- Captain George Vancouver names Port Townsend on May 8, 1792. (historylink.org)
On May 8, 1792, British Royal Navy Captain George Vancouver (1757-1798) names an extensive bay at the northeast corner of the Olympic Peninsula for the Marquis of Townshend, a British general. The “h” is later dropped and the bay is now called Port Townsend. The city of Port Townsend, now the county seat of Jefferson County, is founded in the 1850s at the mouth of the bay and adopts its name.
- May 26th. We started at 5 after some trouble in shoving the boat off the beach, where the tide had left her. As we had the tide with us, we found that we should have no difficulty in reaching our destination (Port Townsend), so we stopped at Marrowstone point and leisurely took our lunch. Starling claimed to be a man of experience, and when we started across Port Townsend bay he insisted that we should sail. None of us were sailors, so we differed with him and judged that the quickest means was rowing. Starling worked the sails for about an hour without any effect. He would not yield, although we laughed and argued, but finally suggested that there was nothing to prevent my furling the sails, if I wanted to.
- They have located claims near here and are living on them with their families waiting for a town to grow up. We walked over to their property, which certainly exceeds anything in Washington or Oregon for beauty and fertility, if they were only disposed to farm. The Olympic range cannot be more than thirty miles to the west. Mount Baker is on the east, and below us lies the harbor [Port Townsend Bay]. Vivid stretches of lawn interrupt the woods and appear on the headlands and islands.
- Voltaire (Wikipedia)
François-Marie Arouet (French: [fʁɑ̃swa maʁi aʁwɛ]; 21 November 1694 – 30 May 1778), known by his nom de plume M. de Voltaire (/vɒlˈtɛər, voʊl-/; also US: /vɔːl-/; French: [vɔltɛːʁ]), was a French Enlightenment writer, philosopher (philosophe), satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit and his criticism of Christianity (especially of the Roman Catholic Church) and of slavery, Voltaire was an advocate of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state.