- 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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- Lynden — Thumbnail History (historylink.org)
Lynden is located in the northwestern part of Whatcom County, approximately 15 miles north of the county seat, Bellingham, and only five miles south of the Canadian border. The area was long inhabited by residents of the Nooksack Tribe before the first non-Indian settlers arrived in 1860. Significant development began in Lynden in the mid-1880s, and the city was incorporated in 1891. Industry in Lynden’s early years was dominated by logging, but by the turn of the twentieth century agriculture (especially dairy farming) was becoming prominent as the dominant industry. Much of Lynden’s history has been shaped by the influence of Dutch and those of Dutch descent, who began immigrating to the area in the late 1800s. Today (2008) Lynden is a pleasant town with a population approaching 10,000. It is known as an orderly, conservative, religious community, proud of its Dutch heritage.