oysterville yacht club

Oysterville Yacht Club

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oysterville yacht club

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This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Community Corner

PR Guru George Regan sworn in as Commodore of Oysterville Yacht Club

Marci Tyldesley , Neighbor

oysterville yacht club

George Regan, President and Founder of Regan Communications Group, received the dubious honor of being named the 2012 Commodore of the Oysterville Yacht Club on Monday night.  With over 5,000 members, the yacht club is distinct in that there’s actually no club, no yachts, no anything for that matter.  Instead, members pay an annual dues to the tongue in cheek club – a whopping $20 per year.  And every penny of it goes to The Cam Neely Foundation for Cancer Care.  Ironically, the membership list boasts some of the top newsmakers and business leaders in New England, and the club is the largest in the world.

On Monday the club celebrated its annual Sailabration, a massive bash at Oyster Harbors Marine.  Guests and speakers included George Regan, former Congressman Bill Delahunt, City Council President Steve Murphy, Reebok big wig Paul Foster, Mashpee Police Chief Rodney Collins and some 500 guests.  Regan, who has a home in Mashpee and an office in Osterville, is notorious for his boating mishaps.  He has been rescued twice off the Cape (once with Delahunt on his boat) and once off Boston.  The club named  him Commodore because of the “visibility he’s brought to boating.”  He joins an illustrious group of former Commodores, including actors Adam Sandler and James Caan.

Find out what's happening in Barnstable-Hyannis with free, real-time updates from Patch.

For more information on the club and its charitable work, visit  http://www.oyc.org/ .

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch? Register for a user account.

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Oysterville Restoration Foundation

Visit oysterville.

Oysterville Church

33590 Territory Road, Oysterville, Washington

Visitors are welcome to enjoy the serenity and ambiance Oysterville has to offer. The church is open year-round and every year, hundreds of visitors from all over the world step in the door and back in time. We invite you to come inside to explore and sit among the pews — listen for reverberations of hymns sung by villagers for over a hundred years. While visiting, we hope you will sign the church guestbook and help yourself to a Walking Tour brochure. Please consider making a donation (information in the vestibule) to support the maintenance of this historical landmark as well as ORF’s other preservation projects. All donations are greatly appreciated.

Tour Oysterville

The Walking Tour (see below) is an excellent guide through the interesting spots in Oysterville. The lanes, marked Clay Street, Merchant Street, and Division make for an idyllic stroll through Oysterville and provide lovely views of Willapa Bay and the home fronts, as most homes along Territory Road face the bay.

The Oysterville Schoolhouse is the best location for starting your Oysterville tour. Please park in the gravel lot. The schoolhouse and grounds are publicly owned. You are welcome to look in the windows and play in the schoolyard, just as children did a hundred years ago. If the school parking lot is full, you may parallel park along any of the paved roads. You may also parallel park in the grassy lanes, denoted by street signs. Please do not block the lanes, as these are county roads. We also ask that you refrain from driving down the lanes to the bay as the ruts make the lanes difficult to mow and maintain.

Privately-Owned Properties

Oysterville is a community of privately owned homes, and while visitors are welcome to enter the church and peek through the windows of the school, please respect the privately owned properties and stay on the street side of the picket fences.

Businesses in Oysterville

There are two businesses in Oysterville. The cannery building is the home of Oysterville Sea Farms . Although no longer a cannery, Oysterville Sea Farms sells fresh oysters and steamer clams straight from the bay. Additionally, Oysterville Sea Farms carries a fresh and diverse specialty food line featuring cranberry condiments, cereals, spices, and breading and much more. Store hours and more information can be found on their website at www.willapawild.com . The Oysterville Post Office is the oldest post office operating continuously and under the same name in the state of Washington. However, since its beginning in 1858, the post office has never been in a building of its own. It has operated out of private homes, even from the back of a saloon, but most often in association with a general store. Since 1918, it has been in its current location at the west end of the Oysterville Store (not currently operating) just at the foot of Davis Hill. Post Office 3012 Oysterville Rd Oysterville, WA 98641 0000

Public Restrooms

The church has a year-round outhouse located a short walk through the churchyard to the back of the building. During the summer, two porta-potties are located near the schoolhouse.

When you visit Oysterville, stop by the Church to pick up a print copy of this walking tour of Oysterville’s Historic District.

Click here to open a map of the village. The numbered descriptions below correspond with the numbers on the map. While all primary structures are listed here, only those which are on the National Register or are of particular significance are illustrated and described in detail.

1. The Oysterville Church – 1892

Built at a cost of $1500, the church was a gift to the Baptist denomination by R. H. Espy. No regular services have been held here since the mid-1930s. In 1980 the church was rededicated as an ecumenical house of worship. Music Vesper services conducted by ministers from various churches on the peninsula are held Sundays from mid-June through Labor Day Weekend. All are welcome to “come as you are.”

2. Johnson Homesite – 1870 – 1896

The Johnsons were one of many Native American families who lived in Oysterville in its early days.

