The Story of Old Leland

By Mary Beth Munn Yntema

Leland was a Post Office, an elementary school, a telephone central, a lake and a bridge. All are gone except the lake. Mary Beth Munn Yntema became the keeper of data of the pioneers, their homes and farms, their children and their school. She writes down her memories so Leland would not be forgotten.

Lake Leland with a post office at the end of its bridge is the focus of a community of families that arrived from many places. They carved farms out of the virgin timber and shared a simple life of fishing and swimming in the summer, cattle care and timber tasks the rest of the time.

The main stories occur from 1890 to 1940. A railroad logging company, two sawmill operations and family dairy farms were the economic base. A unique society centered on the one-room school that built life-long friendships and an extended social family. The children were welcome in neighbor homes as if they were relatives. Everyone cooperated in the farm and timber tasks. Everyone rejoiced in successes of the children and shared the sorrows of the many untimely deaths or loss of house or barn to fires.

The virgin timber cut was over. The Great Depression came. The story closes with the Second World War, its draft, internment camp and casualties. The school and post office closed as families moved to new jobs. Mary Beths own coming of age experiences play out against this framework of houses and people of Leland.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 25, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469771830

Mary Beth Munn Yntema

Mary Beth (Munn) Yntema was a nurse in Central African Republic, Washington and Alaska. She met her husband William Yntema on a trip to Israel 1970. They lived in Michigan and Port Townsend, Washington, where she died in 2011 at age 88. She loved Leland the place and people of her childhood.

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FORWARD TO THE 2012 EDITION

Mary Beth Munn Yntema completed her work in this life on March 27, 2011. Copies of the 2000 Edition of The Story of Old Leland had been sold. Quilcene Historical Museum, the principle marketing agent, requested additional copies. Before Mary Beth died she handed over responsibility for her literary legacy to her brother Hector.

Mary Beth wrote much about her experiences. Much of Old Leland is an autobiography. The years from 1930 to 1940, her school years in Leland and Quilcene, are the main body of this work. She has unpublished essays about the lives of her parents, siblings and cousins as well as accounts of her four grandparents which she called, The Four Rivers.

If more copies of Old Leland were to be printed, it was decided that a format change would better serve Mary Beth’s intensions. The pictures in the 2000 edition were dark and gathered separate from the print materials. The plastic ring binding was not time-worthy. There was no Index with which to recover key names or stories.

Since the year 2000, digital printing has revolutionized the printing in general and the printing of pictures in particular. Vanity publishing, which this is, is less expensive than the corner copy machines and the published works come with copyright and are available commercially via book companies with no extra cost.

In making this revised and edited edition, effort was made to keep the style and appearance of Old Leland as close as possible to the first edition. The many photographs have been integrated into the print material where appropriate. A few pictures have been added that we are sure Mary Beth would have liked to have included. Some added pictures are from the I. M. Kibler collection that has been made publicly available just recently.

The brother editor had a few thoughts and information that differed from Mary Beth’s. When it was felt that additional information should be included, it has been italicized. Simple editing of spelling, grammar or fact has not been so noted, however.

Quilcene Historical Museum has graciously agreed to continue as the principle marketing agent and to include Old Leland with their growing collection of offerings by local writers or titles about South Jefferson County pioneers and history. We are grateful for their generous cooperation and assistance in proof-reading. HECTOR J. MUNN, Editor

PART ONE: BEGINNINGS

CHAPTER ONE: EARLY LELAND

Once Upon A Time the earth was caught in a great upheaval. There were floods, earthquakes, shifting plates, and turmoil beyond imagination. Mountains came up from the sea; the poles changed their axis, the climate changed. There was a sudden deep freeze which caught massive mastodons in mid-swallow. Great sheets of ice covered the north-pole, draping itself over the upper fourth of the earth like a giant skirt. It receded from south to north and left great geographical changes in its path. The Pacific Northwest had a bunch of new mountains out on a peninsula which jutted north into the Pacific Ocean. One glacier formed in what is now British Columbia and flowed down the Frasier River Valley. It slammed into Vancouver Island and the Olympic Mountains which forced it southward to gouge out Puget Sound and Hood Canal. When the glacial ice melted back, it left ridges and bays and islands that give the Puget lowland its lovely character. It would seem that a giant hand lay down with its land-fingers forming the peninsulas and the between-the-fingers making the bays. Each finger peninsula and bay has a name. We have Hood Canal with Kitsap Peninsula to the east and the Olympic Mountains on the west. Quimper Peninsula with Discovery Bay, the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Port Townsend Bay for its water borders; Toandos Peninsula, with Hood Canal and Dabob Bay; Bolton Peninsula separating Dabob Bay and Quilcene Bay, and so on down Puget Sound.

