Voices of Ebey's Reserve

Ebey's Landing lies in Washington’s Puget Lowland physiographic province, a large, low-lying region between the Cascade Range and the Olympic Mountains. The area was shaped by advancing continental glaciers during the Pleistocene Ice Ages (dating from 2.6 million years ago to 11,700 years ago). During this period, unconsolidated layers of silt, gravel, and clay formed within the prairies creating ideal pastoral land for human settlements.

The lands within Ebey's Reserve have been occupied and cultivated by various groups of people for 10,000 years. The earliest evidence of settlement found were mammoth bones with butcher marks, suggesting that hunter/gatherer groups were tracking the fauna on the island. Situated in the Salish Sea, Central Whidbey was the homeland of the Lower Skagit People and was occupied by other tribes, such as the Snohomish, Kikiallus, and Klallam, for more than 500 years (1300-1850 C.E).

Central Whidbey was favorable because of its temperate climate and access to food, fresh water, and to a calm protective cove.

The nutrient rich soil provided plentiful agricultural production and the indigenous peoples grew blue camas, bracken ferns, salal, and nettles. They also supplemented their diet with a seasonal supply of game and fish, particularly salmon. The Lower Skagit practiced many different farming techniques to increase crop production, including field burning, transplanting, and mulching for soil fertility. Much of cultivated crops, such as the ferns and nettles, were not abundant within the prairies. These agricultural practices altered the environment and transformed the prairies into crop producing lands.

The Lower Skagit People also raised small wooly dogs whose fur was sheared and spun to make blankets and mats.    

The livelihood of the Lower Skagit People focused on water transportation. Known as the “Canoe People” of the Salish Sea, the Lower Skagit used cedar dugout canoes to navigate the waterways. 

Located on the shores of Penn Cove, the Lower Skagit People occupied nine multifamily villages, consisting of plank longhouses.

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čobaʔálšǰd, a village once located at Snakelum Point, is considered to be the site in which the Creator first placed the ancestors of the Lower Skagit People and thus the first village inhabited by those with “Pure Skagit” lineage.

Euro-American settlers journeying westward along the Columbia River were enticed to the island by the promising seaport and farmland. The white settlers displaced the indigenous populations, dividing the island into 57 different Land Donation Claims in the mid-19th c. 

In 1855, Washington's first Territorial Governor, Isaac Stevens, required indigenous peoples to surrender their land to white settlers in exchange for money, tools, food, and education.   The treaty connected to Central Whidbey is known as the Point Elliot Treaty and was signed on January 22, 1855, at Point Elliott, Mukilteo. Believing that these treaties provided the best opportunities for their people's survival, Tribal leaders consented. Indian Reservations were created and indigenous populations were separated from their homeland. The Point Elliott Treaty established the Swinomish Reservation, located on Fidalgo Island in Western Washington, for the Lower Skagit, Samish, Kikiallus, and Swinomish Tribes.

As the villages around Penn Cove were vacated, the structures were burned or fell into disrepair. Aleck Kettle and his family were the last of the Lower Skagit People in Central Whidbey Island. Aleck was a member of the Duwamish Tribe but was raised in Penn Cove. He married Teloleta “Susie” Slapoose, who was a member of the Lower Skagit and from a highly respected family. The Kettle family lived in Coupeville until Aleck's death in 1947. They are the only known Lower Skagit buried in marked graves in Coupeville's Sunnyside Cemetery. Other indigenous graves within the area were destroyed or forgotten. 

As white settlers moved westward, they were attracted to areas that could be cultivated for agricultural purposes. Often, these lands were already settled by indigenous populations. Western migration was steered by the philosophy of Manifest Destiny which implied that land was free to claim.

In 1850 the Federal Government established the Donation Land Claim Act which stipulated that a man could claim land for free in the Oregon and Washington Territory provided that he settle on the land between 1850 and 1853, cultivate it for four consecutive years, and live on site. Additional land could be claimed by married women under their own name. Land Claims recorded during this period are known as First Class Claims.

Although the Act was extended in 1853, the land was no longer free for the taking. Known as Second Class Claims, settlers could stake up to 320 acres of land at $1.25 per acre between 1853-1855 and the four year residential requirement was reduced to two years. Additionally, single men had to be 21 years or older to claim land. 

Claims were usually filed at the Land Office three months after settlement or after the first survey. After a year, proof of cultivation and residence along with two affidavits of disinterested parties were presented to the Land Office. After four years, property owners would present their proof again and receive their certification from the Surveyor-General. These certifications were then sent by the owner to the General Land Office and a patent was issued. In 1851 First Class Claims on Whidbey Island were filed with Thurston County directly south of the island. By 1853 Second Class Claims were filed in the newly created Island County, in which Whidbey is located. 

Of the 57 Land Claims on the island, 29 were filed and recognized within Central Whidbey. Almost all of the Claims were filed by men. Widow Rebecca Maddox, was the only recognized single women to hold 320 acres in her own right.  

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Colonel Isaac Ebey, the namesake of the landing, traveled from Adair County, Missouri west to California, and eventually made his way to Puget Sound by a boat in 1850. By October of that same year he settled on 320 acres of suitable farmland in Central Whidbey. He claimed the area just three weeks after the Land Donation Claim Act was passed. In 1851 Isaac arranged for his wife and children to travel along the Oregon Trail to join him. His wife, Rebecca, claimed an additional 320 acres.