Ed.: Updated Aug. 5, 2024
There was no loss of life due to aggression, but the military occupation of San Juan Island in 1859–72 was not without human cost.
The U.S. and British military occupation of San Juan Island from 1859–1872 was distinguished by the fact that no shots were fired in hostility. It was the last time British troops were stationed south of the 49th parallel in what is now the United States. And it was the final conflict between the two world powers.
The peaceful settlement of the crisis, wrote George Bancroft, then U.S. minister to Germany (1867–74), “for the first time in their histories opens to the two countries the unobstructed way to agreement, good understanding and peace.”
Peaceful though it may have been, the occupation was not without human cost. Several U.S. soldiers (one report lists 16, another 20), seven British Royal Marines and one British civilian died on San Juan Island during those years. Their foes were not bullets and bayonets but accidents, elements, illness and injury — and, in a few cases, suicide.
The remains of the U.S. soldiers, originally interred in a 34-square-foot cemetery some 500 yards southeast of the American Camp parade ground, now rest in Port Townsend or at San Francisco National Cemetery. The remains of the British Royal Marines and civilian rest where they were originally interred, in a cemetery bordered by a white picket fence on Young Hill, not far from their former encampment.
There was another great cost: the displacement of the island’s Indigenous peoples, whose ancestors left evidence of thousands of years of life here but whose inherent claims to the island were ignored. Indeed, the British established their camp at a place the First Peoples knew as Pe’pi’ow’elh (pronounced pepi-il-wth) and used wood from a longhouse as construction material.
Competing claims, growing tensions
Great Britain and the United States had long had a presence in — and competing claims to — the Pacific Northwest and its resources. Both nations signed the Treaty of Oregon on June 15, 1846, establishing the international border between the American Northwest and British Columbia. However, the treaty left unclear whether the boundary cut through Rosario Strait, as the British believed; or Haro Strait, as the U.S. believed. At stake: ownership of the San Juan archipelago.
Britain and America stepped up their presence on San Juan in order to bolster their territorial claims. The Hudson’s Bay Company established Belle Vue Sheep Farm near a Coast Salish village overlooking what is now Grandma’s Cove, and exported wool, mutton, salted fish and timber from its wharf on Griffin Bay. More Americans settled on San Juan, a U.S. customs official was stationed on the island, and authorities attempted to impose U.S. tax laws on Americans and British residents alike.
Tensions came to a head on June 15, 1859, when an American settler, Lyman Cutlar, shot a Belle Vue Sheep Farm boar that was rooting in his garden. Hudson’s Bay Co. demanded $100 payment for the boar and threatened to arrest Cutlar when he refused to pay. Americans on the island called for U.S. intervention to protect their interests as citizens.
The situation quickly escalated. Army Capt. George E. Pickett and a 9th Infantry company from Fort Bellingham landed on the island on July 27, 1859, and camped near the Hudson’s Bay Co. wharf. Britain responded by sending a warship to the island coast. Wanting to avoid armed conflict, representatives from both nations agreed to jointly occupy the island until the boundary dispute could be resolved.
Pickett established the American encampment on higher ground north of Belle Vue Sheep Farm. The Royal Marines landed at Pe’pi’ow’elh, on what is now known as Garrison Bay, on March 21, 1860.
‘Untimely death of one and pity for the other’
San Juan Island’s coastal waters are deep and cold, the currents swift, and hypothermia can set in within minutes. Four Royal Marines died from drowning here; one Royal Marine’s body was never found.
Interred in the cemetery on Young Hill:
- Pvt. Joseph Ellis, 29, drowned, Jan. 4, 1863
- Pvt. Thomas Kiddy, 27, drowned, Jan. 4, 1863
- Cpl. George Stewart, 28, natural causes, June 1, 1865
- William Taylor, 31, accidentally shot by his brother while hunting on Jan. 26, 1868
- Pvt. William Davis, 26, drowned, May 7, 1868
- Pvt. Charles Wood, 28, died in camp on Jan. 8, 1869
- Pvt. James Wensley, drowned, April 7, 1869.
Taylor’s death generated the most excitement in the region, perhaps because of the nature of his demise. The Pacific Tribune, published in Olympia, reported on Taylor’s death in its Feb. 8, 1868, edition:
“A shocking accident occurred on San Juan Island on the morning of the 26th [of January] by which Mr. Wm. Taylor met his death at the hands of his brother,” the Tribune reported.
