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| Volume XL, Number 3 |
Fall, 2005
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| Loading Eastern Seed Oysters at South Bend, about 1910. | |
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| Volume XL, Number 3 |
Fall, 2005
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| Loading Eastern Seed Oysters at South Bend, about 1910. | |
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| The
Sou'wester |
| ISSN #0038-4984
Copyright, 2006, by the Pacific County Historical Society. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the Society's Editorial Board. The Sou'wester is a quarterly publication of the
Pacific County Historical Society and Museum. The Pacific County
Historical Society is a non-profit 501(C)(3) organization in South Bend,
Washington.
In addition to the Sou'wester, the Society publishes a quarterly newsletter for its members and operates the Pacific County Historical Society Museum in South Bend, Washington.
Design and electronic page layout by Charles B. Summers,
South Bend, Washington.
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| The
Sou'wester Fall Issue, 2005
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In this issue of The Sou’wester, we present an article written by L.L. Bush, and published in a special 1906 Oyster Edition of the Willapa Harbor Pilot newspaper. A recognized authority on Pacific Northwest ethnography, Bush was also well qualified to write a history of the local oyster industry. A previous story by Bush titled, “The Battle of James Rock,” was published in the Volume 4, Number 1 (Spring 1969) issue of The Sou’wester. Bush penned many articles on local Indians, including the James Rock story, which were published in local newspapers during the later part of his life. |
Market size eastern oysters from Willapa Bay. PCHS #1997.58.8. |
| Lafayette Lincoln
(or “Lin”) Bush was born in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, February 19, 1867,
and died in Bay Center, Washington, April 9, 1936. Prior to taking
over management of the family oyster business he received his education
at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon, in 1890. He taught
mathematics at Portland University for several years from 1891 to 1895.
Both a scholar and a businessman, Bush was widely respected.
In preparing L.L. Bush’s article for republication, I have not altered the text, except to include subheads and correct obvious typographical errors. Bush was clearly a very well read person on a variety of subjects, and was not shy about dropping names and alluding to topics, which might not be familiar to a modern reader. The opening paragraphs, for instance, mention the Jessup Expedition of 1897. The report of this ethnographic field study to the Arctic North Pacific region of North America and Asia on behalf of the American Museum of Natural History had just been published in 1902. Bush also alludes to the turn of the century social theories of Lombroso and Nordau. A modern reader could easily miss the irony of comparing Indian and European cultural prejudices. These two digressions in the essay are rich subjects for those interested in the history of social science, but would require more explanation than we have room for, and are not strictly necessary for appreciating the essay’s local history content. An interesting feature of Bush’s essay is his reluctance to discuss the then current (1906) situation on the State Native Oyster Reserves. The collapse of both Native and Eastern oyster industries on Willapa Bay just a decade after his essay was published makes Bush’s reticence on the subject of Reserves both interesting and significant. Long before the industry revived with Pacific (Japanese) Oysters in the 1930s, the State Reserve beds had ceased to be managed for Native oysters. It seems to me that recent news stories of depletion (or extinction) of Native oysters raise significant questions about management of the reserves and the interaction of government and private interests in the area of natural resources. The successful reestablishment of the Bay’s oyster industry during the Great Depression would seem to have very little to do with government management or leadership. I hope that we can someday publish an essay on this subsequent history that meets the standards set by L.L. Bush. By the way, for those who will inevitably ask, there is no known relationship between L.L. Bush and the local Medal of Honor holder of the same last name, nor the U. S. Presidents. The Willapa Harbor Pilot Oystering Edition in our collections was donated by Marion Louderback. It was transcribed by museum volunteer Wilma Dunsmoor. The photos illustrating this issue come from a number of sources, including the Wilson Family, Ken Bale, Gillies Family, and Ruth Dixon collections. Bruce Weilepp, Editor |
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| Oystering on Willapa Bay
From the 1906 Willapa Harbor Pilot Special
Edition
When oysters were first eaten in
Willapa Bay depondent sayeth not, neither knoweth. It was probably
‘way back when Noah was a still an unheard of reformer and Jason’s search
for the golden fleece was yet a remote contingency. Our Indian friends
tell us that their respected forebears used them “aaaaaaaaahukutty, hiaaaaaaash
ahnkutty.” Freely translated this signifies a day or two earlier
than the date which Blackstone describes as “The time since which the memory
and tradition of man runneth not to the contrary.” In the clay bluffs
near Bay Center may be seen fossil oyster beds, well above the level of
the high tide, and under twenty or thirty feet of clay soil. Our
honored friends of the Jessup exploring expedition have recently completed
their ethnographic
survey of the Aleutian region, and tell us that very likely America was
the cradle of the human race. To a common layman their conclusions
seem a bit far fetched, at least from the data thus far published.
But they may be right. If they are, then perhaps some cave dweller
exploited these fossil oyster beds in the days when Chaldean plains were
a jungle and the valley of the Nile a sun-baked mud flat.By L.L. Bush |
Oyster tongers harvesting native oysters. This back-breaking work was usually conducted from traditional flat bottom Bateau boats with a pair of scissor-like tongs. Constructed like two rakes, hinged in the middle of their long handles, the tongs were closed around the oysters, and lifted hand over hand, and then dumped by turning them sideways over a knee, as shown by the man on the right. PCHS #1995.90.4. |
| We are at liberty even to imagine
that back at that time in the misty past when Mount Hood and Mt St Helens
had their traditional duel and dammed the Columbia River with boulders
they fired at each other, the audience, after the performance was over,
retired to the shores and had their theater lunch of raw oysters here where
we now tong, rake and cull.