3. W. D. Taylor House – 1870

This house was constructed by early Loomis Stage Line driver, W. D. Taylor, who later built the Taylor Hotel in Ocean Park. Behind the house are the remains of later owner Tommy Nelson’s commercial oyster smoking business which operated from the 1930s to the mid-1950s.

4. The Red Cottage – 1863

This, the oldest surviving structure in the village, was built by Captain J. W. Munson and until 1875 was the site of Oysterville’s first Pacific County Courthouse. It was once owned by local author Willard R. Espy, a grandson of R.H. Espy. The pink rose on the picket fence is an 1870 variety, “Dorothy Perkins.”

5. Michael Parker House – 1992

6. Chris Freshley Cabin – 1980

7. Larry Freshley Cabin – 1995

8. Ned Osborne House – 1873

Osborne arrived in Oysterville in 1866 aboard the schooner Sailor Boy along with his good friend and neighbor, Charles Nelson. He began building this house for his bride-to-be, continuing to work on it even though she jilted him before the wedding date. When she married another, however, Osborne stopped building and never completed the upstairs bedrooms. He lived a bachelor all his life in this house.

9. Charles Nelson House – 1873

Like his next-door neighbor, Nelson was born in Kalmar, Sweden. The two sailed together as young men, eventually settling in Oysterville. Mrs. Nelson’s lovely garden featured old-fashioned flowers and paths made of sparkling white, crushed native oyster shell. Many Nelson’s descendants live in the area.

10. Nordquist House – 1994

11. The Meadow

In the meadow across from the Red Cottage a stone bench has been placed so that visitors might sit and view the bay. On it, inscribed in Willard Espy’s hand, is a line from his book, The Road to Grandpa’s House.

12. Holway House – 1949

13. Tom Crellin House – 1869

Like many of the old houses in the village, the Tom Crellin house was built of redwood lumber brought north as ballast on oyster schooners out of San Francisco. In 1892, after the Crellin family had moved to California, R. H. Espy purchased the house to serve as a parsonage for the new Baptist church. Since 1902 it has been occupied by Espy descendants.

14. Wachsmuth House & Cottages – 1939

15. Courthouse Sign

This wooden plaque was placed on July 4, 1976 during Oysterville’s bicentennial celebration when the village was granted its National Historic District status. It marks the site of the old Pacific County Courthouse, the first tax-financed building constructed in the county.

16. Oysterville Schoolhouse – 1907

This is the third and last school in Oysterville and was used by Pacific County School District #1 until consolidation in 1957. The first school was a prefabricated building of “red wood” made in California and shipped aboard one of the oyster schooners in 1863. The booming community soon outgrew the “little red schoolhouse” and in 1874 a two-story building was built on this site, serving the community until it burned down in 1905.

17. Hampson House – 1987

18. Wilson-Codega House – 1993

18-A. Hayward House – 2014

19. John Crellin House – 1867

The house was built by Tom Crellin’s older brother using plans he brought from his native Isle of Man. From the bay it is obvious that both Crellin houses (the white and green) were built using the same plans, though younger brother Tom added bay windows and a bit more gingerbread to his. From 1920 until WWII this was the site of the Heckes Inn, listed in the Duncan Hines Travel Guides as an outstanding eating place. The Monterey Cypress trees in front were brought from California in the 1890s as ballast on an oyster schooner.

20. Smith Cabin – c.1920

21. Kepner House – 2004

22. Jacobs House – 1991

23. Kemmer House – c. 1920

24. R. H. Espy House – 1871

Robert Hamilton Espy, co-founder of Oysterville, built this house in 1871, shortly after he married. From 1854 until that time he had lived in a log cabin about 100 feet south and across the road. The “Red House” has remained in the Espy family for six generations.

25. Stoner House – 1905

Dewitt Stoner, a bachelor living with his mother, first built a small house just east of the present house on the same lot and built this larger house when he married. Until recently it was the site of the last remaining windmill in Oysterville – a structure that was part of almost every property before electricity came to the village in the late 1930s.

26. Fire Station – circa 1978

27. Janke House – 1910 

28. Captain Stream House – 1869

A.T. Stream came to this country in 1860 from his native Norway, arriving in the Shoalwater Bay area in 1867. He was in Oysterville at the time of the 1870 census, but lived at various times at Tokeland, South Bend, and finally at Klipsan, which was named by him after the Indian word for sunset. He distinguished himself as a member of the United States Lifesaving Service and was well-known for his racing expertise in the annual regattas sponsored by Oysterville’s Shoalwater Bay Yacht Club.

29. The Bunk House – 1959

30. The Cannery – 1940

The Northern Oyster Company, begun in the 1930s by Ted Holway, Glenn Heckes, and Roy Kemmer, operated as a cannery until 1967. Now it is the home of Oysterville Sea Farms, selling fresh oysters and other local products. Though no longer a cannery, it is the only structure remaining in Oysterville that gives testimony to the settlement’s original reason for being.

