"Dirty Dan" Harris - Stakes His Claim

    Human presence on the east side of Bellingham Bay where Dan Harris was granted a Donation Land Claim (DLC) in 1871 dates back at least 5,000 years. Archaeological excavations have uncovered the remains of seasonal encampments on the shores of the two tidal basins that originally formed the Padden Creek Estuary in what is now the City of Bellingham's Fairhaven Neighborhood.¹ These encampments were made by Native American groups from east of the Cascade Mountains as well as from coastal areas. The Native American name for this location was Sis-e-le-chem, which means "a small place where good things happen."²

    The settlement of individuals of European extraction on Bellingham Bay began in mid-1852,³ motivated by the prospects of profiting from the area's timber and coal resources and by the offer of free land under the Federal Donation Land Claim Act of 1850 (DLCA).⁴ [A] In all, nineteen settlers filed for Donation Land Claims (DLC's) around Bellingham Bay.[B] Eleven of these settlers [C] recorded their claims in Island County prior to March 2, 1854, perhaps in an effort to establish legal priority. [D]

    The first three individuals to do so were William R. Pattle, James Morrison and John Thomas. The details of their filings are presented in the following section. These men were employees of the Hudson Bay Company, interested in the coal deposits located in the area where the towns of Sehome, Bellingham and Fairhaven would later be established. Pattle and Morrison subsequently submitted notifications to the Surveyor General of Washington Territory to establish title to their respective claims under the DLCA. However, John Thomas did not do so. He died "on or about May 20, 1854," according to a petition for the issuance of letters of administration for his estate presented to the Whatcom County Probate Court on October 22, 1860 by Frank Mahoney, whose request was subsequently granted.⁵

    Several key documents are missing from the Thomas probate file, including the original petition for letters of administration and any reference to the actual disposition of the estate. However, the records it does contain indicate that William R. Prattle had initially been appointed as administrator and had then "left the country to the neglect of said Estate" before April 14, 1856.⁶ The Thomas probate file contains a sworn statement by James Morrison dated April 14, 1861, asserting that John Thomas had taken up a claim adjacent to his in January 1853, had built a dwelling house and cooper shop on it and had lived there and cultivated the land "until the ---- A.D. 1855 when said John Thomas sickened and died and was buried on the said claim where his grave now is."⁷

    The final document in John Thomas's estate file is Frank Mahoney's July 15, 1861 petition for a court order to sell the Thomas claim for the benefit of the unidentified heirs and to pay for surveying the claim and to defray taxes and other costs.⁸ This petition refers to the estate's having been in the hands of the court for six years prior to Mahoney's appointment as administrator. The Thomas's estate file contains no order to sell the claim, no indication that a sale of the claim was ever consummated and no reference to Dan Harris, who occupied the claim upon John Thomas's death. Moreover, Whatcom County land records contain no documents pertaining to the sale of the Thomas claim.

    Early Fairhaven journalist, Frank C. Teck, was the first to publish a biographical account of Dan Harris.⁹ It asserts that Dan Harris had arrived on Bellingham Bay in time to help John Thomas complete the building of his cabin, that he had occupied the cabin upon Thomas's death and that he had acquired the claim from Thomas's estate. Several latter writers uncritically follow Teck's assertion.¹⁰ However, since John Thomas had arrived on Bellingham Bay in January 1853, he surely would have constructed his cabin as soon as possible. For Dan Harris to have helped Thomas finish building the cabin, he would have had to arrive during the early months of 1853. No records have been found to support either such an early arrival date for Dan Harris or for his collaboration with John Thomas.

    An entry in the log of the whaling ship "Levant," in which Dan Harris came to the Pacific, mentions Dan Harris by name five times between November 28 and December 2, 1853,shortly before reaching Hawaii. ¹¹ The log indicates that the ship lay in the Port of Honolulu from December 7, 1853 to February 4, 1854 and that a Boat Steerer (i.e., harpooner), presumably Dan Harris, was taken ashore on January 24th to get his discharge.¹² (See the companion booklet, Dan Harris Goes Whaling). Consequently, an early (or late) 1853 arrival on Bellingham Bay would have been impossible.

    Affidavits in Dan Harris' DLC File assert that he arrived on Bellingham Bay on May 20, 1854, the day that John Thomas died, and settled on the claim eight days later on May 28th.¹³ However, records from, an 1876 legal dispute over ownership of a DLC settled by Henry Webber on San Juan Island place Dan in the Puget Sound area at least a month earlier. Webber gave a sworn statement that he had staked out his claim on San Juan Island in April 1884¹⁴ and Dan gave the following affidavit:

Territory of Washington
County of Whatcom       ss

On the 4th day of April, A.D. 1876, comes Daniel J. Harris, to me known as a credible witness, who, being first duly sworn deposes as follows, to wit: I am a native-born citizen of the United States, over 41 years of age, and a farmer by occupation; that I am well acquainted with Henry Webber; that I have no interest to his claim to lands on San Juan Island; that I assisted the said Henry Webber to stake off his Donation Claim on said island of San Juan in the year 1854; on what is now surveyed as the Southeast quarter of section thirty-two, of Township thirty-four north of Range three west; that he resided upon and cultivated said land from that year to the month of April, 1858, at which latter date I visited him and staid over night at his house; that being then a trader as master of the Schooner Phantom I had occasion to visit said Webber on several occasions from the date of settlement to the month of April, 1858; that I have known said Webber to live on said Donation Claim during those years, when a settler stood in very great danger from the frequent raids of Northern Indians; and that during one of the visits to his house, alluded to, I was attacked by an Indian whom I disarmed in his attempt to take my life.

                                      (Signed) Daniel J. Harris

Subscribed and sworn to before me this 4th day of April, AD 1876 In testimony whereof, witness my hand and official seal.

                                             Jas. Power¹⁵

In 1889 Dan Harris applied for membership in an organization known as "The Washington Pioneers Association," claiming that he had arrived in Washington Territory on May 28, 1854 by way of Victoria, BC.¹⁶ Unfortunately no records have been found to identify the date on which Dan left Honolulu, the name of the ship on which he sailed or the date on which he arrived in Victoria or the name of the ship involved. However, the records that have been discovered to date clearly show that Dan had a period of just over four months to cover the distance from Honolulu to Bellingham Bay.

Whatcom County tax records for 1857 listed the value of Dan Harris' personal property at $250 and the value of the Thomas estate at $1,000, indicating that legal ownership of the DLC had not been finalized at that point in time.¹⁷ An entry on the 1857 Delinquent Tax List for Whatcom County shows that Dan Harris belatedly paid the $2.75 tax levy, comprised of $1.00 for County Tax, 50 cents for School Tax and 25 cents for Territorial Tax.¹⁸ Whatcom County tax records for 1864 set the value of Dan Harris' 160 acres at $200 and identified no personal property. His tax bill of $8.40 was comprised of $2.00 for Poll Tax, $4.40 for Road Tax, $1.00 for Court Tax and 40 cents each for School Tax and Territorial Tax.¹⁹ No mention of any property belonging to the Thomas estate appears in the 1864 tax records, indicating that the ownership issue had been settled.