Northwest Coast

In 1849 James Swan turned his back on his wife and two children, a prosperous ship-fitting business, and the polite and predictable world of commerce in Boston and fled to the newly opened gold fields in California. Soon sick of the bonanza society, he emigrated to a shallow harbor called Shoalwater Bay (now Willapa Bay) north of the Columbia River in Washington Territory.Swan eagerly became a part of the frontier community, enjoying the company of both the white settlers and friendly Indians in the area. First published in 1857, his classic account of the western frontier remains fresh and timely for the modern reader. Swan saw himself as both an observer and participant in a barbaric invasion. His interest in the Indians and his acceptance of them as individuals of importance and integrity emerge clearly in a lively and informed narrative.

This account by a renegade Bostonian, who lived among the Indians at Willapa Bay, is particularly valuable because it shows us a man who was both a sensitive observer and participant in the white settlers’ invasion of the Indians’ lands..As the earliest book about Washington Territory, The Northwest Coast, according to Murray Morgan, ‘sets a standard few other works about the area have met. A self-taught scientist, runaway husband, promoter, teacher, essayist, townboomer, probate judge and alcoholic, Swan wrote with robust humor about the period in which the territory was created.’.