GEOGRAPHY OF THE LELAND AREA

The snowcapped Olympic Mountains dominate the Olympic Peninsula. There are, of course, many rivers which were first cut by the melting glacial ice. Little descending rivulets met up with each other to form streams. These streams bring the water down canyons to meet with other streams/creeks until they empty into a river. Each river heads for the ocean or arm of the ocean.

Encircling the mountain mass are foothills which undulate in waves of ridges and valleys. Each ridge decreases in altitude until they are pretty well flattened out to a nice rim of land. In some places, the mountains do go straight down to the water’s edge with no rim or shore whatever. The fertile deltas of the rivers and the valleys between the foothills provide the arable land. The geography of the Leland Valley is typical. Mount Townsend looms on the western horizon. Green Mountain humps along north to south in front of Mt. Townsend. There is the west to east valley of canyon cut by the Little Quilcene River from the foot of Mt. Townsend to Quilcene Bay. A long narrow valley runs roughly north to south along the west sides of Mount Zion. Mt. Zion sprawls north of the Little Quilcene River canyon like a long fat-in-the-middle snake. At the south tail of Zion, the pointed, lovely Sugar Loaf hill towers above Lords Lake. Another valley starts east of Zion reaching across about a quarter of a mile to Howe’s Hill. Howe Creek forms off Mt. Zion’s east shoulder. Just before it joins the Little Quilcene River, the creek drops off a precipice to form the beautiful Howe Falls. This picturesque falls is not well known even though it is not far south of Lords Lake Loop Road shortly before the road turns northward at Lords Lake. To the east of Howe’s Hill, we find the fertile Arcadia Valley with Ripley Creek flowing through it. The creek empties into the Little Quilcene River a short distance below the falls of Howe Creek. Then east of Arcadia, the plateau of Leland Hill slopes eastward down to Lake Leland.

Lake Leland (once known as Lake Hooker) is about a mile long and shaped roughly like an hourglass or a shoe print. It is snuggled between Leland Hill and Strawberry Hill. The lake lies roughly north and south with an angle off to the northeast. The hourglass or shoe shape has a narrows formed by an outwash delta of creeks to the west. The north end has streams from the southeast and north which join to form a single stream some call the inlet. The south end has a major stream from the south west and an outlet flowing southward to the Little Quilcene River. Today this is called Leland Creek. An original settler named Hooker lived somewhere in this area near a creek flowing from the east. The creek and the lake were named for him, though later residents renamed the lake to match the name of the Post Office and elementary school.

The water of Lake Leland is murky. The shoreline drops off quickly along the west and east shores. The north and south ends grade slowly up into swamps and flood plains. With the exception of a few places, there is no beach, though creative settlers found a few places that would do for swimming holes. It is not a deep lake, being about fifteen feet at the narrows and perhaps thirty or so feet deep at the center of the north end. The early settlers found the lake filled with trout, bass and catfish. Osprey and eagles built aeries in the tops of the old monarch fir trees near the lake. Through the years, trees would fall into the lake. These would become perches for cormorants or nesting places for wood ducks until they became water-logged and then sink to the bottom where they have lasted many years. A rowboat ride along the shoreline provides a unique study of muskrat, mink and beaver habitats, as well as nesting places for ducks and geese in the reeds and hardhack brush of the shallows. With luck one might spy an otter slide or a spot where deer would drink. The west side has several small streams that dry up in the summer, while the east side has no streams coming off the dry Strawberry Hill.

Strawberry Hill is mostly a shale rock mound which was resistant to and over-topped by the ancient glacier. Through the ages, vegetation grew on it to provide three or four feet of soil, which supported a good stand of fir and cedar trees. Attempts to drill through the shale have produced water at 175 feet that is tainted with sulfur odor of rotten eggs.

The long Discovery Bay to Quilcene Bay valley lies north to south with Tarboo Hill following it all along on its east border. Roughly parallel to Tarboo Hill are three other ridges which separate the West, Center and East Chimacum Valleys the last ridge continues on to Toandos Peninsula at the edge of upper Hood Canal. Thus we can visualize the rippling of ridges and valleys from Mt. Townsend to Puget Sound.

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Picture 1: Lake Leland looking S.W. circa 1950 (J.H. Kreidler)

Highway 101 is at lower left. Mt. Townsend at top left with Green Mountain at left edge. Bridge is intact. Trees on the right center were logged after this.

