The Ghosts of Port Ludlow

For several years I owned a home in Port Ludlow, Washington, on the upper reach of Hood Canal. Today’s Port Ludlow is a sylvan manicured real estate development with its fine inn, restaurant, and golf course. It has become a home to retirees and a haven for tourists and conventioneers.

Yesterday’s Port Ludlow was an important Chemakum Native village and burial site.  Later it became one of the Pacific Northwest’s largest sawmills. Today it has evolved into a luxury resort.

Danish explorer Vitus Bering, with Russian support, sailed nearby.  Captain George Vancouver probed its waters in May 1792.  In 1842 U.S. Commander Charles Wilkes took a close look and named it Port Ludlow, after Augustus C. Ludlow, Navy lieutenant killed in the War of 1812.

When William C. Talbot sailed into the little bay’s pristine waters in 1853 he saw only giant Douglas fir and a perfect location for a sawmill.  After dropping anchor, a small crowd of mostly Native residents gathered to marvel at his 50-ton schooner, Julius Pringle.

Captain Talbot noticed that a primitive sawmill was already humming at the bay.  Red-bearded W.P. Saylward was trying to survive by employing Natives who sometimes walked off the job to follow salmon runs, attend tribal celebrations, and join berry seasons.  Eventually, his undependable work force and the lack of spare parts forced Saylward to lease and later sell his little Port Ludlow mill.  The company Pope and Talbot then established one of its prime locations on Puget Sound, first for lumber, then a sprawling real estate development once part of developer Paul Schell’s romantic island inns.

Cyrus Walker was sent to manage the Pope and Talbot mill. Walker undertook the construction of what he referred to as “the biggest damn cabin on the Sound.”  Writer Archie Binns described Walker’s Admiralty House on Port Ludlow Bay as follows: “A block long, three storeys high . . . a neat lawn slanting down the hill towards the town and mill, and on the lawn, under the shade of maples and elms and cedars of Lebanon . . . stood a bronze canon.”  Admiralty House, a New England mansion, was surrounded by a white picket fence.  Its guests were served by Chinese cooks and waiters.

Eventually, the great saws ate the trees faster than the trees could grow.  The “Bostons” stopped sailing their brigantines and schooners into Ludlow Bay. Mill machinery was dismantled and sold and the workers’ homes hauled away, many to nearby Port Gamble.

When you visit quiet, verdant Port Ludlow today, listen for the ghosts of Chemakum Natives and the raspy voice of old Cyrus Walker at Admiralty House.