Eliza and Dorr Forbes came west from Iowa in the 1870s and settled at Juanita Bay. |
The story of Juanita’s “first family” was first preserved
back in the late 1930s. With a pen and the back of an envelope, the late Dorris
(Forbes) Beecher sat on a porch with her grandmother, Eliza (Waggener) Forbes
(1849-1942), and began recording the historic Forbes saga. Though Eliza was
getting old (she had been widowed for nearly two decades) her mind was clear
and sharp.
Mrs. Beecher’s first name was spelled Dorris rather than the
conventional Doris, to honor her late grandfather, Dorr. Eliza and her husband
Dorr Forbes (1841-1919) arrived on Seattle’s primitive waterfront in 1877 with
two young sons and all their belongings. In 1861, at age 20, and in the first
year of the Civil War, Dorr enlisted and served as a mounted scout and
sharpshooter with E Company of the 33rd Illinois Infantry Regiment of
Volunteers—a battle-hardened unit which saw considerable action, including the
Siege of Vicksburg. He was wounded in action and discharged in 1863.
After the war, Dorr moved to Iowa where he became a cattle
buyer and farmer. There, he met a young teacher, Eliza Ann Waggener. The two
married in 1874 and were soon planning their move west. In 1876 the couple and
their young son, Ray, boarded an emigrant train in Knoxville, Iowa, and rode
the train for two weeks until it finally reached Sacramento, California.
The next day, the family hauled their possessions by horse
drawn wagon over the hill to Lake Washington to a spot derisively called
Fleaburg—today’s Leschi—a flea-infested Native American settlement with only
one permanent cabin. There they loaded everything onto a steamer so tiny Eliza
told Dorris years later that it “looked more like a ship’s boat.”
The steamer chugged north, and Eliza said her apprehension
about the move melted when she first laid eyes on Juanita Bay. She said there
wasn’t a soul in sight, just a beautiful bay surrounded by giant trees. She
said she knew at that moment that Juanita was where she wanted to live.
The family’s first home site was near the northwest corner
of the intersection of what became N.E. 116th Street and 100th Avenue N.E. They
had one neighbor, Martin Hubbard. Although at that time the community was
called Hubbard, the name Juanita was coming into use. Their first house had
already been constructed in Seattle, and they had it hauled to the foot of
Madison Street and then barged it across the lake and dragged it up to its
final position, which must have been quite a task. During their first year in
Juanita they had a third son, Allen. The small community was soon joined (in
1877) by Charles and Mary Dunlap (1850-1908) and their four children. Charles
Dunlap (1846-86) was also a Union Army veteran who had fought with I Company of
the 4th Iowa Cavalry. Dunlap worked as a school teacher. The Forbes and Dunlap
families had known each other in Iowa.
In the early 1880s, Dorr attempted to raise cranberries on
additional property they homesteaded on Rose Hill at Forbes Lake. He lost his
war with the beavers and sold that property in 1889 to the Kirkland Land &
Improvement Company. It later became the site of the Great Western Iron &
Steel Works.
In addition to his shingle mill, Dorr Forbes was a logger. He had a contract to cut cordwood, which was used to fuel the early Lake Washington steamboats. |
Eliza gave birth to their fourth son, Leslie, or “Les” as he
was known, in 1886 at their first home. Soon thereafter the couple built a
second home off today’s 97th Avenue N.E., and Dorr built a shingle mill nearby
on Juanita Creek. Hubbard worked there with him, and the two also logged trees
from Finn Hill and the surrounding area.
Dorr and Eliza built their house, seen as 1880s. It was their second house at Juanita, off 97th Avenue N.E. When it burned in 1905, the couple built a new home on the same property. |
View looking south at Lake Washington in 1913, down today’s 97th Avenue N.E., then called Bothell Road. The Forbes home was on the right, at their mailbox. |
Among their friends were other noted Eastside pioneers, Ole
(1837-1914) and Marit Josten (1840-1913), who homesteaded 160 acres at the site
of today’s Juanita High School; Bothell founders, David (1820-1905) and Mary
Anne Bothell (1823-1907); and Woodinville founders Ira (1833-1906) and Susan
Woodin (1848-1919). Like Dorr Forbes, both men were Union Army veterans. Mrs.