The Indians who were here when the whites first came had no sharp and strong tools wherewith to open the oyster. Accordingly, the way of serving the cocktail course was to find a large stone and a small one and with one as a hammer and the other as anvil, crush the oyster and pick out the bits of broken flesh. This tended to bring the oyster, as an article of diet, into disrepute. It was a messy way to serve the course; it was tedious; the broken shells did not promote digestive comfort; last; but not least it did not require personal prowess or skill to get the goods. In fact the use of the mollusk is said to have been mostly limited to the old or otherwise infirm who could no longer roam the forests and bring down big game nor snare the festive salmon. These data are respectfully referred to Lombroso and Nordau, as bearing on the question of the degeneracy of modern man who delights in that which the Indian thought an evidence of decrepitude. |
| The Schooner Trade: 1850 to 1860
As a modern industry, oystering in Willapa Bay dates from the early fifties of the last century. The argonauts of Roaring Gulch, when they came to town, wanted a good oyster stew, such as mother used to make down east. There were some native oysters in San Francisco Bay, but they were very small and were unsatisfactory, beside being too few to permanently meet even the limited demand. The yankee spirit of hunting a supply for all commercial demands, hunting a commercial demand for any known supply soon suggested the use of the oyster of Shoalwater Bay, as it was then called. It appears that the first oysters exported from the bay in the course of trade were sent out in 1851, perhaps in the spring of the year. One Charles J.W. Russell was trading then at Pacific City, a settlement and trading village started near the site of the present town of Ilwaco. It occurred to him that there would be a good profit in taking the oysters from the bay down to the market of the high rolling city of the south. |
1894 Fish Commission map of Willapa Bay showing productive oyster growing areas. At first by informal agreement, and later by law, the natural native oyster beds at the south end of the bay were set aside as reserves for replenishment of the cultivated beds. |
| Accordingly he gathered together a consignment, took them across the portage at the head of the bay, ferried them across to Astoria and thence took them to California by steamer. To the writer it is not known if he profited by the first venture. The results, at any rate, were such as to encourage him, and he immediately took steps to enlarge the business. Probably this was the reason for his moving to Bruceport (as the place was afterwards called), where he built the first frame house erected on the shores of the bay. Here he enlarged the business, but met with reverses. He had taken some business associates in the city, who attended to the market end of the concern’s interests. They bedded the oysters out in the bottom of San Francisco Bay, not knowing of the pests awaiting them. As a result, they lost some eight or ten thousand baskets of oysters by the ravages of the skates and drum-fish. This, with losses of oysters on the way down, was more adversity than Russell could successfully oppose, and the business passed mostly into other hands. Russell’s memory, however, is perpetuated in the name of the channel that runs from Stony Point to Willapa channel. |
“Oystermen waiting for the tide” from Northwest Coast: Three Years Residence in Washington Territory, by James G. Swan, 1857. |
| In the fall of the same year
that Russell made his initial shipment, the first schooner load of oysters
was taken directly from the bay to San Francisco in charge of one Captain
Fieldstead. This method of shipping by small schooners brought into
the bay for cargoes of oysters only was immediately recognized as the best
method of shipping, and continued for about twenty-five years, or till
the late seventies. Soon after Captain Fieldstead’s successful trip,
there came into the bay on the same errand the little schooner Robert Bruce.
This event gave rise to an interesting bit of early local history.
The cook had had some difficulty with the captain and crew, due, it is
supposed, to an ugly temper on the part of the cook. To get revenge
for his fancied insults, the latter determined on some wholesale murder.
He drugged the captain and crew at supper time and, when they were all
asleep, fired the vessel and left in the only small boat belonging to the
outfit. He was never heard from and all traces of him were lost.
Perhaps he received poetic justice at the hands of a strong east wind which
may have carried him far out to sea, though other stories are extant.
One is that he left his boat at Toke Point, hired an Indian to take him
to Oysterville and then disappeared. Meanwhile, by the time the vessel
was well afire, the ebbing tide had left her on bare ground.
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| The flames attracted the attention of the settlers and Indians on the beach. They hurried out to the burning vessel and dragged the captain and crew out from their bunks, where they were in a stupefied sleep and would have burned to death but for the timely help. The bottom of the burned vessel was long in evidence at her anchorage place, which was a half mile or so northeast of Stony Point. This incident gave the name to the settlement which had begun to form at the place. At a village meeting two or three years later, it was voted to call the place Bruceville, but this was afterwards changed to Bruceport, and this name has obtained (sic) ever since. The crew that lost their property by the fire were locally known as the Bruce boys, and formed an association known as the Bruce Oyster Company. They went immediately to work to recoup their fortunes and, by saving their earnings, were able to buy the Mary Taylor early in ’54. They put in charge Captain Hansen, who had commanded the Robert Bruce, and sent him south with a cargo of oysters. Being fortunate in business, they soon bought another schooner, the Equity, of which John Morgan was made captain. On the whole they were successful, though they lost heavily on some shipments that were slow on the trip by reason of adverse weather. The company was at this time composed of Messrs. Winant, Hansen, Morgan and Milward. Captain Foster, who made a visit to our vicinity a few months ago, also was in the company, but whether from the first or not till later is not known to the writer. The names of these men are well remembered by all the earlier settlers of the county. John Morgan was the man whose name gave the title to the Morgan Oyster Company, for long, and still, the largest oyster company on the coast. |
Occidental Oyster Company’s beds at Bone River, near Bay Center, 1903. At low tide, Willapa Bay was a large featureless plain, dotted with cultivated oyster beds. Many of the early oyster bateau boats like this one were equipped with sail and centerboard for propulsion. Stakes served to mark the private beds and working locations. PCHS #11-5-86 (6). |
| By 1854 a settlement had
been made at Oysterville by men who went there to take advantage of the
oyster beds in that part of the bay. That place and Bruceport became
thriving little towns, with most of the faults and virtues of pioneer society.
