Pre-History - Native People - First Contact 1792-1841 - Second Contact and American Settlement 1841-1865

Pre-History

50 million YBP

  • Puget Sound region under marine waters

24 million YBP

  • Cascade Mountains uplift

20 million YBP

  • Olympic terrane “docks” creating Olympic Mountains

10 million YBP

  • Puget Sound region at or above sea level

16,900 YBP

  • Vashon Glacier ends its advance

16,600 YBP

  • Vashon Glacier retreats from what is now Vashon-Maury Island

12,000 YBP

  • Glacier Peak Eruption, ash layer

11,500 YBP

  • lodgepole pine, spruce, and hemlock forests establish themselves

10,000 YBP

  • Pleistocene mega-fauna extinction

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Native People

10-12,000 - YBP

  • First Humans arrive

8,500-3,000 - YBP

  • Hypsithermal climate interval, climate warmer and drier

8,000 YBP

  • Douglas Fir and Western Red Cedar forests established

7,000 YBP

  • Marpole culture established in Sound

6,750 YBP

  • Mount Mazama (Crater Lake) Eruption, ash layer

4,800 YBP

  • Osceola Mud Flow, lahor from Mount Rainier reaches Commencement
    Bay

1,500 YPB

  • Burial cairns on Vashon

1,000 YBP

  • Salish culture establishes dominance throughout the Sound

600 YBP

  • Electron Mud Flow, lahor from Mount Rainier

500 YBP

  • S’Homamish population exceeds 650 in 5 major village sites

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First Contact 1792 to 1841

1792

  • March 28 George Vancouver names Vashon’s Island

1824

  • John Work and Hudson’s Bay expedition camps at Portage.

1825

  • David Douglas botanical survey of Puget Sound

1833

  • Nisqually House established by Hudson’s Bay Company
  • S’Homamish visit fort and request missionary

1836

  • Lucy Slagham Gerand born at Kwll3ut S’Homamish village at what is now
    Burton. Informant for T.T. Waterman, Deposition in 1927 in Duwamish
    et.al. Vs. The United States of America.

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Second Contact and American Settlement 1841 to 1865

1841

  • Wilkes names Maury Island, Colvos Passage, Quartermaster Harbor, and
    Points Beals, Heyer, Piner, Neill, Dalco, Sandford, Southworth after Quartermasters

1846

  • Boundary Settlement between Britain and the United States

1849

  • Oregon Territory established

1852

  • First Logging on Island The Leonesa loaded spars
  • King County formed by Oregon Provisional Legislature

1853

  • Washington Territory established

1855

  • First Relocation - December, Eastern Puget Sound Indian Tribes gathered at central points one of which was Vashon’s Island (others included North Bay, Nisqually, Steilacoom, Gig Harbor, Seattle, Port Orchard, Penn’s Cove, and Oak Harbor)

1855-56

  • S’Homamish Interned at Fox Island

1857

  • Cadastral Surveys of Vashon-Maury Island by William H. Carlton and T. H. Berry. The term cadastral survey refers to official boundary surveys that create; mark; define; retrace; resurvey; and reestablish the boundaries and subdivisions of the public lands of the United States.
  • King County present boundaries formed except for southern

1862

  • Homestead Act approved

1863

  • Pope and Talbot file 80-acre claim