Fidalgo Island Pioneer's 1923 Obit

 

This Washington-Pioneer-History-Tidbit comes from the Anacortes American, April 19, 1923. Titled "First Fidalgo Settler Buried," I have excerpted portions from the long (and most interesting) obituary for you.

Charles W. Beale, the first white settler of Fidalgo Island was buried in the Fern Hill Cemetery where he had hunted deer over 65 years ago. Capt. Beale was the oldest living pioneer of the county and six past presidents of the Skagit County Pioneer Assn were pallbearers. 

Mr. Beale is survived by four sons and three daughters; his home was in Anacortes. He was a Virginian and stricken with gold fever crossed the plans by ox team in 1851 landing in Sacramento. He drove a team there for five years and then in 1856 headed out overland to the Fraser River gold diggings. Instead of washing gold, he became a river steamboat captain. While making a trip to Whatcom in a flatboat, he was wrecked and forced some frightened Indians at gunpoint to paddle him to Fidalgo. In 1862 Beale went to the Cariboe (sic) and when he returned in 1866 he found that his claim had been sold. He took up another claim, built his cabin and stayed.

Capt. Beale sometimes told of an experience in the winter of 1859 when the snow was deep and food was scarce and the six settlers on the bay had little to eat save what their rifles brought them. Beale had shot a deep on the slopes of Mt. Erie and packed it on his back out through deep snow and the jungles (sic) to what is now Weaverling's Spit where his fellow settlers were to meet him with a canoe and take him and any possible game across the bay to the cabins. But the canoe was not there. Night came on and wolves, great gaunt grey fellows, followed his trail through the snow by drops of blood. Beale was compelled to wade out into the water to get away from the wolves bearing the deer carcass with him. In deadly cold water he stood until finally a canoe appeared. 

The Beale children were: Capt. Charles, Jr., John R., George C., Frank D., Mrs. A.O. Clem, Mrs. Lacretia Monroe, Mrs. Emma Laborte. I wonder if any descendants of this Fidalgo Island pioneer are still in the area????