Early life in them was somewhat quieter than in many frontier towns, however,
owing to the nature of the work, an equable climate, and the fact that
not many “Wild Bills” happened to settle in them. There was a third
oystering village of some importance during the late fifties and the sixties.
This was on the north end of Long Island, opposite to the present village
of Nahcotta, and was called Diamond City. The name is still used
for the site: but as to the village itself, “Lo, all the pomp of
yesterday is one with Nineveh and Tyre.”
Local archeologists can find a few ruins in the brush there yet, though no cuneiform tablets have been unearthed. These places grew rapidly as villages, for the oystering industry was an answer to an existing demand, and grew accordingly. It was a cash business, and there were lots of oysters to be had: accordingly, money came easily and went easily. It is reported as not uncommon for the boys when they came in Saturday afternoons, to stick up a little stake, stand off a measured distance and throw, each of them, a gold piece at the stake. The one nearest took the pot. Of course it was expected of him that he would make a good fellow of himself for the afternoon and night; so the only results that accrued to him were the honors of the occasion and a dark brown taste the next morning. If he went up against the game good and hard, he perhaps lost even his week’s wages. It is very probable that this kind of pitching quoits was not as common as tradition makes it, though it was unquestionably indulged in at times. Of the three towns already mentioned, Diamond City was already far down the road to oblivion as early as the middle seventies, and ran the race at a swift pace. Bruceport passed the zenith of her glory at about the same time as Diamond City, but died by regretful inches, being still in the arena, greeting the menace of the years serenely. In a few scattering places outside of these villages oystermen made their homes according to the convenience of the work. In the middle seventies the increasing number of cottages on Goose Point had become a village. From its location it was named Bay Center. By the early eighties it was the principal center of the oyster industry on the bay, and it has since remained so, its growth having been without any sudden or startling features. |
| Boom Years and Competition: 1860 to 1895
The industry has had its ups and downs, as circumstances of one kind or another have favored or hindered. It grew rapidly at first. Judge Swan, in his “Three Years at Shoalwater Bay” gives the following statistics of the craft employed in the bay in 1855:
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Culling eastern oysters on the decks of bateaus. Oyster culture has always required a large amount of hand labor. PCHS #1995.9.7 Collection of Tom Mattson. |
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| In the decade of the sixties
the industry reached the maximum capacity of the bay. Records are
not at hand or known to the writer as to the amounts shipped in those days;
but traditional estimate has it that in the early seventies the amount
was about two hundred thousand baskets. About this time it occurred
to some of the enterprising oyster dealers who had interests both here
and in the Frisco trade that the eastern oyster could be taken across the
continent as seed oysters and grown in western waters. The first
experiments proving successful, the business was immediately undertaken
on a large scale in the waters of San Francisco Bay. This soon took
to Frisco some of the leading oystermen of this bay, as the Crellin Brothers,
the Doane Brothers, Morgan, West, Swanberg and others. The quick
rise of the business in easterns immediately diminished the demand for
the native product and the volume of local business dwindled materially.
The local effect was increased by the fact that for the Frisco dealers
there was more money in easterns, so that they often tried to discourage
the trade in natives. In the late seventies and the early eighties
there were a few years during which the native oysters were very poor,
almost worthless, so that the trade became next to nothing.
During the worst year of the period, perhaps the out put was less than two thousand sacks. No final reason has yet been given for those years of poor oysters. By a few it has always been explained that during the severe blow of December, 1875, the seas had washed down from the bluffs around the bay large quantities of yellow clays and other matter, and that this settled on the beds to their injury. This explanation seems inadequate; first, for mechanical reasons in that the amount would not seem to have been sufficient to produce so great an effect in comparison with all other storms; second, for the reason that the effects should have been greatest soon after the storm, instead of being after four or five years. It is possible that a thorough study of the behavior of the Columbia River during the period and the years immediately preceding and following would explain the matter. This is not offered with confidence as the solution. It is advanced as the best guess now at hand. |
| One good effect of the period
of depression was that the natural beds which furnish the supply of seed
oysters had a chance to replenish themselves after the excessive demands
of the preceding years. Following these years of stagnation, the
industry gradually picked up till it again reached the limit of the capacity
of the natural beds, which limit it has for some years practically followed.
This limit seems unlikely to change much except as it may be modified by new methods. There are processes of spreading cultch, moving crops several times and other schemes that would greatly increase the capacity of the beds; but as far as yet developed or in sight, they involve more expense than the returns will justify until the price of oysters shall have still farther advanced. |
Culling eastern oysters indoors, probably at Oysterville, circa 1917. Photo courtesy of the Oregon Historical Society, Neg. No. Gi 7203, #390G. |
| As before indicated, the method
of transportation to market that prevailed for over twenty years was to
take the oysters down to Frisco in small schooners carrying from two to
six thousand baskets. This “basket” measure is explained as having
arisen because of this way of shipping. In lifting the oysters over
the rail to fill the hold of the vessel, a bushel was rather too heavy
a lift and a half bushel was too small and slow in results.