31. Friedlander/Thurston House – 1994

32. Eddie Freshley House – 1982

33. de Marcken/Freeman House – 2004

34. Hausler Cabin – 1989

35. Merton Andrews House – c. 1935

36. The Andrews Garage – c. 1900

37. Carl Andrews House – c. 1940

38. The Oysterville Store & Post Office – 1919

The Oysterville Post Office has operated in Oysterville since 1858 and is the oldest continuously run Post Office under the same name in Washington. It has been in its present location since 1919 when Bert and Minnie Andrews began the Oysterville Store.

39. Bert Andrews House – 1907

40. Oysterville Cemetery – 1858

Begun in 1858 on land donated by F.C. Davis, the old section of the cemetery contains the graves of many pioneer families. Near the entrance is the grave of Chief Nahcati who befriended R. H. Espy and showed him the oyster beds and for whom Nahcotta, a village three miles south of here, is named. Just to the south, near the marker which reads “And the sea gave up its dead…” are the graves of unknown sailors who washed ashore nearby in the early days of Oysterville.

 Thanks to Sydney Stevens for this text and to Patricia Fagerland for her illustrations.

The Vespers season runs from Father’s Day through Labor Day. Services are on Sundays at 3 p.m. at the church. Enjoy music, company, and stories from Oysterville residents and friends as they share a special “Oysterville Moment.” All are welcome to attend.

The church is a vital community center for the village and often serves as a gathering place for celebrations and town business meetings. It is the focus of ORF’s resources and all proceeds collected from the “poor box,” vespers services, and rentals are prioritized for its upkeep. ORF also maintains several open spaces throughout the village.

Discovery Awaits on the Long Beach Peninsula

The Peninsula offers visitors shops, great seafood, comfortable lodging, small museums, horseback riding, and an expansive beach. It is home to a new national park, two historic lighthouses, renowned restaurants, cranberry bogs, and oyster farms. 

Learn more at www.funbeach.com

The Official Website of the Chinook Tribe

More than forty Chinook settlements existed in Pacific County in Southwest Washington at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Those groups that lived around Shoalwater Bay came to the northern part of the North Beach Peninsula to gather salmon berries and to hunt seal. They called the area near Oysterville “Tsako-Te-Hahsh-Eetl” – Place of the Red-topped Grass. 

Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum

The purpose of the Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum is “to preserve and interpret the heritage of the Columbia Pacific region, including the lower Columbia River and adjacent coastal areas of southwestern Washington, northwestern Oregon, with special emphasis on the Columbia’s north shore, the Long Beach Peninsula and vicinity of Willapa Bay in Pacific County, Washington

Columbia River Maritime Museum

Located in Astoria, the Columbia River Maritime Museum is to collect and preserve historical and cultural maritime material relevant to the Columbia River, and to display and interpret selected material from the collections for the education and enjoyment of the public. 

Northwest Carriage Museum

You are invited to explore the world of the 19th century traveler at the Northwest Carriage Museum in Raymond, WA. The museum is home to 25 beautifully restored vehicles, many the “Cadillacs of their day” with ivory door locks, brocade trim, and leather interiors.

Pacific County, Washington

Pacific County was established February 4, 1851 by the Oregon Territorial Legislature — before there was a Washington State or even a Washington Territory. Oysterville served as the third Pacific County seat from 1855 until 1892 at which time South Bend became the fourth and final location for county government headquarters. The County’s official website provides links to various boards and commissions as well as statistical information.

The Pacific County Historical Society

The Pacific County Historical Society is a private, not-for-profit, charitable organization devoted to preserving and presenting the history of Pacific County, Washington. Their museum, located in the county seat of South Bend, features exhibits covering natural history, local Indian history, transportation, natural resources, communities, maritime, and cultural history. The Society’s quarterly publication, the Souwester , is an excellent source for Pacific County history.

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Walking Tour of Oysterville

oysterville yacht club

One of the best ways to experience Oysterville, to learn more about its history, and to appreciate the importance of historic preservation, is by taking the walking tour. Stop by the Willabay Retail Store to pick up a copy. Walk the village with it in hand and be reminded again of why this place is so special. The Walking Tour Map was written, designed and illustrated by Oysterville resident, Sydney Stevens, and Peninsula artist, Patricia Fagerland.

oysterville yacht club

Map of Oysterville

Click on the thumbnail of the hand drawn map at the left to load a larger image of the Map of Oysterville.

oysterville yacht club

1. The Oysterville Church - 1892

Built at a cost of $1500, the church was a gift to the Baptist denomination by R. H. Espy. No regular services have been held here since the mid-1930s. In 1980 the church was rededicated as an ecumenical house of worship. Music Vesper services conducted by ministers from various churches on the peninsula are held Sundays from mid-June through Labor Day Weekend. All are welcome to "come as you are."

oysterville yacht club

2. Johnson Homesite 1870 - 1896

The Johnsons were one of many Native American families who lived in Oysterville in its early days.

oysterville yacht club

3. W. D. Taylor House 1870

This house was constructed by early Loomis Stage Line driver, W. D. Taylor, who later built the Taylor Hotel in Ocean Park. Behind the house are the remains of later owner Tommy Nelson's commercial oyster smoking business which operated from the 1930s to the mid-1950s.

