Trail Times: Winter 2022 – Historic Sandwith Orchard
Happy New Year to all OMRT supporters. One might think the busy season and often inclement weather makes hiking an unlikely activity, but for those of us of the OMRT, which includes you, the beat and the feet amble on seeking new adventures.
The 5.2 acre Sandwich Orchard site can be an oft overlooked part of English Camp National Park. The orchard itself is culturally important as a representation of early homestead history and farming practices. Located at the southeast edge of the Park, the orchard is reached by taking the English Camp to Mitchell Hill connector trail (as outlined in our OMRT Summer 2020 Trail Times article) and is also accessible by a trail south of the English Camp boundary sign off West Valley Road.
The orchard borders the historic Military Road and is just a hop and a jump away from our emerging Old Military Road Trail.
The Orchard
Homesteaded and mostly planted in the mid-1870s by Isaac Sandwith, the existing orchard holds many surprises and is home to one of the oldest pear trees around, the Flemish Beauty. Also remarkable are a White Doyeenpear and a Ben Davis Apple, all rare and representative of another age.
Homesteaders planted orchards and gardens with varieties which ripened at different times so there could be food for the table during the year. There was little access to stores and perhaps few funds to buy luxuries, so orchard fruit was also the most accessible source of sugar and main ingredient for cider of all kinds, including hard.
The trees in this orchard, (pear, apple, plum, cherry and apricot) were planted in the typical formation found before the turn of the last century: Tall, wide-spreading, long-lived trees about 30 feet apart, they offered shade for farm animals who also fertilized the trees with their droppings and kept competing vegetation down. After 1900, favored tree varieties were shorter lived, planted closer together with fruit more palatable, productive and commercially longer lasting.
To ensure trees in this orchard could be preserved, in 2007 cuttings were taken from nine surviving trees and grafted to healthy young seedlings of similar stock. They were planted two years later after bare rooting for two years in a nursery.
On March 14th, 2009 23 trees — 11 pear, 4 apple, 5 apricot and 3 plum were planted by park staff, a Washington Conservation Corps crew and island volunteers. They will be full-grown in about 20 years and will begin to bear fruit in 10. (National Park Cultural Assessment 2009)
The People
Before the arrival of Europeans, indigenous native populations of the Salish Sea had lived in this area for 10,000 years and cultivated many fruit bearing crops and camas fields. What made this area attractive to self-sustaining natives also made it attractive to the arriving Europeans.
Isaac Sandwith, (1852-1923) was a native of England. As a youngster his family endured a 6-month sailing voyage around the Horn from Liverpool to Victoria. In 1867 his family then moved to San Juan Island where US land grants were available. Thus, even before the end of the ‘Pig War’ in 1872 ceding the San Juan Islands to the United States, many settlers claimed land on San Juan Island, encouraged to do so by the United States. Once the island was surveyed in 1874 these settlers made their claims official and filed for 160-acre parcels (320 if married) under the Homestead Act.
In 1875 Isaac and his wife, Sarah, moved their young family to their new homestead at the base of Young Hill. Their homestead was conveniently located next to the military road which ran between English Camp and American camp. They were likely also fortunate to enjoy some of the fruits from the neighboring orchard of August Hoffmeister, English Camp’s former sutler (storekeeper) and fruit supplier.
Isaac tore down the residence of an officer at English Camp to build his home and used materials from other buildings to build a barn, a chicken house, stables and a granary.
Besides the orchard, the Sandwiths grew grain and vegetables and raised chickens, pigs, sheep and cattle. Neighbors depended on one another for help in harvesting, barn raising, and social engagements and they all depended on the former military road and its many offshoots, as a conduit for getting their produce to market.
Eventually many of these first property owners went on to become important members of the community as did those who succeeded them. In 1902 the Sandwiths sold out to Dr. Victor Capron and moved to town. The Sandwiths then bought land from Joe Friday, the son of Peter Friday, for whom the town was named. Isaac went on to become a County Commissioner, just one of many early homesteaders who shifted into helping manage the growing island and county or morphed into other jobs like shopkeeping and marketing. The Sandwith family is still a vital presence on San Juan Island.
At the time of the sale, Capron, a physician to Roche and Friday Harbors and eventual public servant and entrepreneur, had only recently arrived on San Juan Island. Following a bad fall from a horse in Hawaii in 1898, Capron moved to San Juan Island to recover. He hired help to farm and ranch the Sandwich property and owned one of the first automobiles on the island. Capron fashioned a portable x-ray machine connected to his car motor, which allowed him to make house calls and started the island’s first telephone service.
Capron sold the land in 1926 to Alfred Douglas but the depression forced Douglas to quit claim back to Capron and eventually a bank foreclosed. By 1949 the remaining property was purchased by Fern Ingoldsby to maintain a private reserve for game birds. In 1967 the National Park Service acquired the land from her and has owned it since as a cultural historic site.
Whether exploring the orchard or rambling on the Old Military Road Trail, there is no end of new discoveries on San Juan Island. Enjoy this peek at an old homestead orchard and hit the trails yourself on one of these brisk days for discoveries of your own.
Happy Tales and Trails,
Robin Donnelly for the Old Military Road Trail Committee OldMilitaryRoadTrail.org
SanJuanIslandTrails.org
(Credits go to the NPS Cultural Landscape Inventory 2009, San Juan Historical Museum, and National Park Interpretative Ranger Jeffery Hodge)
© 2022 by Old Military Road Trail Committee | A Committee of San Juan Park and Recreation District ( Island Rec )
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