So a measure of three pecks was adopted and was called a “schooner tub” or “basket.” Owing to the disturbing factor of human nature, the measure as locally used has increased somewhat from the original three pecks, but is still less than a bushel. The standard now followed is that two of the measures fairly filled shall fill a ninety pound sack of oysters. |
| When the schooners arrived on the bay the oystermen all got out their tongs, rakes and other implements, ready for a race against time and each other. As soon as the schooner was known to be ready to receive oysters, or an early time had been set when she would be ready, the oystermen went to work on their cull beds where they had their culled oysters awaiting fast tonging. For some years, and until more organization on the part of the traders, the rule was “first come, first served.” Accordingly each oysterman led the strenuous life for a day or two – rain or shine, light or dark, storm or calm. Judge Swan relates that he has seen the schooners, when the bateau loads of oysters had begun to come along side, load, pay the oystermen their money and be under weigh (sic) all in four hours – not a bad stunt for primitive methods. As the cargo was perishable, the captains lost no chance to make good time going south. Of one Captain Olsen, if memory gives the name aright, it was related that as he went down the bay he saw it was very rough on the bar. As the prospect for quieter weather was not good, he had everything made fast, himself lashed fast by the wheel, and then sent the crew up in the rigging where they would not be washed overboard till they made the open sea. A lumber schooner many times larger than the little oyster schooner was lying in harbor waiting a chance to get out, and did not dare to go for some days afterward. When the captain was bantered about the little vessel scaring him out, he replied that the little oyster schooner went out most of the time under the water but that he must wait till he could go out on top. |
“Towing down” a string of Wilson family bateaus loaded with native seed oysters being transplanted to the cultivated beds. The towing vessel is one of the oyster sloops converted to gasoline engine power around 1900. Wilson Family photo collection. PCHS #2000.18.9. |
| It is pleasant to be able to
record that Captain Olsen was rewarded with a quick voyage. The weather
man was not always tractable, and in one case it is recalled that a schooner
waited three weeks to get out and then gave it up and returned to Bruceport
with her cargo. The oysters were taken from the hold and returned
to the beds. Of course many of them did not survive the treatment,
but a large part of the cargo was saved. When the vessels arrived
at their destination, the hurry was then great to get the oysters out of
the hold onto scows and bedded in the waters of the bay as near to town
as good ground could be found. There they awaited the demands of
the market.
Some of these schooners and their captains became familiar sights to the settlers of the bay. Among then was the little vessel called the Elsie, Richard Hilliard captain. This was the first coasting vessel ever built here, though the first one owned here was the Mary Taylor, already mentioned. The Elsie was originally a little sloop. Dick Hilliard pulled her up on the beach, cut her in two in the middle and lengthened her out. He then schooner rigged her, and with this craft made many a trip down with a load of oysters. After the late seventies, as steamer rates and schedules improved, the oysters for the California market were again shipped by steamer, as in the case of the first shipments by Russell. At that time the oysters were taken by local craft to the head of the bay and from there carried by wagons to the Columbia side, where they met the steamers of the Ilwaco Steam Navigation Company. This company, in the late eighties, reorganized itself into the Ilwaco Railway & Navigation Company and built the rail road from Ilwaco to Nahcotta, thus eliminating the wagon haul across the portage. This portage haul used to give rise to discussion of the scheme of a canal connecting Bakers Bay with ours; but there was no Teddy on hand to get mad and boost. The manner of carrying on the industry has changed somewhat with time; but it is like farming in that it is susceptible of less change than the manufacturing and other mechanical arts. |
| From Fishery to Farm: 1860 to 1895
For the first few years only oysters culled directly from the natural beds were handled. Some of the tide flats in the bay and a few small areas in the channels furnished a good oyster of full grown size. This was particularly true of the flats on each side of Stony Point, near Bruceport, and those between Oysterville and Diamond City. A very few years, however, sufficed to work these grounds beyond their capacity and to practically denude them. Recourse was then had to the scheme of “planting” as it has always been called. By this method the small oysters are taken from the natural beds where they abound but are mostly small and seldom in good meat. They are then scattered at high tide over areas of ground previously staked out and known to be good growing ground. After from one to three years they are ready for market. They are then taken up, the large ones culled out for immediate use, the small ones returned to the beds to grow more. In the early years there was a common practice by the oystermen of tonging the oysters from the natural beds, then taking them to clean sand beach near high tine and throwing them into the shallow water to be culled there as soon as the ebbing tide should bare the ground. Only the large oysters were taken, while the small ones were left there and died. This way of doing was later forbidden by statute, but not till much damage had been done by the wasteful method. Some of the chips of this game may be seen today at Diamond City. Here the beach just above high tide is lined with a heavy deposit of bleached white shells washed there from the outer fringe of the beach where the culling was done. |
Transferring harvested oysters from bateau to “sink float”. Note Indian dugout being used as dingy for the bateau. PCHS #2000.62.1. Donated by Isabel Trezise. |
| Owing to the mild winter climate,
many of the natural oyster beds of the bay, and nearly all of the plant
beds, are on the tide flats where they are bared at low tide. On
such ground it is often possible to do the culling on the ground where
the oysters lie, without at all removing the small oysters and shells from
their habitat. This method is called “picking” oysters. The
word “culling” as locally used, means the culling that is done when the
oysters are first taken in bulk into a boat and the separation of large
and small made there.
