"Dirty Dan" Harris - Stakes His Claim

The settlement of individuals of European extraction on Bellingham Bay began in mid-1852,¹ motivated by the prospects of profiting from the area's timber and coal resources and by the offer of free land under the Federal Donation Land Claim Act of 1850 (DLCA).² ^[A] In all, nineteen settlers filed for Donation Land Claims (DLC's) around Bellingham Bay.^[B] Dan Harris was one of these individuals, however, he assumed the proprietorship of a claim originally settled by John Thomas, who died "on or about May 20, 1854," according to a petition for the issuance of letters of administration for his estate presented to the Whatcom County Probate Court on October 22, 1860 by Frank Mahoney, who was subsequently appointed administrator.⁴

Several key documents are missing from the Thomas probate file, including the original petition for letters of administration and any reference to the actual disposition of the estate. However, the records it does contain indicate that William R. Prattle had initially been appointed as administrator and had then "left the country to the neglect of said Estate" before April 14, 1856.⁵ The Thomas probate file contrains a sworn statement by James Morrison dated April 14, 1861, asserting that John Thomas had taken up a claim adjacent to his in January 1853, had built a dwelling house and cooper shop on it and had lived there and cultivated the land "until the ---- A.D. 1855 when said John Thomas sickened and died and was buried on the said claim where his grave now is."⁶

The final document in John Thomas's estate file is Mahoney's July 15, 1861 petition for a court order to sell the Thomas claim for the benefit of the unidentified heirs and to pay for surveying the claim and to defray taxes and other costs.⁸ This petition refers to the estate's having been in the hands of the court for six years prior to the appointment of Frank Mahoney as administrator. John Thomas's estate file contains no order to sell the claim, no indication that a sale of the claim was ever consummated and no reference to Dan Harris, who occupied the claim upon John Thomas's death. Moreover, Whatcom County land records contain no documents pertaining to the sale of the Thomas claim. Affidavits in Dan Harris's Donation Land Claim (DLC) File purport that he arrived on Bellingham Bay either on May 20, 1854, the day that John Thomas died, or eight days later, on May 28th.⁹

However, a deposition that Dan Harris gave in connection with a disputed DLC on San Juan Island settled by Henry Webber puts these dates in question.¹⁰ It asserts that Dan Harris had helped Henry Webber stake off his DLC, in 1854, and that Dan had visited him there several times from the date of settlement to April 1858 while Dan was a trader and master of the Schooner Phantom. The deposition also relates an incident in which Dan disarmed an Indian who was personally attacking him. This deposition is transcribed on the following page. In Webber's DLC file is a sworn statement that he had staked out his San Juan Island claim in April 1884,¹¹ which indicates that Dan Harris was in the area somewhat earlier than the date given in his own DLC file.

Early Fairhaven journalist, Frank C. Teck, was the first to publish a biographical account of Dan Harris.¹² It maintains that Dan Harris had arrived on Bellingham Bay in time to help John Thomas complete the building of his cabin, that he had occupied the cabin upon Thomas's death and that he had acquired the claim from Thomas's estate. Several latter writers concur with Teck.¹³ However, since John Thomas had arrived on Bellingham Bay in January 1853, he surely would have completed his cabin as soon as possible. For Dan Harris to have helped Thomas finish building the cabin, he would have had to arrive during the early months of 1853. No records have been found to support either such an early arrival date or Dan Harris's collaboration with John Thomas. In fact, an entry in the log of the ship "Levant," in which Dan Harris came to the Pacific, indicates that he left the ship sometime during its stay in Honolulu from December 7, 1853 to February 4, 1854¹⁴ (Go to Access Drafts to see a manuscript of the companion booklet, Dan Harris Goes Whaling).