5. Michael Parker House - 1992

6. chris freshley cabin - 1980, 7. larry freshley cabin - 1995.

oysterville yacht club

8. Ned Osborne House - 1873

Osborne arrived in Oysterville in 1866 aboard the schooner Sailor Boy along with his good friend and neighbor, Charles Nelson. He began building this house for his bride-to-be, continuing to work on it even though she jilted him before the wedding date. When she married another, however, Osborne stopped building and never completed the upstairs bedrooms. He lived a bachelor all his life in this house.

oysterville yacht club

9. Charles Nelson House - 1873

Like his next door neighbor, Nelson was born in Kalmar, Sweden. The two sailed together as young men, eventually settling in Oysterville. Mrs. Nelson's lovely garden featured old-fashioned flowers and paths made of sparkling white, crushed native oyster shell. Many Nelson descendents live in the area.

10. Nordquist House - 1994

oysterville yacht club

11. The Meadow

In the meadow across from the Red Cottage a stone bench has been placed so that visitors might sit and view the bay. On it, inscribed in Willard Espy's hand, is a line from his book,   The Road to Grandpa's House .

12. Holway House - 1949

oysterville yacht club

13. Tom Crellin House - 1869

Like many of the old houses in the village, the Tom Crellin house was built of redwood lumber brought north as ballast on oyster schooners out of San Francisco. In 1892, after the Crellin family had moved to California, R. H. Espy purchased the house to serve as a parsonage for the new Baptist church. Since 1902 it has been occupied by Espy descendents.

14. Wachsmuth House & Cottages - 1939

oysterville yacht club

15. Courthouse Sign

This wooden plaque was placed on July 4, 1976 during Oysterville's bicentennial celebration when the village was granted its National Historic District status. It marks the site of the old Pacific County Courthouse, the first tax-financed building constructed in the county.

oysterville yacht club

16. Oysterville Schoolhouse - 1907

This is the third and last school in Oysterville and was used by Pacific County School District #1 until consolidation in 1957. The first school was a prefabricated building of "red wood" made in California and shipped aboard one of the oyster schooners in 1863. The booming community soon outgrew the "little red schoolhouse" and in 1874 a two-story building was built on this site, serving the community until it burned down in 1905.

17. Hampson House - 1987

18. wilson-codega house - 1993.

oysterville yacht club

19. John Crellin House - 1867

The house was built by Tom Crellin's older brother using plans he brought from his native Isle of Man. From the bay it is obvious that both Crellin houses (the white and green) were built using the same plans, though younger brother Tom added bay windows and a bit more gingerbread to his. From 1920 until WWII this was the site of the Heckes Inn, listed in the Duncan Hines Travel Guides as an outstanding eating place. The Monterey Cypress trees in front were brought from California in the 1890s as ballast on an oyster schooner.

20. Smith Cabin - c.1920

21. kepner house - 2004, 22. jacobs house - 1991, 23. kemmer house - c. 1920.

oysterville yacht club

24. R. H. Espy House - 1871

Robert Hamilton Espy, co-founder of Oysterville, built this house in 1871, shortly after he married. From 1854 until that time he had lived in a log cabin about 100 feet south and across the road. The "Red House" has remained in the Espy family for six generations.

oysterville yacht club

25. Stoner House - 1905

Dewitt Stoner, a bachelor living with his mother, first built a small house just east of the present house on the same lot and built this larger house when he married. Until recently it was the site of the last remaining windmill in Oysterville - a structure that was part of almost every property before electricity came to the village in the late 1930s.

26. Fire Station - circa 1978

27. janke house - 1910.

oysterville yacht club

28. Captain Stream House - 1878

A.T. Stream came to this country in 1860 from his native Norway, arriving in the Shoalwater Bay area in 1867. He was in Oysterville at the time of the 1870 census, but lived at various times at Tokeland, South Bend, and finally at Klipsan, which was named by him after the Indian word for sunset. He distinguished himself as a member of the United States Lifesaving Service and was well-known for his racing expertise in the annual regattas sponsored by Oysterville's Shoalwater Bay Yacht Club.

29. The Bunk House - 1959

oysterville yacht club

30. The Cannery - 1940

The Northern Oyster Company, begun in the 1930s by Ted Holway, Glenn Heckes, and Roy Kemmer, operated as a cannery until 1967. Now it is the home of Oysterville Sea Farms, selling fresh oysters and other local products. Though no longer a cannery, it is the only structure remaining in Oysterville that gives testimony to the settlement's original reason for being.

31. Friedlander/Thurston House - 1994

32. eddie freshley house - 1982, 33. de marcken/freeman house - 2004, 34. hausler cabin - 1989, 35. merton andrews house - c. 1935, 36. the andrews garage - c. 1900, 37. carl andrews house - c. 1940.

oysterville yacht club

38. The Oysterville Store & Post Office - 1919

The Oysterville Post Office has operated in Oysterville since 1858 and is the oldest continuously run Post Office under the same name in Washington. It has been in its present location since 1919 when Bert and Minnie Andrews began the Oysterville Store.