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| In the early years nearly all the picking and much of the culling was done by the Indians whose labor was paid for by the white traders at a certain price per basket. Such work, which lasted but a few hours at a time, was suited to the Indian’s liking. The oystermen, on their part, were usually willing to defer the more disagreeable parts of the “white man’s burden” to a later date when the native help would be scarcer. For this work by the Indian, cash was seldom paid during the first thirty years. Instead, goods of various kinds were dispensed in barter. At first the staples were these three: blankets, guns and whiskey; and the greatest of these was whiskey. There was many a first class funeral among the aboriginal population that had its explanation in the liquor given by unscrupulous traders; and an occasional unpleasantness among the whites could then, as always, be thus accounted for. As between the whites and Indians, however, there was always in this vicinity a fair degree of good feeling. There were virtually none of the whites who thirsted for a career of the cheap fame to be attained by shooting human beings. The Indians, in return, were always peaceably inclined. Of course there were exceptions on both sides. For instance, it is told that a worthless white man in a drunken spirit of bravado wantonly killed one Chenimus, an Indian highly esteemed by his fellows and by the whites. The other Indians lost no time but put the offender’s head across a log and strangled him forthwith. The whites paid no further attention to the matter, considering that the Indians had dispensed Mosaic justice, which was good enough for such occasions. The peaceable disposition of the Indians led them readily to take up with the easier portions of the white man’s habits, particularly in dress and diet. Accordingly the trade grew in most of the staples, so that barter became easy with flour, sugar, coffee, calicoes, and other like goods. |
Bay Point Oyster Company’s circa 1907 crew. Identified men in the crew include: J.J. Clark, Robert Anderson, ? Simons, Charlie Shippy, Gus Pickernell, Albert Ridell, Chief George Charley, Charlie Anderson, John Anderson, Johnson George, Mitchell Charley, Clarence Wilson, Robert Sampson, Lincoln Lewis, Freddie Charley, and Nason Pickernell (names by Johnson George). Indians made up a large part of the oystering workforce. PCHS #5-16-90-1 (6) |
| As to the implements of the
industry, the chief of all is the tong. These are used for taking
the oysters off the ground at the bottom of the water. They are nearly
such as are used for the same purpose on the Atlantic coast, and have been
little changed in form since the beginning of oystering here. To
the uninitiated they may be roughly described as resembling in principle
two garden rakes put facing each other and hung on a rivet to work as blacksmith’s
tongs. They are put on the ground with the heads apart; the
heads are pressed together by working the shafts or handles – technically
called stales – and the oysters are pressed into the space between the
heads; they are then lifted and the oysters thrown into the boat.
The dredge, an instrument dragged along over the ground till an attached
bag was filled with oysters, was used a little on the natural beds in an
early day but was soon forbidden by law, on account of the injury done
to the ground by the dredge. A few years ago it was again permitted
in certain cases, but apparently with always harmful results.
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| The main processes of the industry are not many. The first thing is the securing of the seed from the natural beds. In the open tonging season the oystermen go to the natural beds. These change in limits and number from time to time, but the two principal ones have always been the Nemah beds on the east side of the bay and the Long Island beds opposite to Nahcotta. At low tides the men tong the young growth, as the oysters are called, and when the tide is over the tide’s work is shoveled over into a large sail boat or into a barge. Until recently, all the young growth was brought down the bay to the plant beds in the sail boats. These were not usually rough built craft such as are used at other places in similar work, but were carefully built sloops, well modeled, well painted and neatly rigged with main sail and jib. The owners kept their sloops as carefully as a good house-wife tends her household. The sloops built during the last fifteen years come near being as fast a craft as there is anywhere in the world with the same limitation of size, weight, seaworthiness and carrying capacity. There formerly were many regattas in the bay, and frequently the Willapa Bay sloops went around to Astoria to the annual regattas there. During the last few years, however, there has been a tendency to use power boats and tow barges rather than carry with sail power. The advantages of the power methods are many, most of them obvious. One of the less obvious is the difference in bedding the oysters evenly on the plant beds. Of all the operations of oystering, the one requiring the most care, the most resourcefulness and ingenuity and the most attention to accuracy of estimate, the bedding of the young growth from the sail boat stands easily at the head of the list. It is easy to be careless in doing it, and frequently oystermen pay little attention to it: but doing it rightly often measures the difference between success and failure in the native oyster business. The use of tow boats and barges has cut down by more than half the fleet of large sloops that used to sail up and down the bay. It was a trim looking fleet. Nearly every trip down was more of less of a race, and a dozen of the sails together in a stiff breeze made an inspiring sight. It seems a pity to lose the old picturesque spectacle, but utility can’t wait on romance. And perchance even now “All unseen Romance brings up the nine-fifteen.” |
Tokeland Oyster Company oyster station at Nemah, circa 1915. About half a dozen of these outposts guarded the valuable eastern oysters, and provided a refuge for workers on the exposed beds. PCHS #1995.9.6. |
| When oysters are once scattered
out on the plant beds, there is usually nothing to do to them till they
are grown ready to cull. Then the oysterman takes his bateau, as
his flat boat is called, and his tongs and goes to the bed where he has
his oysters. Here he tongs a load in his bateau and takes it ashore
or in to some good harbor to be culled. When culling is done, the
large oysters are put on a “float’ as we call it here. This, which
is called by the opposite name of “sink” in the east, is a floor of narrow
boards with open cracks to let the water in and out between each of the
boards, and supported on each side by two logs which keep the floor under
water but hold it from sinking with the weight of the oysters. Here
the culled oysters are kept any length of time up to a month, waiting date
of market. When wanted they are shoveled up into measures, out into
sacks, and consigned. Meanwhile the “cullings”, as the rejected oysters
and shells are called, are carried out to the plant beds and returned to
the water, where they grow. This completes the cycle of the main
operations of oystering. Of course the work is not as simple as the
outline seems. A farmer’s life is very simple in outline: plow and
plant, keep out weeds, gather crops and sell. But the farmer’s actual
labors do not come into such a compass; neither do an oysterman’s.
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| Even as with men in other callings, the oysterman has ever had his share of adversity to contend against. Analogous to the farmer’s grasshoppers and potato bugs, he has the starfish, the drumfish, the drill borer and other pests. Of these the starfish is the only one found here, and even it does much less damage than its enterprising eastern cousin. The elements, also, contend sometimes against the oysterman’s success with his crops. Hard freezes and violent wind storms always do damage. It is even reported that in one case considerable damage was done by a hot day during which there was a very low tide. |
Distributing eastern oyster seed. Seed arrived in sacks and barrels by railroad at South Bend and Nahcotta. Here the oyster dredge TOKELAND moves a barge-load of seed across the beds while men unload and distribute the precious cargo. PCHS #2001.27.3. |
| This last item is a generally
a negligible factor here, though not so on the Sound, where hot weather
often does damage. Conspicuous among the long freezes that have done
damage to oysters on the bay were those of 1862 and one of about 1870.