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Picture 2: Upper end of Lake Leland looking N.E. circa 1950 (Munn family collection)

Jim Munn’s barn has not been modified on its south side. The Limit Resort is at the bend of the lake.

HUMAN HISTORY OF THE LELAND AREA

People walked across the narrow strip of land which joined Siberia and Alaska. When this land became a narrow strait, the people paddled their boats across. They settled along the shoreline and up river valleys. There is always a seed population which is faithful to the Old Home Place. They keep the family traditions and become the people of the new territories. There are a few people who wonder just what is on the other side of the mountain, or what could be just around the corner. More adventuresome people become the pioneers of a new area, and the process continues until there is someone everywhere. So it was with the Native Americans. They formed family units, became larger tribes, and took on certain characteristics of dress, physical features, language, customs, arts and architecture.

Many tribes surrounded the Olympic Peninsula, of course. There were S’Klallam, Chimacum, and Quinault to name a few. They lived along the salt water so that they could harvest the abundant sea food. They chose river mouths for home sites to combine salmon catching, fresh water fishing, deer hunting and berry picking. Thus, the mouths of Snow Creek, the Quilcene Rivers and Chimacum Creek were permanent settlements. They gathered and dried berries which grow in profusion. They were a social people who loved to get together with shirt tail relatives and friends all around the Sound. For example, they had a trail over the Olympics from the Pacific Ocean to Quilcene by travelling up the Quinault River, over a pass and down the Quilcene River. They made a trail between Discovery Bay and Quilcene Bay. The trail followed a valley between two main ridges, Tarboo Hill and Skidder Hill/Leland Hill. First it followed Snow Creek to Crocker Lake. Then it followed Andrew’s Creek to the base of a hill. They passed along the base of this hill to keep out of the bog until they came to Lake Leland, where they followed along the west side. (Of course these white settler names were yet to be on any ones mental map.) At Lake Leland they found an impassable bog at the south end. So they made use of the narrowing of the lake and giant cedar trees at its edge to fell trees by fire notching. A tree from each side was expertly fallen to overlap each other to form a floating foot bridge. They crossed the outlet creek at the south end of the lake by the same method. From there they could keep on high ground all the way to Quilcene Bay except for a portage crossing of the Little Quilcene River. The alternate route was to paddle canoes by salt water around Quimper Peninsula to Port Townsend Bay and Oak Bay to Hood Canal and hence to Dabob and Quilcene Bays. To white settlers, the over-land route seems better, yet canoes can carry more belongings.

Early explorers came by ship and had a heyday discovering and exploring this area. The Spanish came first and named some waterways and islands. The English came and renamed them. The native people had their names as well. Thus today we have the Straits of Juan de Fuca and Fidalgo Island from the Spanish; Mount Rainier, Discovery Bay, Port Townsend and Hood Canal from the English; while Quilcene, Chimacum, Duckabush, Dosewallips, Hamma Hamma and Lilliwaup retain their aboriginal names. Port Townsend Bay was charted in 1841. The first permanent settlement in Port Townsend was recorded in 1851. It is one of the oldest communities in the state along with Tumwater and Steilacoom. By the year 1868 Port Townsend was a growing town. Pioneer spirited men and women began to come to the beautiful area from all over. Many ships landed here with their cargos. A Customs House was built as well as a Quarantine Station. Sailors who came from all over the world liked what they saw from the bow of their ship. When night fell, they would jump overboard, swim to shore and begin their life in this wild-west. As the pioneers came, they began to push further out into the valleys looking for places to homestead and farm. People began to come up the valley from Discovery Bay to Quilcene using the trails of the peoples that came before them. Some took homesteads in the Lake Leland area while others pushed on to Quilcene. (Quilcene, however, was colonized more by way of the boat settlers that came into Quilcene Bay.) The land they came to was without roads or railroads. The forest was virgin with massive cedar trees, some 15 or more feet across. The fir, primarily Douglas fir, Spruce and Hemlock were also giant monarchs. The pioneers did not need to whack their way through thick undergrowth as these trees had outlived many competing trees through the years and survived by shading out the deciduous trees and shrubs. Each tree claimed a large area around its base. Thus the forest floor was cluttered by the moss covered fallen trees which had been crowded out or blown down by the wind. The pioneers cut through the rotting logs and then had an easy walk on the paths through the forest on moss, ferns and woodland flowers of the old growth forest.

CHAPTER TWO: LELAND PIONEERS

People were coming from eastern United States as well as from other countries to settle in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. The opportunities were endless for those with vision and the will to establish a home place. The land was open for homesteading. To homestead did not take a large grub stake to get started.