39. Bert Andrews House - 1907

oysterville yacht club

40. Oysterville Cemetery - 1858

Begun in 1858 on land donated by F.C. Davis, the old section of the cemetery contains the graves of many pioneer families. Near the entrance is the grave of Chief Nahcati who befriended R. H. Espy and showed him the oyster beds and for whom Nahcotta, a village three miles south of here, is named. Just to the south, near the marker which reads "And the sea gave up its dead..." are the graves of unknown sailors who washed ashore nearby in the early days of Oysterville. Thanks to Sydney Stevens for this text and to Patricia Fagerland for her illustration.

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Shoalwater Bay Yacht Club? APRIL FOOL!!

Apr 1, 2023 | 2 comments

oysterville yacht club

A bit of April Fool’s history?

Perhaps you have seen the sign on the west side of the Taylor Hotel that identifies it as the Shoalwater Bay Yacht Club.  Or perhaps you have visited the Shoalwater Bay Yacht Club website which says, among other things:  Established 1877. Rejuvenated 2023.  We are a yacht club that is open to the public!

Wow!  And right in the heart of Ocean Park, too.  Not really within sight of Shoalwater Bay, though.  And, says the logo, it was “established in 1877” at the Taylor Hotel which wasn’t built until 1886.  And it was in Ocean Park which didn’t exist even as a Methodist Campground until 1883.  I am so confused.

To convolute matters even further — there really was a Shoalwater Bay Yacht Club established “in the early ’70s… (1870s that is) with headquarters at Oysterville.”   And the annual regattas that have been held in Oysterville for the past twenty years were established by Oysterville residents with deep roots here to honor those early Shoalwater Bay Yacht Club regattas.  I doubt if it has ever occurred to any of them to consider a Headquarters in Ocean Park.

oysterville yacht club

Oyster boats called plungers were used in the first regattas in the early 1870s.

Did “headquarters” in Oysterville in the early 1870s mean that they had a building?  So far, there is no evidence to substantiate that idea.  And, Ocean Park is not mentioned at all in the Regattas’ historic record.  Oh!  Wait!  There was no Ocean Park in the early 1870s.

Interesting that it was all brought to my attention today.  Does that mean someone will soon say “April Fool!” and it will go away?  Or is it more like convoluting history — one of those “George Washington Slept Here” sorts of promotional deals?  (When I was a kid, every hotel on the Eastern Seaboard seemed to sport one of those signs.  I wonder if it really did help the bottom line of those establishments.)

Well, to those of us trying to shed a little light on our actual (and truly amazing) history, this convoluted version of a small piece of it seems really weird — at least to me.

Kristina Jones

Beloved Cuz! You Go Girl! The Nerve! The Very Idea! Sheesh. I am so disappointed in the establishment that hacked together this slur on the original Oysterville Yacht Club! I hope you will publish this heresy in the Chinook Observer…other old time peninsulites will agree fully and completely. I am hot and bothered and salute you, Sydney, for your forthrightness, accuracy and Excellent Reportage. Get ’em!!! Love, KK

sydney

Beloved Kris, Interestingly, only you and Cousin Ralph have responded with any outrage at all. Ralph’s take was that this is concrete proof (along with the “elite” garden tour last year) that the Peninsula is being gentrified… He’s probably right. I have more thoughts on that subject but will save them until we can have a proper in-person-rant! Love, S.

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The Wooden Boat Legacy

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Brothers Daniel and Jesse Crosby, Jr., came to Osterville from Centerville in 1798 and leased sixteen rods of land on the shore of North Bay with the right to build a shop and dock. For this lease of sixty years they paid James Parker nine dollars.

 

North Bay, at the foot of Bay Street, is quite deep and there is a channel running through North Bay and Cotuit Bay, and then out to Nantucket Sound. There would be no West Bay Cut in Osterville for another ninety years.


The Crosby brothers must have built a number of vessels here, but we have a record of only one, the “Warrior.” The “Warrior” was a two-masted topsail schooner built in 1804 and lost on Block Island‘s north reef in 1834 during a violent storm. The “Warrior” was a “packet” running between Boston and New York on a more or less regular schedule as packets did, depending on the weather.

 

Oliver Hinckley, born in 1792, was an apprentice to the Crosby brothers. He took over the shipyard at the foot of Bay Street, probably in 1816-1818.


Following the Crosby brothers, he continued to build coasting vessels in this yard until 1857. His last vessel, the “Leanara,” was reported lost in the early 1900s. This vessel was a packet between Boston and Hartford, Connecticut. Hinckley built at least 23 vessels. There was one sloop, the “Echo,” (for which the Osterville Historical Museum has a rare hawk’s nest model), nineteen schooners, and three brigs. His schooner, “Page,” built in 1831, sailed down the coast of South America, around Cape Horn, and up to San Francisco where it worked as a lumber schooner into the early 1900s. He also built the ,” a three-masted schooner, for Captain Jonathan Parker whose house the Museum now occupies. The logbook for the "Spy" can be seen in the Museum's permanent collection.

 

A small number of coasting vessels were built by Seth Goodspeed in East Bay. His home is still standing and is located on the west side of East Bay, directly opposite the town landing. He built one of his vessels in his yard and then moved it to the bay. That was considered a remarkable feat at the time.