Of harder and sharper freezes there have been several; but easily chief
among them was the freeze which began new year’s day, 1875 and lasted eight
days. By those who were in the country at the time this is still
mentioned as “the big freeze.” The thermometer hovered in the region
of zero, the coldest being the very first of the freeze. The weather
turned sharply cold in the night, and when morning dawned parts of the
bay were sheets of solid ice. At Bay Center the ice carried boats
away, dragging their anchors along through the mud till the ground swell
down the bay broke up the ice. It is said that one man crossed the
arm of the bay from Bay Center to the Wilson place on the ice, pushing
a boat before him for safety. This freeze almost cleaned out a few
of the higher beds in the bay, and all suffered more or less. For
a hard freeze there is always little compensation and the expectation of
a good catch of spat the next summer. The opened shells of the dead
oysters being clean, give an excellent place for the spawn to settle.
Some of the oldest Indians in the area tell of a winter before the whites
came which rivaled the freeze of ’75. As nearly as the writer can
locate the year, it must have been the later thirties, perhaps ’37.
Of the heavy blows that occur from time to time, one in December of ’75
or ’76 stands preeminent in recollection. It is called “the south
blow.” It occurred in the evening and was not very long, but seemed
to literally tear the bay to pieces. It was in this storm that there
occurred so many of the forest wind falls in our region. Some old
settlers who were familiar with the woods before that time hold to the
belief that the blow was a record breaker for as far back as a century
at least. There are many interesting tales told, some of them humorous
at the distance of thirty years, of the misdeeds of this storm. The
damage to the beds from heavy winds is from the seas washing away the oysters
or from washing them into ridges and making the lower ones bury in the
sand, where they are smothered. Sometimes the damage can be repaired
by immediately taking off the tops of the ridges or wind rows and giving
the oysters below a chance to come out of the sand.
|
| Immigrants from the East: 1895 to 1906
Eastern oysters were not grown in this bay till nearly thirty years after they were in San Francisco Bay. It was not that there was any reasonable doubt that the oysters would do well here. The difficulty was that it took a good size chunk of hard money to import the seed. The oysterman who had not the money could not get into the game. Those who had the money were mostly interested in the California enterprises, even though some of them were resident here. Their goose was laying golden eggs. They were careful neither to kill her not to start a rival poultry yard. The beginning of the planting of easterns here as an industry was in 1896, when M. Wachsmuth, of Oysterville imported a car of small or seed oysters from the East and planted them on his beds. The next year the Toke Point Oyster Company was organized by Astoria and Portland parties, with Wallace Stuart as the local manager. Their first importation was three cars, mostly of very small seed which were planted on their beds at Tokeland. They grew famously and more were brought the next year. The success of the enterprise was immediate, and the company made large profits on the venture, these profits being mostly converted into expansion of the business. The company’s only problem, in fact, seemed to meet the demand that sprang up. |
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Former oyster sloop SAILOR BOY, converted to gasoline engine power, carries a deckload of oysters across the bay. Former sailing sloops were rarely suitable for dredging, but they served well as towing launches. PCHS #2000.18.10. |
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| The Nahcotta Oyster Company
organized by J.M. Etnier was the next to enter the field, and was soon
followed by the Oysterville Oyster Company and the Occidental Oyster Company.
In 1902 the Northern Oyster Company was initiated by people who had formerly
been with the Toke point Company. These companies are all in the
market now with their products, as also the West Coast Oyster Company,
which succeeds the Wachsmuth interests. There are others who will
have oysters ready for the table at an early date. Prominent among
them are the Bay Point Oyster Company, which last spring planted six car
loads, and A.S. Bush & Sons, who planted four. Chas. Nelson also
planted a car load on his Oysterville grounds last May. The Morgan
Oyster Company, recognizing the inevitable, has imported about ten acres
this year, mostly of oysters nearly grown, in order to be early in the
market with them.
Up to the present time there have been imported and planted in the bay 131 cars of the eastern oysters, which have brought by the several companies as follows:
|
| The seed oysters brought from the east, if strictly seed oysters, are about nine months old when shipped here. They are about the size of a finger nail and are attached to old oyster shells, scallop shells, gravel or any old thing that was handy when the oyster was done with is free swimming stage and wanted to settle down in life. Sometimes for special reasons, the oysters were brought over half grown or more. This is usually done when a company starting in the business wishes to have some stock to begin trade at an early date. In some cases the planters prefer an oyster a year older than seed size, that is, a year and nine months old. They then average about two inches long. The reasons some planters prefer such is that there is less risk involved while the oysters are growing, and the profits are a year earlier; while those using the seed do so because the higher count per barrel, giving a larger result in the end. |
 |
| The planting is usually done in April and the early party of May, after the winter freezes and before the summer heat, either of which would kill the oysters en route. The shipments are from twelve to sixteen days on the trip, with occasional accidents making longer times. Transportation is the principle factor in the importing of seed, as freight charges are somewhat more than the cost of the original cost of the goods on the ground where produced. Then, too, careless handling or delay en route may result in a large mortality of the young and tender oyster. When seed is planted in the waters here, the small oyster loses no time in getting down to business and growing. In a week from the time the oyster is in the water, a thin transparent growth of new shell can be seen narrowly fringing the edge. In a month this will be a quarter inch wide and as sharp as a knife. By the middle of the following autumn, the oysters average about the size and shape of a length-wise section of a hen’s egg. The oyster builds during the spring, summer and early fall, and fills in the meat during the winter. By the middle of the third winter of the oysters’ life, a very few are large enough for the market – that is, when they are two and a half years old. It is not, however, until the oysters are over three years old, that enough of them are grown to make it worthwhile to cull them for market. Some of the slower growing ones will be five or six years reaching market size, while a few never will. It is true of oysters, as of many of the lower forms of life, that they vary widely in rates of growth and in the size of adults, and as there is no definite limit in point of age at which growth ceases. An oyster is practically an adult at four years of age; but he is growing noticeably when six years old, and to the very last will add a little growth each year. An oyster will live to an age of a dozen years at least; but at the last the growth is very small, being barely discernible and being negligible as a commercial factor after six or eight years. |
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| The naturalist seems sometimes
to delight in giving us long names for common things. Our native
oysters he calls Ostre Lurida or Astrea Califiornica. The eastern
or Chesapeake oyster he calls Ostrea Virginiana. Across oceans he
calls the Euriopean oyster O. Edulis and the principle Japanese oyster
O. Cuculata. We are told of these that the Atlantic oyster is bi-sexual;
that is, its male oysters and female oysters are different individuals.