“The facts are as follows: Mr. John Taylor went hunting early, leaving William at home in bed; and having wounded a deer, while searching for it, saw some object moving in the underbrush. He called aloud, and receiving no answer, fired, and was startled by a cry.
“Proceeding to the spot, he found his brother lying mortally wounded in the side, and just able to reply that he too was hunting, and had not heard the call. Before Dr. Amberry, who came with all speed from the British camp, could reach the spot, the man was dead.
“The brothers were but a few years from England, in the prime of life, prosperous and respected; and there is a universal feeling of sorrow for the untimely death of the one, and pity for the other in his deep affliction.”
U.S. burials moved to Fort Townsend in 1874
Two U.S. soldiers died by suicide, one died of typhoid fever, one died of a stroke and one drowned. A hospital steward, treating himself for a toothache, died from a morphine overdose.
Those interred in the cemetery, according to a researcher’s notes, included the infant child of Pvt. Henry Pulsky.
Before leaving the island in 1874, the Army moved the burials to the cemetery at Fort Townsend and, after that fort was abandoned in 1895, reinterred them at San Francisco National Cemetery. The cause of death, if known, is listed:
- Pvt. Vender Underwood, Sept. 21, 1860
- Pvt. M. Willis, June 7, 1865
- Cpl. Grafton Gilbert, Dec. 9, 1865
- Cpl. James M. Ayres, Dec. 31, 1868
- Pvt. Andrew Cuddihy, suicide, April 15, 1870
- Hospital Steward William Carroll, June 1870
- Pvt. William Malloy, typhoid fever, Nov. 12, 1870
- Pvt. Theodore Gerlach, March 12, 1871
- Sgt. Henry Whetstone, suicide, Nov. 23, 1871
- 1st Lt. Louis Miller, Nov. 30, 1871
- Pvt. Louis Jonas, May 19, 1873
- Hospital Steward R.H. Farquharson, morphine overdose, Dec. 29, 1873
- Pvt. Abraham Leete, stroke, March 17, 1874.
The identities and causes of death of seven soldiers could not be found by National Park or independent researchers. Their deaths were reported in October 1859, April 1861, June 1863, September 1865, June 1866, September 1867 and February 1868.
Opening the door to ‘understanding and peace’
A three-member arbitration panel led by Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany ruled on Oct. 21, 1872, in favor of the U.S. claim to the San Juan archipelago. British troops left Pe’pi’ow’elh for Esquimalt on Nov. 24 that year aboard HMS Scout. American Camp ceased to be a U.S. military installation on July 17, 1874, and several buildings were auctioned and the land made available for homesteading.
Robert Firth (1830–1903), a native of Scotland, worked for Belle Vue Sheep Farm and later leased land from the company to farm. After the territory dispute was settled, he obtained ownership of 40 acres by cash payment and another 160 acres by homestead patent. He and his family lived in the former American Camp officers’ quarters. [Ed.: Robert Firth’s dates corrected Aug. 5, 2024.]
The British military camp site was homesteaded by William Crook, a native of Yorkshire, England, who became a U.S. citizen in 1881. His son later claimed his father tended the Royal Marine Cemetery and received $10 a month from the British government for doing so.
In 1903, the British cemetery and surrounding land were owned by Dr. Victor Capron, a future state legislator and mayor of Friday Harbor. That year, a civil engineer, on behalf of Royal Navy officials at Esquimalt, did a survey and sketch of the cemetery.
The American and British campsites were designated a National Historic Landmark District on Nov. 5, 1961.
The University Naval Training Division of the Royal Canadian Navy erected a memorial plaque at the Royal Marines cemetery in August 1964.
San Juan Island National Historical Park was created by Congress on Oct. 15, 1966. The Royal Marine Barracks serves as a visitor center; the cemetery is cared for by the National Park Service.
On Dec. 18, 2010, a box-frame building was moved back to its original location on the American Camp parade ground from the corner of West and First streets in Friday Harbor, where it was moved 130 years earlier after it was purchased at auction. The building is scheduled for restoration to its 1860s condition.
On Aug. 25, 2016 at Pe’pi’ow’elh, representatives of the Lummi Nation and the Saanich First Nation installed a story pole and two storyboards that tell the story about reef netting, which originated in the San Juan Islands.
And on June 23, 2023, the new American Camp Visitor Center opened with a permanent exhibit that tells the story of the island’s First Peoples. Several tribal nations have treaty rights on the island.
— By Richard Arlin Walker