 

By 1850, the need for coasting vessels declined. The last vessel built in the Hinckley yard was constructed in 1857. The yard, however, continued operating with marine work until the late 1860s.


The descendants of Daniel and Jesse Crosby, Jr., built boat shops in several places around the bay. In 1850 the first Crosby Catboat was built, and its utilitarian design was quickly recognized. Since then the Crosby family built over 3,000 wooden catboats.


As a matter of interest, after WW II the Crosby family at Crosby Yacht Building & Storage built 230 wooden boats of various designs before the business was sold in the late 1970s. Today, the art and craftsmanship of boatbuilding continues at Crosby Yacht Yard--located just down the road from the Museum. Likewise, Ned Crosby is a ninth-generation boatbuilder at E. M. Crosby Boatworks in West Barnstable.



is a lapstrake dinghy constructed under the supervision of Edward M. Crosby, son of Chester Crosby. 


often was seen sailing the bays with Senator Warner and his then-wife Elizabeth Taylor.



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Visit Long Beach Peninsula

Oysterville Walking Tour

Apr 1, 2013 | History

Oysterville was settled in 1854 by R.H. Espy and I. A. Clark. They had agreed on a rendezvous with Chief Nahcati who had told Espy of tidelands covered with succulent oysters. On April 20, as they paddled north from the head of the bay, they became engulfed by a heavy fog. Their sense of direction vanished and they feared they would be swept out to sea. However, Nahcati had spotted them before the fog rolled in and, by rhythmically pounding on a hollow log, directed them to shore. Nahcati had not exaggerated. The mudflats were piled high with tiny native oysters, there for the taking.

Willapa Bay Oysters

Not much later, Espy and Clark marketed the bivalves in gold-rich, oyster-hungry San Francisco. There, a plate of oysters sold for a Mexican “slug” which was worth two and a half times a twenty dollar gold piece. Within a few months there were 500 settlers in Oysterville and in 1855 it became the county seat of Pacific County. Washington Territory. It had many firsts: a school, a college, a newspaper, and finally, in 1873, a church. Oysterville was a rip-roarin’ town in those days. There were those who lived in “sin” and those who lived to be “saved” – about an even division. When the church was dedicated, the hard drinkers abandoned the saloons, marched together to the church, put their gold pieces in the collection plate, and returned to what they considered more stimulating than praying – drinking.

Oysterville Walking Tour

Oysterville Church

When oyster schooners came to pick up their cargo of bivalves, the oyster owners were paid in gold coin. Since a bank was the one business that was never established in this boomtown metropolis, gold receipts were stashed under mattresses or buried in old tin cans for safe keeping. It is said that there was often more gold in Oysterville than in any other town on the West Coast, except San Francisco.

In the late 1880s fate took a hand: the long-awaited railroad line ended at Nahcotta, an isolating four miles away; the native oysters became scarce and, without the possibility of a local livelihood, residents moved out en masse. In 1893, the courthouse records were stolen by South Bend “raiders” and Oysterville gradually became a sleepy little village where “time stood still.” Stop long enough to listen – you will hear the whispers of the past.

If you want to see, in a small way what Oysterville looked like in the old days, walk down Clay Street opposite the church to the edge of the bay and look back toward the village. You will see the fronts of the old homes which were built facing the bay. The street directly in front of the church, Territory Road, was once called 4th Street. Main Street was about where the easterly white picket fence is now and 1st Street was about where the easterly wire fence is near the bay. What was once known as Front Street is now out in the tidelands.

Oysterville is proud of the fact that it was placed on the Register of National Historic Districts in 1976. The District encompasses about 80 acres of the village.

A Walk Through the Oysterville Historic District

The following illustrations and descriptions are taken from the Walking Tour of Oysterville, a brochure produced by Oysterville Restoration Foundation (ORF) with the talented participation of writer Sydney Stevens and artist Patricia Fagerland. When you visit Oysterville, stop by the Church to pick a copy and to begin your walking tour of the Historic District. In the meantime, you can preview the village right here!

The numbered descriptions below correspond with the numbers on the map. While all primary structures are listed here, only those which are on the National Register or are of particular significance are illustrated and described in detail.

1. The Oysterville Church – 1892 Built at a cost of $1500, the church was a gift to the Baptist denomination by R. H. Espy. No regular services have been held here since the mid-1930s. In 1980 the church was rededicated as an ecumenical house of worship. Music Vesper services conducted by ministers from various churches on the peninsula are held Sundays from mid-June through Labor Day Weekend. All are welcome to “come as you are.”

2. Johnson Homesite – 1870 – 1896 The Johnsons were one of many Native American families who lived in Oysterville in its early days.

3. W. D. Taylor House – 1870 This house was constructed by early Loomis Stage Line driver, W. D. Taylor, who later built the Taylor Hotel in Ocean Park. Behind the house are the remains of later owner Tommy Nelson’s commercial oyster smoking business which operated from the 1930s to the mid-1950s.