Early in Leland’s history, in about the 1870’s, Thomas Hooker came into the valley. He built a cabin at the south end of the lake. He enjoyed the good fishing and hunting, but must not have been interested in homesteading. During a wind storm, so the story goes, a tree fell onto his cabin, so he moved over near a clear, sweet creek which flowed from the east into the outlet of the lake. He named the lake and the creek after himself. Thus, on older maps, there is Lake Hooker and Hooker Creek. He did not stay in the area. When the community that settled later needed a Post Office and a school, they were named Leland, so they decided to give the lake the same name. The creek still is (Thomas) Hooker’s Creek.

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Picture 3: Topographic Map of Leland Valley (current).

For this history, Old Leland begins in the north with the farms and logging camp at Crocker Lake and extends to about a mile and a half south of Leland Cut-Off Road. This is a total distance of about 5 miles. It includes the Leland Hill and plateau. The numbers are the locations of structures that are described in the text.

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Picture 4: Leland Valley Map as drawn by the author. The numbers are the locations of the structures described. Also included are the approximate locations of roads and railroads and geographical features mentioned in the text.

THE ANDREWS FAMILY

Danville Decatur Andrews was stationed at Friday Harbor in 1850. He fought in the Pig War on the San Juan Islands. His commander was a southerner which made an unhappy situation for the young soldier from the north. He deserted and went back to Thomaston, Maine. There he enlisted under a different name (Julian Rosces) and served the north during the Civil War under this name. (Later on, he needed to get his pension so he had to straighten out his colorful past with the government.) He married Flora and they had these children: William, Herman, Helen Madeline and George. The family came west about 1876. D.D. worked in the Discovery Bay Mill. Soon they moved to the west side of Crocker Lake. (There are two company houses left from the McCormick Logging Company days. One is owned by Bud Brown and has been remodeled. The other, the most southerly, sits in the general area of D.D. Andrews homestead. Visualize that this entire area was a virgin forest when he built his house.) As the children grew up, William remained at the home place between Crocker Lake and Snow Creek. Herman built his home across the lake on the east. George built his home and farm at the south end of the lake.

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Picture 5: Danville Decatur Andrews circa 1910

(Leslie Andrews McCleary Collection)

From left: Flora, D.D., Helen, Madeline, Herman, George and William.

(Taken in House #1)

D.D. Andrews’ younger brother came out soon after D.D. His name was Augustus. He was born June 7, 1845. His wife was Laura* E. Andrews. They were married in Albian, Maine on February 21, 1871. They built their home and barn along the valley south of Crocker Lake and south of the creek which they named Andrews Creek. It was Laura* who brought the buttercups from her home in Maine, and she is the Laura* E. whose initials formed the name, Leland. Their children were Winnifred, called Winnie and Charles. Winnie married a man named Rolands. Gus Andrews built a large cedar home. *(Leland Sunday school records were kept by Laura Andrews for a time. She signed her name Lora in Minutes dated 1892. The traditional spelling appears in most other documents.)

Charles Andrews was born May 8, 1873. He married Helen and their son was John Andrews. Charley Andrews built a nice home near the present day intersection of Highway 101 and Boulton Road/Leland Valley Road East on the southwest corner. Look closely today and you can locate the driveway. It was a pretty house with a fireplace and one upstairs bedroom. Charley and Helen were leaders in the social life of the community. People remember them as fun neighbors. Charley was an amateur photographer.

Laura E. Andrews died about 1890, so Augustus went back to Maine to look for a wife. Octavia Young Twitchell, born December 7, 1858, was either Laura’s sister or sister-in-law. She had been recently widowed. She had two daughters, Mary and Laura G. Little Laura died when she was 12 years old in Maine. Two sons were William Wesley, born August 4, 1892, and Chester Earl, born November 23, 1886. Augustus and Octavia were married in 1892. Virginia Mildred Andrews was born to them on July 26, 1895 in Maine. She was called Virgie. Augustus brought Octavia, her two sons and their little daughter to Leland in 1897. Gus Andrews loved to hunt. He was a renowned cougar hunter. At one time he had a caged cougar on his farm.

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Picture 6: Augustus and Octavia Andrews circa 1900 (See also House #10) (Mildred Twitchell Tyner Collection)

ROSE

Edward and Hannah Rose truly made their mark on Leland. They took out a homestead patent on 151.96 acres of land in 1883. This included most of Strawberry Hill and some land south of the hill. They platted and recorded a Town of Leland on July 5, 1890. On this plan, they had all the streets and avenues named and numbered. The plan included the western slope of the hill which overlooks the lake. There were upwards of a thousand home sites platted out. On February 3, 1891 the entire plan was vacated. The Rose family had their home on this hill which overlooked the bridge.

