06/29/2025
One of the names most synonymous with Bainbridge Island is that of the Bucklin Family. Nathan Bucklin was an island pioneer, arriving shortly after George Meigs founded the town of Port Madison and the Port Madison Mill. In later years, the Bucklin family made their home near Eagle Harbor, settling at the top of a homestead that is known to this day as Bucklin Hill. Where their house once stood is now home to Hyla School, and the original barn built over 120 years ago still stands today.
Nathan Bucklin was born on June 6, 1839 in Warren, Knox County, Maine. He was the oldest son of six boys born to Ebenezer D. Bucklin (1808-1877) and Lydia Elizabeth Mink (1819-1887). His parents were farmers and raised sheep, with which his mother spun wool, and Nathan and his brothers worked on the farm.
Nathan was a teenager when he sailed from Maine to Virginia while working for Warren Shipbuilding. When he was 20 years old, he finally began his journey out West. His brother, Edwin Sanford, was employed at a mill owned by Adam and Blinn in the small town of Seabeck, Washington, located on the Hood Canal. Edwin promised him a job if he made it out there.
With his life packed into a horsehide trunk, and accompanied by two neighbors, he paid $175 in gold for a steerage ticket on the SS Moses Taylor and steamed out of Boston. He took a narrow-gauge railroad across the isthmus of Panama and a steamer to San Francisco. Another steamer brought him to Port Townsend, arriving on November 9, 1859. Finally, he took a small sailboat that cost $6 per ticket, and sailed 50 miles over the course of a day and a half the rest of the way to Seabeck.
Nathan and his brother lived together in a small cabin while working at the mill, where Nathan worked as a supervisor for a salary of $40-$60 per month. In 1865, a woman by the name of Marian Stevens Campbell was visiting Seabeck with a friend who was also the daughter of one of the mill owners. According to Nathan's daughter, Annie Bucklin Hyde, Marian noticed Nathan during her visit while he was scaling logs along the dock. She reportedly pointed out Nathan to her friend and told her she was going to marry "the one with the back curly hair and red flannel shirt."
Marian was born on September 11, 1846 in Saint Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada. She was the daughter of John Campbell (1813-1884) and Martha Ann Stuart (1816-1900), and was the fourth born of their ten children. She arrived in San Francisco with her family in 1862. Her father was a Civil War veteran and worked as a bookkeeper.
Nathan returned to Maine for a visit in 1866, and on his way back he stopped again in San Francisco. It was here that he paid a visit to Marian, and they decided to marry. Nathan and Marian married on May 16, 1867 at 312 Brannan Street in San Francisco. The couple went right from San Francisco to Port Madison on Bainbridge Island, Washington, where Nathan had been hired by George Meigs as the Port Madison Mill foreman.
They lived in a white-washed mill-owned home in Port Madison. The Suquamish mill workers nicknamed Nathan "Big Tyee." While working as mill foreman, Nathan introduced the idea of Daylight Savings Time. As the days became longer, he told the men to come to work an hour earlier. In 1866, Chief Seattle requested for Nathan Bucklin, along with George Meigs and Peter Primrose, to "come to my funeral and shake hands with me before I am laid in the ground." After word was received in Port Madison of Seattle's death, Meigs closed the mill for the day and many townspeople took a steamer to attend the funeral. After the end of the funeral, and before the procession to the cemetery began, Meigs stepped forward first and shook Seattle's hand, followed by Bucklin and Primrose.
Nathan and Marian's three children were all born in Port Madison: Annie May (1868-1954), Amy Campbell (1872-1972), and Marian Stuart Viola (1874-1923). Letters given to the Kitsap County Historical Society show concerns for Marian's health as early as April 1874, just a few months after the birth of her daughter, baby Marian. Her brother, Colin Stuart Campbell, came during the fall to help look after Marian and care for the children. The mill doctor couldn't do anything else for her, so a Dr. Tolmie was summoned from Victoria. He took a steamer and arrived in Port Townsend, where he received a message to come no further. Marian died on October 14, 1874 in Port Madison when she was 28 years old. With the exception of an obituary, which described her as having succumbed to a brief illness, there is no other record of her death. She was first of the Bucklin family to be buried at Kane Cemetery in Port Madison.