4. The Red Cottage – 1863

This, the oldest surviving structure in the village, was built by Captain J. W. Munson and until 1875 was the site of Oysterville’s first Pacific County Courthouse. It was once owned by local author Willard R. Espy, a grandson of R.H. Espy. The pink rose on the picket fence is an 1870 variety, “Dorothy Perkins.”

5. Michael Parker House – 1992

6. Chris Freshley Cabin – 1980

7. Larry Freshley Cabin – 1995

8. Ned Osborne House – 1873 Osborne arrived in Oysterville in 1866 aboard the schooner Sailor Boy along with his good friend and neighbor, Charles Nelson. He began building this house for his bride-to-be, continuing to work on it even though she jilted him before the wedding date. When she married another, however, Osborne stopped building and never completed the upstairs bedrooms. He lived a bachelor all his life in this house.

9. Charles Nelson House – 1873

Like his next door neighbor, Nelson was born in Kalmar, Sweden.The two sailed together as young men, eventually settling in Oysterville. Mrs. Nelson’s lovely garden featured old-fashioned flowers and paths made of sparkling white, crushed native oyster shell. Many Nelson desce dents live in the area.

10. Nordquist House – 1994

11. The Meadow

In the meadow across from the Red Cottage a stone bench has been placed so that visitors might sit and view the bay. On it, inscribed in Willard Espy’s hand, is a line from his book, The Road to Grandpa’s House.

12. Holway House – 1949

13. Tom Crellin House – 1869

Like many of the old houses in the village, the Tom Crellin house was built of redwood lumber brought north as ballast on oyster schooners out of San Francisco. In 1892, after the Crellin family had moved to California, R. H. Espy purchased the house to serve as a parsonage for the new Baptist church. Since 1902 it has been occupied by Espy descendents.

14. Wachsmuth House & Cottages – 1939

15. Courthouse Sign This wooden plaque was placed on July 4, 1976 during Oysterville’s bicentennial celebration when the village was granted its National Historic District status. It marks the site of the old Pacific County Courthouse, the first tax-financed building constructed in the county.

16. Oysterville Schoolhouse – 1907 This is the third and last school in Oysterville and was used by Pacific County School District #1 until consolidation in 1957. The first school was a prefabricated building of “red wood” made in California and shipped aboard one of the oyster schooners in 1863. The booming community soon outgrew the “little red schoolhouse” and in 1874 a two-story building was built on this site, serving the community until it burned down in 1905.

17. Hampson House – 1987

18. Wilson-Codega House – 1993

19. John Crellin House – 1867 The house was built by Tom Crellin’s older brother using plans he brought from his native Isle of Man. From the bay it is obvious that both Crellin houses (the white and green) were built using the same plans, though younger brother Tom added bay windows and a bit more gingerbread to his. From 1920 until WWII this was the site of the Heckes Inn, listed in the Duncan Hines Travel Guides as an outstanding eating place. The Monterey Cypress trees in front were brought from California in the 1890s as ballast on an oyster schooner.

20. Smith Cabin – c.1920

21. Kepner House – 2004

22. Jacobs House – 1991

23. Kemmer House – c. 1920

24. R. H. Espy House – 1871 Robert Hamilton Espy, co-founder of Oysterville, built this house in 1871, shortly after he married. From 1854 until that time he had lived in a log cabin about 100 feet south and across the road. The “Red House” has remained in the Espy family for six generations.

25. Stoner House – 1905

Dewitt Stoner, a bachelor living with his mother, first built a small house just east of the present house on the same lot and built this larger house when he married. Until recently it was the site of the last remaining windmill in Oysterville – a structure that was part of almost every property before electricity came to the village in the late 1930s.

26. Fire Station – circa 1978

27. Janke House – 1910

28. Captain Stream House – 1878 A.T. Stream came to this country in 1860 from his native Norway, arriving in the Shoalwater Bay area in 1867. He was in Oysterville at the time of the 1870 census, but lived at various times at Tokeland, South Bend, and finally at Klipsan, which was named by him after the Indian word for sunset. He distinguished himself as a member of the United States Lifesaving Service and was well-known for his racing expertise in the annual regattas sponsored by Oysterville’s Shoalwater Bay Yacht Club.

29. The Bunk House – 1959

30. The Cannery – 1940 The Northern Oyster Company, begun in the 1930s by Ted Holway, Glenn Heckes, and Roy Kemmer, operated as a cannery until 1967. Now it is the home of Oysterville Sea Farms, selling fresh oysters and other local products. Though no longer a cannery, it is the only structure remaining in Oysterville that gives testimony to the settlement’s original reason for being.

Oysterville Walking Tour

Willapa Bay

31. Friedlander/Thurston House – 1994

32. Eddie Freshley House – 1982

33. de Marcken/Freeman House – 2004

34. Hausler Cabin – 1989

35. Merton Andrews House – c. 1935

36. The Andrews Garage – c. 1900

37. Carl Andrews House – c. 1940

38. The Oysterville Store & Post Office – 1919 The Oysterville Post Office has operated in Oysterville since 1858 and is the oldest continuously run Post Office under the same name in Washington. It has been in its present location since 1919 when Bert and Minnie Andrews began the Oysterville Store.

