Page 114 - Family History

Family Stories

Early Settlers in Pysht, WA

[Note: The paragraphs on this page are from:“Ghost Camps and Boom Towns” by JoAnn Roe,
published in 1995 ...]

At the mouth of a small river winding north into the Strait of Juan de Fuca a
small Clallam Indian settlement had thrived for generations, when white people

straggled into the area. The place is Pysht Washington. There are several
versions of the derivation of the curious name, perhaps the most likely the
Indian language word sounding like “Pishst,” a place “where the wind blows
from all directions.”

Despite difficult access, homesteaders claimed land along the fertile deltas of the
river. In 1890, two brothers, Aman and Joseph Stange, and their families from

Indiana came to seek homesteads. A small girl when the families came,
Gertrude Stange (Mrs. Antone Fernandes) remembered in 1971 that their ship
could not land at the shallow Pysht harbor; Indian canoeists came to take them
and their belongings from the ship to shore.

Until a rough puncheon road (crosswise logs placed over the muddiest part of a
trail) was carved out to Clallam Bay, a larger settlement to the west, the only
access was by water or foot trail.

In the isolation settlers’ families had to be resourceful. Yearning for a little cash

money, teenage Gertrude trapped furbearing animals – skunk, fisher, bear,
bobcat, raccoon, mink, cougar, and otter (a difficult catch). She was credited
with catching the largest known cougar in the area, measuring nine feet from
nose to tail, and a rare timber wolf. She also fished for steelhead with a set-net
in the Pysht River.

After her marriage in 1909 to a handsome newcomer, Antone Fernandes from
Blyn, Gertrude (and her husband) had the mail contract between Pysht and
Clallam Bay. Gertrude chiefly handled this task, using a saddle horse over the
rough trail.

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