Elsie Franklin Marriott wrote of Marian's funeral and gravesite in her book "Bainbridge Through Bifocals," as told to her by Marian's daughter, Annie. "So many had come to the Sound by now that it was no longer necessary to make caskets, when needed, in the mill carpenter shop; as a few were kept in Seattle. All the townsfolk and many Indians followed the six pall bearers who carried the casket to the new cemetery on the hill some three-quarters of a mile from the town, and kind neighbors labored hard to clothe the three small motherless daughters - the baby only nine months old - in mourning. Marion's grave had twenty large abalone shells surrounding it which has been sent from San Francisco. One day they were gone. Two years later they were back. Some disaster or illness had probably overtaken the thief and the Spirit who watched over the grave had brought this 'repentance' about...An Indian superstition no doubt."
Following Marian's death her brother Colin continued to help care for the home and children. He took baby Marian on a journey to San Francisco to visit family. Women in the community also helped to care for Nathan and the children, and Nathan hired a woman named Mary Alice Babbitt (who went by the name Alice).
Alice was born on December 7, 1849 in Mendham, Morris County, New Jersey. She was the daughter of Robert Millen Babbit (1820-1885) and Henrietta Marie Jolley (1820-1898). Her father was a carriage maker and she was the second oldest of their six children. She left New Jersey and arrived in Oakland, California by way of Panama, where she had been looking for work as a housekeeper and was living with her aunt and uncle. While in Oakland she learned of Nathan, a widower who was looking for someone to care for his children.
Author Fredi Perry describes Alice's first night living in Port Madison in her book "Port Madison Washington Territory": "Miss Babbitt's first night in Madison was disastrous. As she peered out the window into the darkness, an Indian pressed his face against the pane. She grabbed Annie and dashed for a door which she thought lead to upstairs, but instead the two fell down the cellar stairs."
Alice stayed with the Bucklin family in Port Madison for one year, at which point she returned to live with her aunt and uncle in Oakland. Nathan, realizing his and his children's love for her, traveled to Oakland to ask her to marry him and return with him to Port Madison. They were married in Port Madison on February 17, 1877 by the Reverend Damon.
Nathan and Alice had six children together: Robert Eben (1879-1972), Frances Lydia (1881-1958), Alice Mae (1885-1959), Clara (1887-1943), Henrietta (1889-1979), and Emma Louise (1892-1979). When his son was born, Suquamish mill workers nicknamed the child "Little Tyee."
The Bucklin family's mill home soon became too small for their growing family, and in 1877 they built a brand new home in the adjoining lot at the corner of Meigs Road and Washington Avenue. The house has been noted as having the second bathtub in town (the first belonging to mill owner George Meigs). However, they only lived in this house for about a decade. Meigs and his mill were having significant financial issues, and Nathan had the foresight to see that one day soon the mill would close.
An event that shocked the Bucklin family occurred on April 1, 1883. While Colin was working at the mill tallying a cargo of piles, a terrible accident occurred. He was quickly taken via tug boat to Seattle to undergo surgery. Hearing of the news, Nathan and his daughter Amy rushed to Seattle. Following surgery, Colin contracted sepsis and died in April 22, 1883. Nathan chartered the SS Augusta to bring funeral attendees from Seattle to Port Madison, where he also held a lunch at his residence after the services. Colin was buried at Kane Cemetery next to his sister, Marian.
Read more of Colin's story in a previous post here:
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In 1887, Nathan purchased a homestead in Eagle Harbor for $100 from a man known as "Crazy Johnson." He designed the five bedroom home himself and the family moved in on February 28, 1888. This area became known accordingly as Bucklin Hill. He was still working at the mill, which meant that he commuted eight miles from Eagle Harbor to Port Madison every Sunday night, worked at the mill during the week, and would return home the following Saturday.
Following the final closure of the Port Madison Mill in January 1892, Nathan logged and farmed his land. He served as a County Officer in Port Orchard, Kitsap County Sheriff, Kitsap County Probate Judge, Kitsap County Assessor, and Bainbridge Road Supervisor. He was also a member of the Washington Pioneers Association.
Alice died on July 17, 1915 at the family home on Bucklin Hill in Eagle Harbor. She died of apoplexy (stroke) when she was 65 years old, and was buried at Kane Cemetery. Just three months later on September 11, 1915, Nathan died at the family home. He was 76 years old when he also died of apoplexy, and was buried two days later next to Alice in Kane Cemetery.
Nathan and Alice's headstone, as well as Colin Campbell's headstone, were recently cleaned. Marian's headstone, located nearby, is on the list to be cleaned soon.
