- 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.
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- Gig Harbor — Thumbnail History (historylink.org)
Gig Harbor is a city in Pierce County located on a picturesque Puget Sound bay – also called Gig Harbor – across Tacoma Narrows from Tacoma. For centuries, the Twa-Wal-Kut band of the Puyallup Tribe had a longhouse and permanent camp at the head of the harbor. Explorers from the Wilkes Expedition discovered the harbor’s well-hidden opening in 1841 and named it Gig Harbor because they had entered the bay in a small captain’s gig…