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Wasdahl

Julius Wasdahl was born in Norway and immigrated to the U.S. in 1892. He settled in Crescent Valley prior to 1915. The farm was located at the present site of the Crescent Valley Fire Station. Julius married Kristine Nordahl, also from Norway. She was a widow with four children from her first marriage. The couple had a dairy farm where they raised Guernsey cattle. Daily, they delivered milk products throughout the Gig Hrabor area. The slogan on their milk bottles was “You can whip our cream but you can’t beat our milk.” The Wasdahls owned additional property north and south of the farm, where they would graze the cows in the spring and summer. The cattle were herded up the road to the pasture after the morning milking and then back for the evening milking. Kristine’s daughter, Anna Nordahl, was a major donor to the Gig Harbor Cemetery. (source: Paul Alvestad) GHPHS

Waters

Thaddeus Waters was born in Northville, New York. The year he was born his family moved to Ohio. As a young man, they moved again, settling just outside of Grand Rapids, Michigan. There, Thaddeus married Lura Weaver. The couple had five sons: Hiram, Albert, Alpha, Theron and Elmer. In 1862, Thaddeus enlisted in the Union Army and served in the 2nd Michgan Calvary. He was taken prisoner in the Battle of Chickamauga. He was held captive in several Confederate prisons, including the notorious Andersonville. He survived starvation, disease, and hardship of all kinds. He wrote a memoire of his imprisonment, The Terrors of Rebel Prisons, which was published in 1868. In the 1890s, Thaddeus lived for a time in Georgia, Tennessee, and Oklahoma before returning to Michigan. After Laura died in 1901, Thaddeus married Hannah Halcomb. In 1903, he went to visit his friend and fellow veteran Miles Hunt in Gig Harbor; leaving his wife Hannah in Michigan. He established a homestead and spent the rest of his life here. In 1910, he was officially divorced from Hannah. His son Hiram arranged for Diana Sell to move to Gig Harbor to take care of his father. Thaddeus married Diana in 1911. He was active in the Gig Harbor Civil War Veterans organization, and the Grand Army of the Republic, which had 20 members. GHPHS

Wilkinson

Thomas Wilkinson was a preacher from England who travelled across the United States with his two children, William and Louisa, in the early 1880s. When they arrived in Minnesota, they were hosted by the Cruver family. The Cruvers’ son, Lewis, was instantly smitten with Louisa and the two were married when she turned 16. Lewis and Louisa moved west to the Dakota Territory, and then to Tacoma in 1888. They were joined by Louisa’s father Thomas and brother Wiiliam, as well several of Lewis’ brothers – Joe, Horace & Marvin. In Tacoma, William and Lewis established a dairy business. In 1898, the Cruvers and the Wilkinsons moved to Gig Harbor. Lewis Cruver turned to logging, worked on steamboats, and eventually opened his own gas station. The Wikinsons – William, his wife Maria (Castle) and their children (Dorothy, Helen, Wilma and son Vivian) – purchased property along today’s Rosedale Street and established the Pioneer Dairy Farm in 1909. In 1914, William built a barn to house his herd of dairy cows and began construction on a new family home – a dream he would never realize as he died tragically from a fall off the barn’s loft. In William’s absence, Maria valiantly carried on. She kept up the family garden, ran the dairy farm, and finished the family home. With the help of her children, she grew corn and hay for silage to feed enough milking cows to establish a dairy route in Gig Harbor. Maria planted vegetables every spring, until her death in 1953; a practice her daughters Helen, then Dorothy continued until 1974. Today, the Wilkinson farm is a 16-acre wildlife park open to the public, with wetlands, holly groves, meadows, hiking trails and a community garden. (HHM blog, 7/10/12) GHPHS

Willet Henemat

Sam Jerisich, one of the first Europeans immigrants to settle in Gig Harbor, met Anna Willet Henemat, his bride-to-be, while fishing off the coast of Vancouver, B.C. with his partners John Ferragut and Peter Goldsmith. Anna was a member of the Penelakut first-nation people of Kuper Island, Canada. Sam and Annie married and had a daughter, Caroline. In 1867, Sam, Annie, Caroline, John and Peter decided to relocate to Gig Harbor and start a new community. The Jerisichs’ first home was a one-room cabin on the east shore of the harbor. Later they built a larger house on a 160-acre homestead on the west side of the bay. The land was dense with forest and choked with underbrush. There were no trails, no roads. A small community of Puyallup-Nisqually Indians resided at the head of the bay. They spoke a Salish language closely related to Anna’s own Halkomelem native tongue, which helped ingratiate the settlers to their new neighbors. Anna hunted bear and deer for food, split lumber, and picked berries. Sam felled trees to create space for a garden and there were plenty of fish in the harbor to eat. He built the harbor’s first dock, then a dogfish-oil rendering plant for feul, and a smoke house to preserve the catch of fish for trade. If they needed provisions beyond what they could shoot, fish or grow, they rowed to Steilacoom, Olympia or the Hudson Bay Fort at Nisqually. They traded oil and smoked fish for candle tallow and knitting wool. Sam caught fish using nets that he and Anna made by hand. The family grew and prospered. Anna and Sam had 8 children: John, Michael, Samuel Jr., Caroline, Melissa, Catherine, Julia and Mary. Not long after establishing their homestead, felow Croatian fishermen John Novak and Joe Dorotich arrived. Joe married Jerisich’s daughter, Caroline. Like Sam Jerisich, John Novak married a Native American woman, Josephine Cosgrove (born Zephina Cheroka Cosgrove), the daughter of a Puyallup Indian mother. (source: “First Croatian Fishermen on Vancouver Island,” by Dr. Zelimir Juricic [cousin of Samuel Jerisich]. 2001; also croatians.com, American biographies; and puyalluptribalnews.net) GHNSS, GHPHS