In the case of Edulis and Lurida (and probably with Cuculata) the oysters
are hermaphrodite. In the life of an oyster there are three distinct
periods: that in the ovary of the parent, the free swimming stage and the
period of fixation. As the egg is ready to leave the parent it is
too small to be seen separately by the naked eye; but the egg of the native
oyster, Lurida, can be seen as a minute speck by putting it in a shallow
dish of clear water or otherwise placing it favorably for vision.
Of these eggs, ova or spawn, as they may happen to be called, there are
several million in the ovary of the Virginiana, or eastern. The number
in the ovary of the native oyster has perhaps never been authoritatively
determined; but it is far less, as the ovary is smaller and the egg larger.
Perhaps a hundred thousand would be a large estimate. As the embryo of the native oyster is ready to leave the ovary, it appears a magnifying power of two hundred and fifty as being about the size of a hazel nut or marble. It is mostly transparent, but has two shells just beginning to grow. These shells do not cover the oyster entirely, but look about like a tuxedo jacket with six inches cut off around the edges. It is these shells which give the mass of spawn its dark color which it has just before being expelled. The spawn of eastern oyster, seen under the same magnifying power, looks like the size of a pea and is still mild white when it is expelled. After this it must run the chance of meeting in open water the spermatozoa of male before it is determined if it has a chance at life. It is the necessity of this meeting and the consequent large preponderance of adverse chance which has compelled nature to give the eastern oyster so many more eggs than the native oyster, which is ready to hunt its permanent beds as soon as it is out in the water. After the young oyster has left the parental roof tree, it is a free swimming animal for a period that varies from a day to half a week in the case of the eastern, but is probably much briefer with the native for the reason above indicated. When the youngster has been swimming the length of time allotted to him for that part of his life, he settles to the bottom. If he happens to fall on bare ground or on a slimy surface, it is all over for him as he smothers. But if he is fortunate a drops on a good clean surface of shell, wood, stone or other matter, he puts his glue factory in operation and is soon fixed for life. However theologians and philosophers may settle the case of Free Will vs. Predestination, the oyster is certainly a child of fate. He must meekly accept the turn of fortune’s wheel, with the chances a thousand to one against him. If that thousandth chance comes his way, he has his only opportunity of deciding his station in life. Thereafter all he can do is to hold on tight and he goes wherever he is carried by his support. Usually, of course, this is not far, as the shells, stones or other matter on which he is caught do not move except as carried by storms or swift currents. In some cases, however, the oyster catches on the shell of a live whelk, which will carry it around until the growing oyster becomes too heavy a burden and the whelk dies. Again, it may happen to fix on the bottom of a floating boat, where it will follow the fortunes of navigation till some adverse incident scrapes it off from the surface. After the oyster has attained some size, it will grow all right lying alone on the mud or sand of the bottom. In fact, it does better this way than any other; but is must not be before it has had a chance to gain some size so as to keep it from sinking and being smothered. |
| The State Reserves: 1895 to 1906
The oyster business has given its due share of trouble to legislators of the state. There has already been mentioned a statute, passed in early territorial days, forbidding the dredging for oysters on the natural beds. This was done because dredging tears up the bottom so much as to be particularly injurious to the small native oyster. Raking was about the same time forbidden, because it cleaned all the oysters off the ground and left none for seed. At an early date a closed season was established, lasting from June fifteenth to September first, that being practically the spawning season. Not many years after resort was had to the use of plant beds, heart burnings arose as to the right of the “have gots” and the “ain’t gots” which led to passing a law providing limits of the amounts each oysterman could stake and claim, but the law was ill advised, passed in response to clamor not all wise, and made impractical limits on the amount that could be held. The result was a universal disregard of the law. All beds were occupied by mere squatters’ rights till statehood. In the legislature of ’95 there were passed some laws further restricting the gathering of young growth from the natural beds. It was forbidden to gather oysters in any way except from a floating boat. The object was to prevent handpicking and the use of short tongs when the ground was bare, as these processes cleaned the oysters off too much. At the same time the closed season was extended to November 1. The open season has been shortened twice since, and it is now April 1 to June fifteenth. Also the Fish Commissioner now has authority to forbid work on the natural beds at any time that the condition of the grounds may demand it. This authority has been invoked for the past two seasons, and it is a salutary provision, as the increasing population would otherwise clean the beds each spring so much as greatly to impair their productiveness. Meanwhile the matter of ownership of the beds has had its vicissitudes. The first legislature, that of ’90, passed a general tide land act, one provision of which allowed an occupant of oyster land to buy to the amount of eighty acres, Provided it were not natural ground. The law was a first attempt on the part of the state at tide land legislation and was found satisfactory. Five years later when the legislature of ’95 met, the tide land matters of the state were still unsettled, as the law had proved so cumbersome that some other method of handling the tide and oyster lands of the state was found imperatively needed. At that session was passed the law yet in force, under which a resident and citizen of the state may buy not to exceed one hundred acres of oyster land at a dollar and a quarter an acre, a six months prior right being given to those already using grounds. At the same time, and more especially in ’97 safeguards were provided so that none of the natural beds which were a source of public seed supply should be sold. In the summer of ’95 most of the private plant beds were surveyed and were bought by occupants in