Archives West Finding Aid

John Joseph (J.J.) Donovan (1858-1937) was born in Rumney, New Hampshire to Patrick and Julia (O'Sullivan) Donovan on September 8, 1858. J.J. attended Plymouth Normal School where he met his future wife, Clara Nichols (1858-1936). Both J.J. and Clara graduated in 1877 and passed their teaching examinations, although neither would continue teaching for very long. Clara became a piano teacher and J.J. enrolled in Worcester Polytechnic Institute's civil engineering program, where he graduated as Valedictorian in 1882.

Shortly after graduating, J.J. was hired by the Northern Pacific Railway Company to survey, plan and eventually supervise the building of roadbeds and bridges during construction of Northern Pacific's transcontinental system. This appointment brought him west to Montana and eventually Washington State, where he worked on a number of Northern Pacific's Cascade Division projects for the next several years. By the late-1880s, J.J.'s engineering achievements were well known and his services were sought by various commercial interests then being developed on Bellingham Bay in Washington State. These attracted J.J. and Clara to Western Washington, and they arrived in Fairhaven (which later became part of Bellingham) in 1888.

J.J. quickly became involved in real estate and other business ventures, often in partnership with other well-known area businessmen including Nelson Bennett, C.X. Larrabee, Julius H. Bloedel, and Peter Larson. Over the course of his career, J.J. served as Chief Engineer for the Fairhaven Land Company, the Skagit Coal & Transportation Company, the Fairhaven & Southern Railway Company, the Tideland Appraisers, the Blue Canyon Coal Mining Company, the Bellingham Bay & Eastern Railway Company, and the Bellingham Bay & British Columbia Railway Company. He later gave his attention to the lumber business, building and managing the Lake Whatcom Logging Company, Larson Lumber Company, and Bloedel-Donovan Lumber Mills.

J.J. was active in civic life, serving on the Fairhaven City Council, the Board of Trustees of the Whatcom Normal School (now Western Washington University), and sitting as president of several other cultural and professional associations. He helped raise funds for the construction of St. Joseph's Hospital and Assumption Catholic Church, and publicly spoke out against the Ku Klux Klan. J.J. and Clara built a home on McKenzie Avenue in Fairhaven and had three children: Helen Donovan Craven, J.N. "Jack" Donovan, and Philip Donovan.