Beecher said her grandmother and fellow pioneer woman Susan Woodin were good
friends. Susan Woodin often walked from her homestead in what became
Woodinville, to stay overnight at the Forbes home and then the next day cross
the lake to Seattle by rowboat or canoe, where she landed at the foot of
Madison Street, and then walked the three miles to downtown Seattle to sell
butter. Then she walked back to the lake, crossed by small boat, stayed
overnight at the Forbes place, and from there walked back home. Susan Woodin, a
tough example of a pioneer woman, was also Woodinville’s postmistress.
Eliza said during her early years that she was frightened
one day when a group of Indians showed up at her door. They were migratory
group, however, with peaceful intentions. All they wanted was to warm their
feet at the stove inside.
On January 23, 1887 Eliza was the first woman elected
justice of the peace on the west coast. In Washington Territory women could
vote before it was possible in most of the rest of country. When Washington
became a state in 1889, women lost that right and Eliza had to step down from
office. She remained a political activist and had a large photograph of Teddy
Roosevelt prominently displayed in her living room. She frequently attended
Republican Party meetings in Seattle. Mrs. Beecher recalled that once when
Eliza was in her late 80s she made the trip across the lake to one party
function and fell and broke her arm. Undaunted, she returned home and her
daughter-in-law, Alicia Forbes, got Dr. George Davis to splint the broken arm.
But Eliza stubbornly refused to wear the splint. Despite her uncooperation, her
arm healed perfectly.
In her later years, a Forbes family member typically
provided transportation for Eliza, but if a family member was not available,
she didn’t let that stop her. She’d call the jitney (taxi) in Kirkland to come
pick her up and take her to the ferry so she could attend Republican Party
meetings. When she was in her 90s, her sons asked the jitney operators to
refuse to fetch her when she called. This did not stop her. One time she
disappeared, causing her family to launch a search. They heard from a neighbor
that he’d seen her out on the road hitching a ride to the ferry. Eliza Forbes
did what Eliza Forbes wanted to do.
Another time, again in her later years, Eliza disappeared
for the day, but returned very excited. As a young woman in the 1800s she’d had
a dream one night that she was flying in a machine that carried passengers
through the sky. This dream was years prior to the first powered flight. Eliza
disappearance turned out to be a visit to Seattle where she flew in an airplane
to Bremerton and back. She claimed the experience was her dream coming true. At
the time of her adventure, few Kirkland-area residents and certainly no other
member of the Forbes family had flow in an airplane. This feisty pioneer
grandma was the first.
King County owned the 1905 Forbes house from 1956 until
2002, when the City of Kirkland acquired Juanita Beach Park. The family
extensively remodeled it in 1937, so its appearance has changed since 1905, but
it still stands on its original site at 11829 97th Ave. N.E. Mrs. Beecher said
her grandparents planted the fruit trees around the home, which still produce
fruit.
Mrs. Beecher said that even into her pioneer grandmother’s
senior years she caught fish in Juanita Creek, then a thriving salmon stream as
well as home to trout and other edible species. She also picked stinging
nettles, dandelions, and wild berries, all of which were a regular part of
their diets. Mrs. Beecher said Eliza also enjoyed sitting on porch and shooting
robins from her fruit trees with a .22 rifle. Pioneers considered robin’s
breast a culinary delicacy. She lived the life of a rugged, individualistic
pioneer, right up to her death in 1942.
Eliza and Dorr Forbes are interred at Evergreen-Washelli Cemetery, on the Washelli side (east of Aurora Ave) . |