1846: First Olympia Settlers Arrive

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Edmund Sylvester, of Eastport, Maine

In October 1846, Edmund Sylvester, from Eastport, Maine, and Levi Lathrop Smith, also from Maine, stake a joint claim to 320 acres on Budd Inlet at what will become Olympia.

Smith choses a two-acre clearing to build a 16-foot-square log cabin.  Smith names the property Smithfield.

Sylvester builds his cabin on Chambers Prairie.

The Squaxon tribe maintained a winter settlement there that they called "Cheet-woot" or bear (at high tide, the shoreline resembled a bear).  Sylvester settles on Chambers Prairie.