Early Bellingham Bay

Early Bellingham Bay. . , Spanish explorers, the first Europeans to enter this bay in 1791, named the open, 50-square-mile body of water Seno de Gaston (Gulf of Gaston). The following year, on June 11, 1792, the British, under Captain George Vancouver, put their own name upon the water, Bellingham Bay, in recognition of the Sir William Bellingham, controller of the British Navy stores who had provisioned the expedition. Throughout the Northwest and coastal British Columbia, names still reflect their Spanish and British origins, from the Strait of Juan de Fuca, to Vancouver, British Columbia. , Three natural resources - timber, coal and fish - fueled the early development of Bellingham. 'Blanket' Bill Jarman, a sailor and adventurer who came to the area through the Hudson Bay Company trading post at Victoria, was the first white settler in Whatcom County, establishing a claim and settling in the area with his native wife in 1848., Following the California Gold Rush, and to meet strong demand for lumber following great fires in San Francisco, Henry Roeder and R.V. Peabody formed a partnership, traveled north in 1852, and built a lumber mill where Whatcom Creek meets the bay. By 1858 the little hamlet of Whatcom had grown to 100 inhabitants, but was soon inundated by thousands of fortune seekers following the great Fraser River Gold Rush and seeking a short cut to the gold claims up the Fraser River in British Columbia., For a period during the 1850's mines on and near the shore of Bellingham Bay were the exclusive source of coal shipped to San Francisco. Three ships routinely made the 15-day southerly trip, returning with goods from California to serve the frontier community., During subsequent decades, the four original towns on Bellingham – Fairhaven, Bellingham, Sehome and Whatcom alternately grew and shrank depending upon the various fortunes of lumber, coal, mining, colonization, shipping and railroads. They ultimately united under the single name of Bellingham in 1904.