Bow History Project
(Bow downtown)
Bow, WA 98232

Skagit River Journal

Journal-sponsored page, part of our
Giving Back to the Community Program
For details about how you can help maintain Bow-area history, call: Dan Miller at (360) 766-6339 or Diz Schimke at (360) 766-6070 or email(right hand arrow)
(Click to send email)

Bow History Project 3rd Annual History
Project meeting, Community Church, 1 p.m., Mary 17, 2008

(Bow Main Street)
      Bow, circa 1905, looking east down Main Street. The Cleary Brothers General Store, which is the last pioneer business building still standing, is to the right. Photo from postcard, courtesy of John G. Kamb Jr.

      Welcome to the Bow History Project. This memorial flyer will give you the very basics of Bow History in preparation for the second annual meeting. This project was dreamed up by Dan Miller and Diz Schimke and the May 17, 2008, meeting will be an opportunity for pioneer descendants and area residents from all the surrounding area to share. It is co-sponsored by the Skagit River Journal of Sedro-Woolley, Washington. We will gather at 1 p.m., for the third annual Bow History Project meeting, where we will share ideas and photos and documents. There is no admission charge and refreshments will be served. We will have a copier and scanner on site. We share a bit of the history below and our websites will direct you to other Internet websites and articles that supply detailed history in multiple stories.
      Bow was founded by William J. Brown, who was born in the Bow district of London on Oct. 15, 1850, the son of William M. Brown and Louisa (Wisbey) Brown. At age 14, William the elder, bought his son a commission on board a man-of-war that sailed from Bow, England. After sailing extensively between ports in the southern and western Pacific Ocean, William's last route took him from Yokohama, Japan, to Victoria, British Columbia in about 1869.
      At the latter point he left service in the Queen's Navy for unknown reasons and worked his way to Utsalady [also spelled Utsaladdy] on Camano Island, where he worked for the Grennan and Cranney Mill. Brown began scouting property on the mainland and around Bow as early as 1869, but he moved first to southern Fidalgo Island and he purchased land at Similk Bay . He stayed there but a short time and in the fall of 1871, he moved to Samish Island, the portal for the earliest settlement of the future county. He probably crossed the narrow body of salt water by canoe and traversed the meandering course of the north fork of the Samish River to the remnants of a Clallam Indian village, where the county's first settler, William "Blanket Bill" Jarman met and married his wife, Alice.
      We know that in 1872, William also married a girl from the village, who was recorded as Jennie Tahati. The former sailor sank down his roots on the north fork of what became known as the Samish River, the waterway that Indians called "Du-wha-chub-ob," and later called Edison Slough by whites in the area. He squatted on unsurveyed government land and eventually combined a homestead preemption claim (filed in 1879, proved up in 1882), a later timber claim and purchase of government land in 1876.
      In 1889, the Fairhaven and Southern railroad ran about five miles east of Brown's property along Friday Creek and through the village of Belfast, where a stage ran to Brown's property across Bow Hill. James J. Hill's Great Northern Railroad bought out the F&S in 1890 and in 1902, Hill decided to change the route of the line, curving northwest from the town of Belleville to Blanchard and Chuckanut Mountain. Brown's property was on the route and thus the town of Bow — named for Brown's home district in London — was born about a half mile north of Brown's home in 1902, clustered across the rails from the depot. RSVPs are not required, but will help us determine a count for planning.
Links, background reading and sources