A little known event in La Push history was the lost half township of Seaholme. In 1907, Walter Newbert and two other men surveying for the Union Pacific railroad above Third Beach discovered a half township that was unrecorded on state maps. Vinton E. Newbert and his survey crew discovered 600 acres that had never been recorded as land. Apparently, this fractional township has been recorded as water. Newbert, his mother and two members of the survey crew, Theodore Rixon and James Dodwell, filed 160-acre homestead claims although they had difficulty proving the land actually existed. The combined homesteads were called "Seaholme." The Newbert boys used about 25, -30,000 feet of lumber from buildings at an abandoned oil well, from an abortive oil exploration in 1902, to build houses. Machinery from the well which was dry is still found along the trail to Third Beach. There were no access roads to the property so supplies, and amenities like a piano, were transported by canoe and hoisted up a 200-foot cliff. Three families lived there for a few years, but after they proved up, they left discouraged by the isolation and the failure of the railroad to be built.
Source:
Family Tree: Grandmother’s name was Martha L. F. Ellen Ella Adams, born in 1840 and died in 1921. Her son was Walter E. Newbert, born in 1865 in Massachusetts and died in 1940. His wife, Gertrude W. Wiggin/Newbert was born in 1865 in New Hampshire and died in 1912, buried on the Seaholme plot. Together they had 8 children. The first, Walter J. Newbert, was born and died in 1891. Their second son, Vinton E. Newbert, was born in 1892 and died in 1997. Paul R. Newbert, their third son, was born in 1895 and died in 1984. The fourth son, Julian W. Newbert, was born in 1897 and died in 1970. Their fifth son, Carl M. Newbert was born in 1899 and died in 1965. Ira H. Newbert, the sixth son, was born in 1901 and died in 1956. Their seventh child and only daughter, Rose M. Newbert, was born in 1904 and died in 1981. Hiram W. Newbert was their last son, born in 1906. He died in 1909 and was buried near his mother on the Seaholme plot.
Photographs of Seaholme, Washington with accompanying text.
The photographs are copies with text inserted in the images. "Weitzman's Photo Shop" is stamped on the back of the photographs. However, it is clear that Weitzman is not the photographer but is the photo shop which made the copies with the added text.
Selected images can be viewed on the Libraries' Digital collections website. Permission of Visual Materials curator required to view originals. Contact Special Collections for more information.
Status of creator's copyrights is unknown; restrictions may exist on copying, quotation, or publication. Users are responsible for researching copyright status before use.
Source: Fairlook Antiques, July 5, 2017.
Processed by Rachel Falzon, 2021.
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Written on photo: Seaholme - Pacific Ocean frontage, Broad sandy beaches cut off by precipitous rock points 200' to 300' high. Falls Brook, a small cataract dropping over 100' into the Ocean. Up this 250' cliff the boys carried all sawed lumber for school house and 10 room house and supplies and furniture. Drawn up by wire cable on a 420' span aerial tramway built of odds and end from old abandoned and scrapped oil well.
Written on photo: The first crude house from the materials gathered off the Ocean beach. Fitting counterpart of the rude dwellings our ancestors built when they left the portable tents of skins and cloth and settled down in more fixed abodes. Indicating fairly well the average capacity and initiative of boys 10 to 16 years, beginning to handle tools.
Written on photo: The house the boys built on their grandmother's homestead. 10 rooms when completed. Downstairs partitioned, upstairs half partitioned. In this the oldest boys having earned and obtained carpenters tools of their own begin to develop the desire for good workmanship. So the house and outbuildings well illustrate the evolution of the woodworker from the first hewed timbers and split shingle construction to the finer work of journeyman carpenters and cabinet makers, Making doors and windows and beginning higher artistic work in their treatment of broken windows partly shown elsewhere.
Written on photo: Enjoying what their own hands have wrought. The front door, made from barn sash and scrap beach lumber, is their special pride. Even as it is written,- they look upon the fruits of their labor and see that it is good.
Written on Verso: Pictures from Vinton E. Newbert - These are pictures of his family in the first part of the century - his brothers & sister and grandmother. He is the smaller one of the boys. His mother and a younger brother's grave is shown on another picture.
Written on photo: Broken window for Guest chamber. First inscribed in autograph album of her whose life was one of unswerving devotion to her children. She lived in them and for them. And now in the retrospect, her earthly task finished and theirs but just begun, after twenty eight years of study in Nature's Workshop, the author feels greater certainty in the truth then expressed. No better motto may be inscribed over the portals of Education's future temple.
Written on photo: Broken window in Rose's and her grandmother's bedroom. Thus from our accidents and mistakes we may learn the best and greatest lessons life has to teach. On other broken windows the children have made more mottoes to lead to higher thinking. Thus the wonderful cathedral windows of Europe show our forbears passing through a growth of centuries, creating the works of art we today so well appreciate.
Written on photo: Small warehouse of beach lumber and split shingles, on site of first school tent. A rough weir dam for stream gaging made a small pond at mouth of creek. This furnished water for wash days, also play pond to try out the toy fleets of small boys.
Written on photo: School House in the wilderness. Under a foreman boys slashed 2 acres for school grounds, cutting down over 400 trees 3" to 6' in diam. They transported lumber, sand, - cement, dynamite and supplies a mile from Ocean beach to school site, handling it over 8 times. They hewed and laid foundation timbers for school house. Creating better educational facilities for themselves, the children finally abandoned this for their own. "left the last years dwelling for the new---built up its idle door,---and knew the old no more."
Written on photo: Among the ferns and mosses, in the edge of the forest, overlooking the Ocean. Two mounds of earth mark the spot where mortal clay returns to dust whence it came. A devoted mother and fond wife with "little brother" have joined that innumerable caravan which binds us with strongest ties to the invisible Realm above.