History of Belilngham
Edmund C. Fitzhugh, Special Indian Agent of Bellingham Bay Agency on June 18, 1857 reported that he had in his charge:
- Neuk-sacks, 450
- Lummis, 510
- Samish, 150
- and the Sticks, or Neukwers, and Sia-man-nas, about 200.
Fitzhugh was appointed by Michael T. Simmons, first Indian agent of Washington Territory.
WILLIAM ROBERT JARMAN, born in Gravesend, England, April 3, 1820, was the first settler in Whatcom County. His sea captain father died when Jarman was 15. Two years later he joined the British Navy, deserted at Oberton, Tasmania in 1844, and walked barefoot 122 miles to Lanceton. He has been described as a fine looking, athletic man... a sailor, a woodsman and a hunter. He spoke Clallam, some Snohomish, Kanaka, Bengali, Spanish and Chinook jargon.
At King Island, Australia, he signed with a trading ship. In 1846 the vessel anchored at Nootka Sound to take on water. When the Captain went aboard with filled casks he left Jarman on shore. The Nootkas began to attack the ship, and the crew fought while the sails were hoisted, the anchor lifted. Jarman was captured and for two years lived with the tribe. In 1848 Governor James Douglas of Victoria, B.C. obtained his release by giving the Indians 32 blankets. Afterward Jarman became known as "Blanket Bill." When rescued by Douglas, Jarman was wearing only "a blanket of juniper cedar bark, woven with swan's down, feathers, and Russian dog's hair."
| Jarman was in Victoria a short while as a messenger from the Governor's office to the Fort. One night he took a canoe and went to Wilson Point to Clallam Village. There he met his Indian wife, Alice. According to a report by R. Jordan, they settled southeast of Lake Samish, later known as Jarman Prairie in 1848, five years before the first permanent settlement in Bellingham and 25 years before the first official government survey of the area in 1873. Jarman received a homestead patent on the quarter section December 1, 1876 when Ulysses S. Grant was President. The patent was filed February 5, 1878. Jarman sold the property to Martin V.C. Stacey, September 1880, for $775. The graves of Jarman's wife and child are on this property. In 1849-1850 he prospected for gold in California and, because of malaria, returned to Jarman Prairie. In 1853 he filed on a double donation claim of 640 acres on Samish flats near Edison and Squaw Bay, but failed to prove up on it. His daughter Alice was born there. |  |
Jarman served as mail and express deliverer for General Capt. Pickett at Fort Bellingham and the troops at Steilacoom, and Fort Townsend. In the 1860s he was a telegraph linesman for the California State Telegraph Company, whose wires reached Sehome March 16,1865. | |
In later life Jarman returned to England for a visit, and a niece, Minnie Vine (Mrs. William Manning) came back to Whatcom with him. He lived with her family in Ferndale and often walked to Bellingham. Part of an early morning exercise was to swim across the Nooksack River and back. He was 92 when he died June 11,1912.
