THE BLOG | Travels With Towhee | Ride along on this great adventure!

July, 2020

There’s another old, small town on the Kitsap Peninsula … Port Gamble. It’s a lovely town, mostly still original from the 1800s. It was a major logging town back then, with lots of money in the town, so the homes were nice, the church was beautiful, the old general store is still old-fashioned though with some new-fangled things for sale in it today. All of that was really nice, back in the day, and it still is really nice with real people living in these same very real homes today.

As I drove around town, I wondered why it was named Port Gamble. Of course, it was a port town, with a very large saltwater bay adjacent to it used as a booming area for logs that were being brought by water to the log mill here. But where did the word “Gamble” come from? Was this town or its location or the business itself a “gamble” to begin with?

I laughed at that thought, thinking it was pretty silly. I figured the town certainly must be named after someone with the last name Gamble, and some websites will tell you that is the case. But I kept searching and found there is support for a different answer.

Here’s a quote from a wikipedia website ….

“Gamble Bay was named by the Wilkes Expedition in 1841. The source of the name is unclear. Wilkes often named places after historical figures, and speculation centers on Lt. Col. John M. Gamble, an illustrious figure in the War of 1812; or U.S. Navy Lt. Robert Gamble, an officer aboard the frigate USS President wounded in an exchange with HMS Belvidera. But the name may have had a more prosaic origin. Wilkes’s published account of the expedition omits mention of either Gamble but does say that a lieutenant’s survey party “[o]n entering [Hood’s] canal [at what would become Gamble Bay] camped near some Suquamish Indians who had received as visitors a party of fifty Clalams, by appointment to gamble for blankets: they continued their games throughout the night.”

You can decide which you think is true, but I like the idea that the place was named for gambling. That’s so much more interesting.

Here’s another website with a bit of information and photos … https://visitkitsap.com/location/port-gamble.

And here are more homes in Port Gamble …

I found some interesting history about the house in the photo above, especially for those of us who live in Washington State. Daniel L. Jackson was the telegraph operator and Postmaster here, and lived in and owned this house. He was Postmaster under nine (9!) US Presidents. His sister, May, married George Evans. May & George’s grandson is former Washington State Governor and US Senator Dan Evans. Just a little piece of trivia for you. 🙂

The two houses above were said to have been temporary housing for visiting/temporary employees and their families.

And the house below … well, I think it speaks for itself!

Unfortunately, just about everything was closed during my visit here because of COVID19. I suspected that might be the case, but I drove over to Port Gamble anyway thinking I might see some interesting things, and I did.

Just driving through the town of Port Gamble was well worth the time it took to drive over here.

There were some outdoor exhibits, just outside the museum, and some other interesting things in town that were accessible. I’ll tell you about three of them that interested me. One of them is the plant/tree in the photo below.

This tree is Scottish, and I am Scottish … well, at least some of my ancestors were Scots. So I liked this tree. In 1840, the gardener for the Earl of Camperdown in Dundee, Scotland, noticed a contorted branch growing on the floor of the forest. He grafted it to a Scots Elm. It took hold and became the first Camperdown Elm. A Scots Elm is the only root mass that a Camperdown Elm will grow on. The Camperdown Elm is a mutant, it will not reproduce, so every Camperdown Elm in the world today is a cutting/descendant of that first branch/tree, and the cutting must be grafted to a Scots Elm or it will not grow. Once the cutting starts to grow, then all of the Scots Elm branches are cut off so that the remaining branches are all Camperdown Elm. A Camperdown Elm is know for its “furiously twisting branches” and I can attest that this one had such branches. The tree above was about 10-12 feet tall. It was planted/grafted right here in Port Gamble in 1875. I walked right through that opening that shows in the photo above, and I walked into what felt like a large, welcoming safe haven … with furiously twisting branches. 🙂

My second item of interest is in the photo below. No, it is not a monster with two bug eyes glaring at you, though you might think that.

This lovely piece of machinery is a Worthington Duplex Pump, a steam driven water pump used in the Port Gamble sawmill from 1913 to 1974. It supplied high pressure water to the sawmill, and to every fire hydrant in town. It was mighty! And it was important.

You might have noticed that this Worthington Duplex Pump was situated right next to a building.

Under the eaves of that building, right next to this machinery, was the third interesting thing I found.

As I was walking around examining the pump and trying to figure out how it worked, I kept hearing (or sensing) something flying around my head, near me, but not touching me, sometimes just an inch or LESS near my head. Finally I paid attention. I walked over to the building that was next to that old water pump and just stood there for a bit, under that small roof section, and looked around, trying to figure out what was nattering at my head.

Well, what do you know. Up under the eaves of that small overhanging roof was a mud nest for baby Swallows. Momma Swallow did not like that I was in the area! She had been flying around my head trying to drive me away. But when I stood against the wall under that roof, and stood stock still, then she left me alone.

I focused my camera, lifted it to my face, and stood absolutely still for enough time to capture the fun views below. My arms got really tired waiting for something to happen, but eventually the effort paid off! The choir woke up!!

For those of you who don’t know French … here are the English words for the photo captions below.