The McAlmonds

During one of Elisha McAlmonds many adventures, they sailed to what was known then as the Oregon Territory (1851). Sailing with Captain Thomas Abernathy aboard a parkentine, they sailed from San Francisco North to the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Port Townsend. On their way out they stopped to take on freshwater and supplies, and to explore Old Dungeness County.

In the Spring of that same year, 1851, the same group accompanied by another sailor Jim Connelly returned to Old Dungeness to stake claim on the land. Being the only white men in the area until the Fall of 1852. Among them was Elliot Cline who plotted the townsite in 1865. Settlers cut timber, cleared land and raised large potato crops in the new soil. The finest cedar were made into Shake Bolts, and the finest pine was used for the making of sailing masts and pilings.

Captain McAlmond, being from Belfast, Maine, was ordered by John Adams to come to Dungeness Bay to load pilings for San Francisco. In 1853 McAlmond returned to make settlement and claim 160 acres bordering Dungeness Beach. McAlmond served in the Indian War under Col. Ebey. In 1860 McAlmond returned with Bride Elmira to become Justice of the Peace, Commissioner, Sheriff, Deputy U.S. Marshall, Probate Judge and a member of the Territorial Legislature.

McAlmond build the most expensive house known in the Northwest with real boughten doors and a cornice around the roof. Materials were hauled by oxen from the waterfront to the top of the bluff where the House still stands all these years later.