Archaeological Sites Adjacent to IslandWood
IslandWood is adjacent to several known recorded sites (both historic and pre-historic) associated with Blakely Harbor:
Site Number Location, Year Recorded Site Type Further Work? 45KP104 Port Blakely, 1992 Shell Midden No testing conducted 45KP105 Port Blakely, 1992 Historic Townsite No testing conducted 45KP110 Port Blakely, 1995 Historic Millsite No testing conducted 45KP114 Port Blakely, 1998 Shell Midden No testing conducted (Rooke, Schumacher, and Hartmann 2002:33)
Image drawing of the Shell Midden and other archaeological sites in the Blakely Harbor area, created by Matthew John Brewer (ArchaeologicalSites.jpg).Port Blakely has been a central location for human activities since ancient time. In 1792 Captain George Vancouver described a temporary Suquamish settlement at the western side of Blakely Harbor. In 1865 the Port Blakely Mill Company (PBMC) encouraged the development of a permanent Suquamish village at the south shore of the harbor, at a former seasonal camping site (Price 1989). By the end of the nineteenth century the PBMC was one of the largest continually operating mills in the country, producing 400,000 board feet of lumber per day, and supporting a community of over 1500 people. The mill community was ethnically diverse, and included European, American Indian and Hawaiian, Japanese, and Chinese employees; many of the Asian workers lived in enclaves on the south side of Port Blakely (Welch and Daugherty 1991).
The Western Heritage survey identified nine separate areas at Port Blakely containing archeological deposits and historic structural remains, including middens, the mill site, the Captain Renton and Campbell House foundation location and the Japanese village complex of Yama and Nagaya (site 45KP105) (Daugherty 1993). These ares were assigned as follows. Areas A, B, and C were determined to be naturally occurring shell accumulations and were removed archaeological consideration. Area D contained historic debris associated with the residences of Hawaiian employees of the PBMC. Area E contained similar historic deposits. Area F contained extensive and largely Japanese materials associated with the Yama and Nagaya villages. Additional areas are the shell midden site 45KP104; the location of the Captain Renton and Campbell House; and the PBMC structural remains, (Rooke, Schumacher, and Hartmann 2002:29-31).
45KP104 Port Blakely Shell Midden
This small shell midden is located on private property (owned by IslandWood) at the west end of Port Blakely Harbor (see "Port Blakely"). The Shell Midden present on IslandWood campus is between 21 and 60 feet (6.4 to 18 meters) above the current mean sea level; there may be two areas associated with the site: the shell midden adjacent to the trail and the terrace twenty feet away (following the utility cable up the hill). These different figures describe the mean elevation change and the lateral distance from the contemporary shoreline. The distance does indicate its deposition prior to the earthquake uplift event circa 1100 years ago (Daugherty 1992a, Rooke, Schumacher, and Hartmann 2002:39).
A terrace overlooking Blakely Harbor along the Seattle Fault was raised approximately 21 feet (6.4 meters) above the surface of the Harbor about 1100 ybp (Bucknam et al. 1992). Shell midden site 45KP104 was described as located at the north shore of Port Blakely Harbor on a terrace forty to sixty feet (13 to 18 meters) from the contemporary shoreline (Daugherty 1993). A nearby shell midden was found (see below), but Daugherty did not record it, considering it to be too intermixed with historic refuse associated with the workers' cabins of the nearby lumber mill (Daugherty 1993). Larson Anthropological/Archaeological Services (LAAS) relocated and tested this midden, and determined that it retained structural integrity; it was recorded as site 45K114 (Forsman and Larson 1998). Archaeological survey crews also examined the Jasmine Point arras (Forsman et al. 1999, Murphy et al. 2000) for the Puget Sound Environmental Learning Center (IslandWood), on the northern and western portions of Blakely Harbor.
Also present in and around Blakely Harbor are natural (Photo of natural shell deposit at Country Club Rd. culvert (Brewer 2004a).and cultural marine deposits uplifted during the 1100 ybp geologic event. Natural deposits are distinguishable from cultural deposits primarily by the absence of cultural artifacts such as bone refuse, fire-modified rocks or boiling stones, lithic debitage, and other characteristics of human activity throughout the deposit. Natural shell depositing is not uncommon along marine margins, of course; however, as Daugherty (1993:10) observes, "this does not preclude the possibility that at a later time Native Americans […] deposited their shell middens on top of the natural shell deposits." Tectonic processes, especially the earthquake event in the Puget Sound dated to approximately 1000 years ago, may shift or raise entire shell deposits. outside of the original depositional zone, including some subsurface testing, on the southern shore of Blakely Harbor in September 2000, and identified substantial, yet non-cultural, shell deposits. far from the the shore, in and area of natural uplift (Hannum 2000, Rooke, Schumacher, and Hartmann 2002:29-31).
45KP105 Yama-Nagaya Japanese Village Complex at Port Blakely
This is the location of the circa 1900 enclave of Japanese families, many of whom were employees of the PBMC (see "Port Blakely"). This residential site appears to have been disturbed and some artifacts collected by passers-by. No above-ground structural remnants survive, but fragments of foundations, building materials, and Japanese domestic articles are present (Daugherty 1992b, Rooke, Schumacher, and Hartmann 2002:39). The Yama-Nagaya village complex has been determined potentially eligible, but has yet to receive a final determination, a necessary step towards inclusion on the National Register (Rooke, Schumacher, and Hartmann 2002:29-31).
Surface exposure of artifacts suggested that the Yama-Nagaya complex in particular may be of special significance. Over eighty-five percent of observed archaeological material was of Japanese origin; it was considered by the investigator to be "perhaps the most intact Japanese village in the Pacific Northwest" (Daugherty 1993:40). Shovel testing by Daugherty (1993:39) did identify several locations thought to be residential enclaves of the Hawaiian and Spanish-Italian employees of the PBMC; but the perceived lack of ethnic markers in the excavated material precluded further investigation.
45KP110 Port Blakely Mill Complex
This location includes the remnant structures of the Port Blakely Mill and mill town, located along the northern and western shores of Blakely Harbor (see "Port Blakely"). The site includes various building foundations, road beds, pilings, ornamental trees and shrubs, and buried concentrations of historical materials, dating between 1863 and the 1920s (Lewarch 1995, Rooke, Schumacher, and Hartmann 2002:39).
The main mill complex itself is largely exempted from analysis in the 1993 report. But although there remain structural foundations and intact archaeological deposits throughout the area, there had yet been no evaluation for eligibility for the National Register. The historic mill of town of Port Blakely and component structures was assigned site number 45KP110 in 1995 to aid future management goals (Lewarch and Forsman 1995:20). Recommendations for management of the 45KP110 may include an exploration of the potential for its successful nomination cot the Register as a Historic District.
45KP114 Port Blakely Shell Midden
This shell midden is located at the eastern shore of Port Blakely opposite Restoration Point (Forsman and Madson 1998). It is located approximately 50 meters southeast of a promontory named by Waterman (1920). The site was briefly described by Daugherty (see "Port Blakely"), and later surveyed and recorded. The site appears to survive as a rather small, thin deposit of cultural material, with fire-modified rock present within the shell matrix (Forsman and Madson 1998, Rooke, Schumacher, and Hartmann 2002:40).
These pages were created by Matthew John Brewer on March 23, 2004 as part of the Graduate Program at IslandWood and fulfillment of the Independent Study Project.
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