The Dash Point Pirate

Who are the people in your neighborhood?

One afternoon in the summer while I was on the water but not far from the neighborhood fishing pier I saw a sloop approach from across the channel.  It sailed in very close to the pier, which was a little alarming.  It came about just before the pier and a young woman jumped off and started swimming to the beach as the boat sailed away and all the guys on board waved to her.  I paddled up to her and asked what was going on.  She said that was how she had gotten on the sailboat earlier in the day, swimming, since they didn’t have a dinghy.  She said she was OK swimming, really, and that she lives in the green house across the street. (Hmmm, I guess sailors do have more fun!)

During one of the beautiful last days of autumn when the days started to get shorter but before the Pacific Northwest Gloom set in I was out paddling and saw another kayaker in a short green plastic boat.  She was paddling slowly and would occasionally stop and look like she was talking to a seal.  It turned out that there was another woman in a full body wetsuit swimming along side her.  She said she had never done this before and usually kept to shallow water, but this time I think they were trying to swim out to the Brown’s Point lighthouse.  That was Terry and Janet.

The same day as I approached the beach I saw a man, woman, and two small boys in a little wooden rowboat.  It was a newly completed Pygmy stitch and glue wineglass wherry on her first voyage.  That family lives just up the hill.

There is a retired Texas oilman who lives on one of the houses just off the public beach.  His hobby is pole vaulting.  I’m guessing he’s in his 70s. 

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This neighboorhood dates back to the turn of the century.  Most of the activity on Dash Point back then involved the amusement and sports of picnickers from Tacoma.  People would rent row boats from the Foss Launch Company to make an afternoon visit or even an overnight stay.

In the summer of 1927 the residents started the annual Dash Point Dock Dinner:

It was called a "Hoop-Te-Doo" and for a few years was an in-community festivity. After Roy Allen donated the materials and the labor for a 40-foot high dive and 15-foot springboard, the dock dinner took on a water carnival atmosphere. By 1934 the range of activities at the various dinners included diving demonstrations, swimming races, boat racing, pole walking, tugs-of-war, a bathing beauty contest, and a dance in the hall. In 1936 the dock dinner was expanded to a two day event and added to the main events were a street dance and band concert. The dock dinners were held every year until 1940 when everyone's way of life was interrupted by World War II.

A spectacular and very beautiful custom was adopted by the Dash Point residents during the 1920s. The Community Club purchased Japanese lanterns and candles which were placed along the dock and on the porches of homes lining the beach. During the summer all lanterns were lit from dusk (when the last waves of the steamer hit the beach) until 11 p.m. This practice lasted for almost 10 years and was a very beautiful sight to behold.

[From the Points Northeast Historical Society]

Capt. George Vancouver Was Here

In the spring of 1792, Captain George Vancouver and his men, who were exploring in the name of King George III of England, became the first white men to view Browns Point and Dash Point. On May 8, 1792, Vancouver sighted the huge mountain which he named Mount Rainier for Rear Admiral Peter Rainier, an old friend. The sighting had been made from Marrowstone Point near Port Townsend near the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

On May 20th Vancouver sent Peter Puget on the launch and Mr. Whidbey on the cutter, which were two of their long boats, on a mission to explore the southern part of the extensive arm of water he called Puget Sound. They rowed along the western side of Vashon Island toward the South Sound.

On Saturday, May 26th, before Puget's return, Vancouver decided to do some exploring on his own. He took the Discovery's yawl and the Chatham's cutter, two small boats, down the east side of Vashon Island. About noon, he and his men made their way south across the water to the other side and stopped to eat on the eastern shore in a small cove which is located on the north edge of Browns Point. The cove is the place that today is called Caledonia Beach. In his journal he describes the meal and how he was greeted by a clamming party of about a dozen natives; possibly members of the Puyallup tribe. He reported that he drew a line in the sand to specify that the natives were to eat on one side and the white men on the other; he did not want them looking over his shoulder as he ate. However, two natives crossed over the line. Capt. Vancouver offered the men venison pie, but believing it was human meat the natives were horrified and would not eat it. Finally some of the group of natives were taken to the cutter at the water's edge and shown the haunch of the animal. Satisfied, they consented to join their visitors in eating the pie.

After lunch Vancouver and his men rowed around the point into "an extensive, circular, compact bay," Commencement Bay. He had been hoping that this would be the easterly waterway that would lead him to the "Lake of the Woods" or Minnesota. King George had intended that Vancouver find a body of water that would link the west to the east. Instead he saw this view:

. . . The waters washed the base of Mount Rainier though its elevated summit was yet at a very considerable distance from the shore, with which it was connected by ridges of hills rising towards it with gradual ascent and much regularity. The forest trees, and the several shades of verdere that covered the hills, gradually decreased in point of beauty until they became visible, when the perpetual clothing of snow commenced . . . (Capt. George Vancouver, A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and Round the World (Picadilly, 1801), II, 134.)

[From Points Northeast, A History of Brown's Point]