When T.B. Potter created Bayocean Park in 1907 (see The Bayocean Story In Brief) he imagined it becoming a Pacific Coast version of Atlantic City. As it turns out, Potter wasn't the first person to be reminded of east coast beaches by the spit.
Webley Hauxhurst was the first white settler on the mainland section of Bayocean Park, now known as Cape Meares. The Dictionary of Oregon History says Webley moved there from Salem with his Yamhill Indian wife Mary (Wat-Tiet ) and their four youngest children in 1867 because it reminded him of Long Island, New York, where he grew up. He piloted the schooner Champion between Tillamook and Astoria to earn a living. The patent for Homestead Claim # 843 was granted to Mary in 1877, three years after Webley died.
In the fall of 1948, Jack Medcalf, a Salem artist and teacher, who was a native of Tillamook, built a small cabin on Bayocean by himself and lived there through the winter. His writings of that experience are held by the Tillamook County Pioneer Museum. Jack seemed to enjoy listening to Mrs. Mitchell talk about the Bayocean she knew back in 1907. She told him the area was then known as Barnegat, which meant "place of peace" and that "Webley Hauxhurst built his house down near the cape with a view of both the ocean and the bay through the meadows...that it was a large house, sprawling out but two stories. A large fireplace was of rock mortised with clay obtained in the banks of the bay over by Pitcher Point." On January 1, 1953, in an article in the Tillamook Headlight-Herald titled "As I Want To Remember Bayocean," Dr. Elmer Allen recalled the Hauxhurst cabin “near the ocean just back of a low sandhill…what impressed me most was a little old lady, once an Indian Princess, Mrs. Hauxhurst, rocking in a chair beside the fireplace. Just a short distance from the house across a green meadow on the bayside was a boathouse and landing.”
In June 1886, US Army Corps of Engineers Captain Charles F. Powell surveyed the area near Cape Meares in preparation for building the lighthouse. He showed the "Hoxie" house about 3/4 mile north of the cape. This places it at the south edge of Bayocean Park, halfway between today's Bayocean Park Rd. and Pacific Ave about 1000' off the modern dune ridgeline. Perhaps you stand under it as you chase the retreating waves on low tide. Note Henry Sampson's house also shown. It's most likely the smaller house still standing up close to the cape in the photo in my story on the Steinhilber house sliding to the sea in 1899.
Portland builder and civic leader A.B Hallock began visiting the spit just before Webley died (Absolom Hallock papers, Mss 92, Oregon Historical Society). At end of 1880, he bought squatters rights and a cabin built by Sarah Hauxhurst and her husband William Lattie and retired there. Hallock's Homestead Claim # 2517 included most of what would become Bayocean Park. His cabin was on the bay side of the spit, just north of what would later be called "Jackson Gap." He wrote of "Ben Hoxie" herding cattle past his place on a regular basis and seemed fond of Mary, who he visited regularly. Journal entries in Mss 92 indicate neighbors were getting their mail at Hallock's cabin by 1890, which he'd pick up for them on occasional trips to Hoquarton (later called Lincoln, finally Tillamook). The June 12, 1891Tillamook Headlight announced: "Capt. Hallock has received his commission as postmaster at Barnegat." On August 27 they reported Barnegat locals paying George Handley (grandson of Daniel Bayley who founded Garibaldi) to deliver the mail each Monday until the U.S. Postal Service established a contract.
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| Photos of Webley and Mary are from the Tillamook County Pioneer Museum |
Webley Hauxhurst was the first white settler on the mainland section of Bayocean Park, now known as Cape Meares. The Dictionary of Oregon History says Webley moved there from Salem with his Yamhill Indian wife Mary (Wat-Tiet ) and their four youngest children in 1867 because it reminded him of Long Island, New York, where he grew up. He piloted the schooner Champion between Tillamook and Astoria to earn a living. The patent for Homestead Claim # 843 was granted to Mary in 1877, three years after Webley died. In the fall of 1948, Jack Medcalf, a Salem artist and teacher, who was a native of Tillamook, built a small cabin on Bayocean by himself and lived there through the winter. His writings of that experience are held by the Tillamook County Pioneer Museum. Jack seemed to enjoy listening to Mrs. Mitchell talk about the Bayocean she knew back in 1907. She told him the area was then known as Barnegat, which meant "place of peace" and that "Webley Hauxhurst built his house down near the cape with a view of both the ocean and the bay through the meadows...that it was a large house, sprawling out but two stories. A large fireplace was of rock mortised with clay obtained in the banks of the bay over by Pitcher Point." On January 1, 1953, in an article in the Tillamook Headlight-Herald titled "As I Want To Remember Bayocean," Dr. Elmer Allen recalled the Hauxhurst cabin “near the ocean just back of a low sandhill…what impressed me most was a little old lady, once an Indian Princess, Mrs. Hauxhurst, rocking in a chair beside the fireplace. Just a short distance from the house across a green meadow on the bayside was a boathouse and landing.”
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| Cropped from the survey map published in Cape Meares And Its Sentinel by Clara M. Fairfield and M. Wayne Jensen, Jr. (2000, Tillamook County Pioneer Museum) |
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| A.B.Hallock: OrHi 9824 Oregon Historical Society |
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| Homestead Land Claim map pre-Bayocean, scribbles by author |
When Hallock died in 1892 his duties were transferred to Lizzie (Mrs. Bert) Biggs who she was one of the Hauxhursts' daughters. Her Homestead Claim # 3471 (initiated prior to marrying Bert) included Pitcher Point, explaining why the coordinates provided by Sateliteviews.net and other websites refer to that location. The name of the post office was changed to Bayocean in 1909, but the 1910 Federal Census still used Barnegat to identify the precinct.
To find stories about the earlier use of the spit by Tillamook Indians, and its exploration by earlier white men, see the Index page.