Articles written by Jan Parker
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Joseph Sherwood
In 1854, Joseph Sherwood and his brother Warren traveled from their home in Vermont to Sawamish County (name changed to Mason County 10 years later) in the Washington Territory, bringing with them...
Early Grapeview schools
When Fred Curl gave up on transporting children to the Detroit school, the school board bought a secondhand Model T Ford and one of the teachers took on the additional job of driving. There was a...
Early Grapeview schools - Part 1
Much of the information in this story is from the book "Grapeview, Detroit of the West," by Mary Sagerson and Duane Robinson....
Skokomish potlatch celebrations
The following story is adapted from "A Brief Historical Sketch of Shelton, Washington" written by Grant Angle in 1940, and Jean Bearden's "History of Hoodsport," first published in 1987. In 1886, the...
Items from The Mason County Journal, August 1919
At about 3 on the morning of Aug. 1, 1919, "neighbors gradually awoke to the fact that the old Willey residence on the northwest corner of Cota and Seventh was on fire. By the time the alarm was...
Skokomish horses carry off honors on the prairie
This story is from the June 17, 1921, edition of the Journal. Shelton Prairie included what is now the Mountain View area. The racetrack was about where the Barkley Square mini mall is situated. A...
Ida's story: Kept busy in Hoodsport, buried in Shelton
In 1913, Ida Finch had only her youngest son to care for and was beginning to feel lonely and unneeded. For most of her life, activities in Hoodsport had rotated around Ida and her family. She had...
Ida's story: Coming to the canal, meeting Vincent Finch
In 1872, 9-year-old Ida Robbins traveled by ship with her parents from Maine to California to reunite with family members. Her father was ship Captain George Robbins, who hauled cargo up and down the...
The 1915 wedding of Humphrey and Doris Nelson
Humphrey "Hump" Nelson was one of the premier oyster growers in early Mason County. His family moved from Michigan to Tacoma in 1888, when he was about 2 years old. Not long after they arrived, Hump's...
Captain Ed Miller
In 1892, a journalist for the Seattle Press Times wrote, "Captain Miller of the tug Biz and owner of that antediluvian ark the Ajax, is one of the old landmarks on the waterfront, weighs something...
From March to May 1959 in the Journal
The feature story March 5 included a photo of a car that had been blown apart on a county road when dynamite in the trunk exploded. The driver, who was killed, had been transporting the dynamite to...
Mary M. Knight - pioneering educator
This Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m., the Mason County League of Women Voters is sponsoring an open house at the Mason County Historical Museum (427 West Railroad Ave.) to showcase seven women, past and...
Launching the S.G. Simpson
This story is taken from the Aug. 23, 1907, edition of the Mason County Journal. On Aug. 19, 1907, about 40 people from Shelton, hosted by Mark E. Reed, Arthur Govey and Thomas O'Neill, traveled to...
The first edition of the Mason County Journal
On Dec. 31, 1886, at the age of 18, Grant C. Angle published the first edition of his Mason County Journal. (Some years later, he changed the name to the Shelton-Mason County Journal.) A one-year...
A story of early Tahuya
The first settler of record in the Tahuya area was Enoch Willey, who acquired a claim in 1865. Willey sold his claim in 1875 and eventually settled at Oakland. Among the homesteaders who followed him...
Roberta Wilcox Welch's story
This is part two of a two-part story on the recollections of Shelton-area resident Roberta Wilcox Welch. The first installment ran in the Shelton-Mason County Journal on Jan. 20. At Christmas season,...
The story of George Clifton – Part two
In January 1924, 17-year-old George Clifton began working for Simpson Logging Co. at a camp near Lake Nahwatzel. For the next two years, he kept a sporadic journal of his experiences. This story is ta...
George Clifton's story - Part one
In January 1924, 17-year-old George Clifton began working for Simpson Logging Co. at a camp near Lake Nahwatzel. For the next two years, he kept a sporadic journal of his experiences. This story is...
Irene S. Reed High School Memorial Wall
In mid-summer, 1985, as demolition was about to begin on the Irene S. Reed High School building at Seventh and Alder Streets, the Mason County Historical Society (MCHS) put forth a proposal to save...
A Glimpse into High School Life, 1952
The following items are from the October and November issues of the 1952 Irene S. Reed High School weekly newspaper called The Saghalie. The mirror in the boys' lavatory had disappeared and would not...
L.D. Hack, Shelton booster
In a feature titled "Interesting People of the Peninsula," the September 1935 issue of a publication called Olympic Peninsula Magazine announced that "Native sons of the great Olympic Peninsula had...
A look at the life and times of Agate School
In June 1912, parents of children attending Chapman's Cove, Miller, and Cape Horn Schools (all located in an area between Hammersley Inlet and Oakland Bay) met at the local grange hall and voted...