39. Bert Andrews House – 1907

40. Oysterville Cemetery – 1858 Begun in 1858 on land donated by F.C. Davis, the old section of the cemetery contains the graves of many pioneer families. Near the entrance is the grave of Chief Nahcati who befriended R. H. Espy and showed him the oyster beds and for whom Nahcotta, a village three miles south of here, is named. Just to the south, near the marker which reads “And the sea gave up its dead…” are the graves of unknown sailors who washed ashore nearby in the early days of Oysterville. Thanks to Sydney Stevens for this text and to Patricia Fagerland for her illustration.

This walking tour has been provided courtesy of Oysterville Restoration Foundation Post Office Box 71 – Oysterville, Washington 98641 Copyright 2007 Oysterville Restoration Foundation

THE OYSTERVILLE RESTORATION FOUNDATION Shortly after the village was designated a National Historic District, the community formed the Oysterville Restoration Foundation. Its purpose is “to maintain, repair and aid in the preservation and restoration of buildings and sites of national historic interest located in the Oysterville National Historic District, and to do all matters of business incidental thereto.” Thus far, maintenance and repair with restoration funds have been limited to the Oysterville Church and to the several parcels of open space, which come under the stewardship of the Foundation. Preservation and care of private property, including the historic homes and other buildings in the District, is: the responsibility of the individual property owners. Financial support for the Foundation is through grants and individual donations as well as proceeds from the rentals of the church and the offerings during summer vespers services. [ more information ]

THE DESIGN REVIEW BOARD To safeguard the historic character of Oysterville, residents have developed a set of guidelines for new construction as well as for repairs or renovations to existing structures. The regulations apply to the National Historic District and to the county-created “buffer zone” which surrounds it. Basic guidelines call for design features such as gabled roofs, porches oriented to the street and use of historic, rather than synthetic, building materials. [more information]

THE OYSTERVILLE COMMUNITY CLUB The Oysterville Community Club has been involved with local improvement projects since the early 1900s and has managed and maintained the historic Oysterville Schoolhouse since 1957. The building, which is equipped with a full kitchen, is used for community activities, and can be rented by the public for wedding receptions, family reunions, and other gatherings.

THE ESPY FOUNDATION Author Willard R. Espy put Oysterville ‘back on the map’ in 1977 with the publication of Oysterville, Roads to Grandpa’s Village. Shor1ly before his death in 1999, a number of friends and followers established a foundation in his name with the purpose of ‘advancing and encouraging the literary and linguistic arts: The group manages a small library collection, sponsors writers’ retreats, and encourages literary pursuits in the local schools.

Explore more of what Pacific County has to offer.

Haunt-tober spotlight: graveyards of pacific county, unique pacific northwest museums in the long beach peninsula, indoor fun in pacific county , haunted places on the long beach peninsula.

Home to eerie sounding areas like Cape Disappointment, Dismal Nitch and the Graveyard of the Pacific, it’s no surprise that Washington’s Pacific County boasts a hearty helping of haunted houses… and hotels.

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  1. Oysterville Yacht Club

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  2. Oysterville Yacht Club

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  4. Oysterville Yacht Club Public Group

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  6. Oysterville Yacht Club forms Oxford branch

    With tongues planted firmly in their cheeks, members of the Massachusetts-based Oysterville Yacht Club formally established its Oxford Branch on Monday, replete with a ceremonial cannon salute and ...

  7. PR Guru George Regan sworn in as Commodore of Oysterville Yacht Club

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  9. Oysterville Yacht Club

    Oysterville Yacht Club. Use this forum to discuss anything that doesn't fit anywhere else. 1 post • Page 1 of 1. Ereiss Posts: 354 Joined: Sat Dec 06, 2008 4:32 pm. Oysterville Yacht Club. Post by Ereiss » Sat Jan 10, 2009 12:20 am. The OYC is accepting membership applications. Now before you say either 1) I'm already a member of a posh ...

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  11. Visit Oysterville

    Oysterville Church. 33590 Territory Road, Oysterville, Washington. ... of the United States Lifesaving Service and was well-known for his racing expertise in the annual regattas sponsored by Oysterville's Shoalwater Bay Yacht Club. 29. The Bunk House - 1959. 30. The Cannery - 1940.

  12. Walking Tour of Oysterville

    One of the best ways to experience Oysterville, to learn more about its history, and to appreciate the importance of historic preservation, is by taking the walking tour. ... of the United States Lifesaving Service and was well-known for his racing expertise in the annual regattas sponsored by Oysterville's Shoalwater Bay Yacht Club. 29. The ...

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  17. Oysterville Walking Tour

    Espy House - 1871. Robert Hamilton Espy, co-founder of Oysterville, built this house in 1871, shortly after he married. From 1854 until that time he had lived in a log cabin about 100 feet south and across the road. The "Red House" has remained in the Espy family for six generations. 25. Stoner House - 1905.

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    Public group. 127 members. Join group. About. Discussion. Topics. Events. Media. More. About. Discussion. Topics. Events. Media. Oysterville Yacht Club

  19. Yacht club "Royal Yacht Club": address, description, photos

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