In Ana Munn’s memoirs, she tells this happening: "A number of sad accidents happened in Leland that left their scars on the people who have lived and loved in that sylvan spot for so many years. The first tragedy was when Walter Rose, a lad of about sixteen, went hunting one day. When he was returning home, he crossed the Lake outlet on a big log. He got almost across when he must have dropped his gun which fell, discharged accidentally and shot Walter right through the vitals. He fell from the log right at the edge of the creek with his body half out of the creek on the bank and his feet and legs in the water. After quite a long search, his body was found. The sad accident just almost crazed his mother. The family sold out shortly after that and moved to Port Townsend taking the younger boy and sister with them. Other records tell us that they did not stay in Port Townsend very long, but went on to southern California. Hannah died quite soon after the son.

SHORT TIME PEOPLE

There are people’s names on different records which we are not able to identify now. But they deserve to be mentioned as they each contributed to the settling of the community. There was Stephen Snow who was elected as a Leland School director in 1884. Is Snow Creek named for him? James Ewing, born in 1829, took part in getting the Leland School organized. He served as a trustee in 1886 and was on the board in 1889. Charles J. Evans, born 1866, though just a young single man, served as one of the school trustees in 1887 and on the board in 1889. Fredrick Bailey was School Board Clerk in 1888. Bill Keane was instrumental in buying some of the school’s equipment, and was paid $50 for the materials. He was hired to paint the new school building. He is to spread on two coats inside and out, in a workmanship manner for the sum of twenty ($20) dollars. Mrs. Mary F. Caldwell ran, as an Independent, for director of the school in 1889. She was running against Edwin Nichols and Thad S. Smith and received no votes while the other two received 10 votes apiece.

SARAH H. ADAMS

Mrs. Sarah H. Adams homesteaded 40 acres on the east end of Strawberry Hill across the valley and up onto Tarboo Hill. She had a lovely spring on Tarboo Hill for her source of drinking water. (This 40 was later purchased by Joe Kawamoto and the spring was developed to serve his farm and Leland School #4.)

MACOMBER

Macombers (spoken may-comer) lived on the hill above the south end of the lake. They built a cabin, dug a well and planted ivy vines by their well. The well soon filled in and the cabin burned but the ivy grew many years on the trees that came up after they left. It was not a producing well for very long. They moved down to the northwest edge of the lake. Mr. Macomber gave George Munn a Civil War rifle. Twelve year old George holds this prized rifle in a photo.

VINING PLACE

The Vinings had a place far back into the woods to the east of Highway 101*. A road leaves the highway at the turn south of the Leland Creek flats. This was the entrance. The Vinings built a cabin, a barn and planted an orchard. Old fruit trees are all that remain of The Vining Place. (*When the homestead was fulfilled, the access was from the old road, i.e. Leland Valley Rd. West near mile post 3. A wagon road went eastward over a bridge at Leland Creek.)

SPENCER and STURROCK PLACES

The Spencers lived on Tarboo Hill’s south end. Today the area is reached via Rice Lake Road the leaves Highway 101 across from the Lords Lake Loop Road.

The Sturrocks had a log home on Tarboo Hill east of the Highway 101-Cutoff Road intersection. Right at that intersection was the Thad Smith/George Edwards Place. Mrs. Sturrock and Matilda Edwards neighbored a good deal. Mr. Sturrock was a millwright and worked for Jim Munn and moved to Port Townsend when the Munn mill closed down.

There were many homesteaders who left their patents when public roads did not come close or who did not have adequate water or just got tired of the wilderness.

JAPANESE FAMILIES

There was a large community of Japanese men who lived in make shift shacks at the south end of the lake. Most of them had come to this country to work hard, save their money and then return to Japan. They undercut the bids for different woodcutting jobs so were unpopular with the local men. A few of them lived on the railroad right of way where they furnished the wood needed for the train. Lin Thomas was not too fond of the competition, so one day he tossed their single blade ax, called an ax-hammer, out into the brush. Lin was a natural poet. He visualized the men looking for their ax in this poem: Haragootcha, Wakabayachi, Mr. Shimiama, all went to Funai place to look for ax-a-hamma. There is a big curve on the old road to Quilcene which was called Wakabayachi curve." There were other Japanese men who came. Intending to save their money, send for their wives and children and make this their home.

NICHOLS

Captain Edwin E. Nichols was born in England in 1836. His wife, Adelia,