. Waterhouse, a railroad transportation expense is listed for sending the deceased
“east for burial.” His Washington State death certificate says that his place of burial was at
Bangor, Maine. His parents, George and Mahala Waterhouse, are buried in a family plot (in Lot 188,
Graves 8 and 6) at Pine Grove Cemetery, in Bangor, Penobscot County, Maine. The Maine card file of
veteran cemetery records (located at the Maine State Archives) has a card for William D. Waterhouse, which
indicates that he was also buried at Pine Grove Cemetery. That card notes that he was a private in Company
A, 2nd Maine Infantry; he enlisted on April 25, 1861; he mustered in at Willets Point,
New York; he was discharged on June 9, 1863; he left service at Bangor, Maine; and that his
grave is marked by an upright government stone, GAR marker, and flag. That card is incomplete though, with
no date of death, date of burial, or grave number. The records of the Pine Grove Cemetery indicate that he
was buried in the family plot (in Lot 188, Grave 5). However, for the many burials recorded for the Pine Grove
Cemetery, his record is one of the few for the entire cemetery that has no burial year. Also, there
doesn't appear to actually be any grave marker there for him. Was he really buried there? I guess
that's where the search runs out and where the mystery leaves off, for now. It may never be known who
originally came up with the place name Forks, Clallam County, Washington. William Durkee Waterhouse
(1843–1909) certainly did his part, though, to put Forks on the map.
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Andrew Craig Magnuson
Forks, Washington
November 11, 2024
Copyright © by Andrew Craig Magnuson
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