due course of procedure. The statute of ’97, providing safeguards against the sale of natural beds, has been alluded to. It established a county Board of Oyster Land Commissioners who must examine each tract of oyster land applied for and determine if it was a natural bed, or had been so and was likely to be so again. Also there was provision made that the natural beds should be surveyed, platted and recorded as state oyster land reserves, and these reserves were to be forever exempt from sale or lease. At first it was difficult to get the oystermen interested. They argued that so many laws were a nuisance. We had always gotten along without so many laws; why were they necessary now? There were other reasons that operated against putting the law into effect, but they were such that their mention here would arouse needless controversy. Suffice it to say that nothing was done for about four years. Then a move was made to have the natural beds surveyed and reserved. The work went haltingly, however, and there was a hiatus of two years before even the survey was completed, and that under a special statute passed in 1903. Again there were delays. It was hard to find out who was to blame; but anyhow before the matter was finished there were various schemes on foot to get part of the natural beds for private use. To tell all the ins and outs of the game would be a long story. Besides it would involve telling some things that can’t be proven and guessing at some things that can’t be known. Suffice to say it to say that there is on hand just now a good size mix-up which will perhaps determine whether the major part of the natural beds will go to private ownership. |
| The law of ’03 provides a tax on the oysters taken from the state reserves. For the district of Willapa Bay the tax is ten cents per sack of one hundred twenty pounds. This tax is expended under the supervision of the fish commission in any way that may best add to the productiveness of the natural beds. Last summer the tax was expended in moving shells and oysters from the less productive places and scattering on the reserves at spawning time the shells of opened eastern oysters. These shells afford an excellent cultch or stool for catching spat, as the set of very young oysters is called. |
Native oyster reserves on Willapa Bay. |
| Last spring nearly fifty cars
of eastern set of 1904 were planted in the bay. When these shall
have matured, there will be oysters on hand to keep this large industry
thriving. For the two proceeding years the planting has been quite
light, owning to very poor set in the parts of the east which furnish the
best seed for our use here. The set of the past summer is reported
to be quite satisfactory, so that next spring’s planting will probably
equal or exceed the last. The set of natives in the bay last summer
was also extremely gratifying. The prospects, therefore, for the
future of the industry are as good as could be asked for, both as to the
native and eastern oysters.
The Japanese oyster (Ostrea Cucullata above mentioned) has been tried in these waters in a number of small experiments. They thrive and get fat, very fat. An Iowa corn fed pork looks lean by comparison. But they have some faults for the American eye and palate that have not as yet been successfully avoided. As between the transplanted eastern and the native oyster, tastes and opinions differ as to quality. Most of those who are really and fairly acquainted with both prefer the native; but the eastern is larger, makes a bigger showing, and is therefore easier to sell. The native oyster has its friends and acquaintances, however, who emphatically refuse to accept any substitute. It is certain that for the cocktail trade the native is absolutely unrivalled. When this line of trade shall have been fully developed, it will probably of itself call for more than the possible output of our waters. There is room for much expansion of the oyster business in the Northwest, but not as much room as the coming expansion of the country will demand. We have Willapa Bay, the inlets of Puget Sound, some doubtful ground on Gray’s Harbor and a little good ground on Yaquina Bay. These, taken in all, will in no way compare with the amount of oyster grounds on the Atlantic Coast. It follows that the man who builds his business for the future is as safe as human prediction can make him if he is in the oyster industry. Oystering has its dreamer promoters and its scheming jobbers, along with other prospective developments. So has lumbering, so has manufacturing of all kinds, so has farming; so has even good morals. It is doubtful of any of them, the last named being deferentially omitted from comparison, have a safer future than oystering. |
Click to see a larger version of the text above |
| Lost and Found
For years I have read that the spartina grass infesting Willapa Bay was introduced with eastern oysters in the 1890s. No definitive proof for this conclusion has come to light, except the circumstance that both the oysters and grass came from the East Coast, and the assumption that young oyster seed must have come packing in spartina grass to keep them damp in transit across the country. I first began to doubt that oystermen introduced the grass when an oysterman pointed out to me that live oysters in transit had to be kept dry, not wet. Any dampness stimulates an oyster to open its shell, and unless totally immersed in water it will loose its internal fluids and die. Later, while looking for something else in our files I found a collection of correspondence donated by B.C. Kremmel, Chairman of the Refuge Committee of the Willapa Harbor Sportsmen’s Association dating from 1934-1951. These letters document the effort to establish a game refuge on Willapa Bay for the benefit of hunters. Among the letters, I found a catalog from the Wild Life Nurseries and Game Farm of Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Along the many animals and plants commercially available for enhancement of game property was listed “spartina or cord grass”. The Sportsmen’s Association correspondence was microfilmed by the Washington State Library February 26, 1970. The catalog now resides in the collection of the Pacific County Historical Society Museum in South Bend Washington. Bruce Weilepp, Editor |
Willapa Bay Scow Schooner. A number of these centerboard, chine-hulled boats worked on the Bay, alongside the better known round-bottom Plunger oyster sloops. These small schooner-rigged vessels did not survive the transition from sail to power after the Turn of the Century. PCHS #1995.9.12, Tom Mattson Collection |
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by Lewis Carroll (from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872) 18 |
