The Buck Family History

Buck Family History on San Juan Island
by Vincent Buck 

Our grandfather Sam R. Buck moved to the San Juans around 1918, after taking a rented buckboard to the top of Mt. Constitution and having some sort of epiphany on one of those days when it seems you can see forever from up there.  He was elected Prosecuting Attorney for San Juan County around 1920 and served off and on until he passed away in 1946.  In those days the Prosecutor’s job didn’t pay much, so he was allowed to have a private practice on the side and for many years was one of only two or three attorneys practicing in the islands.  He also represented San Juan County in the state legislature for several years in the 1930’s and 40’s.

Our dad, Robert F. Buck, was born and raised on San Juan Island.  After serving in the Navy during the War, he returned to Friday Harbor to practice law with my grandfather, but upon my grandfather’s sudden death he was himself elected Prosecuting Attorney (though he hadn’t yet passed the bar).  He also founded San Juan Title Company.

He strongly believed that we all have an obligation to make a positive contribution to the communities we live in.  It was his hallmark.

He was the first president of Orcas Power and Light Company (OPALCO).  As a member of the Port Commission of Friday Harbor, he was a primary proponent of the Friday Harbor Marina in the 1950’s, and when it was finally built in the 1970’s, he was asked to make a speech at its dedication.  In Seattle, he was President of the Washington Bankers Association, Chairman of Virginia Mason Medical Center, Chairman of the Economic Development Council of Puget Sound, President of the Pacific Northwest Trade Association, President of the Rainier Club, President of the University of Washington Alumni Association, etc.

He bought Kwan Lamah Resort in 1950.  It had been run as a hotel and summer resort from the 1920’s onward by the Little family.  He kept Kwan Lamah pretty much intact for 40 years and it was the real center of our family life for all those years – Christmas, summers, etc.  Eventually, each of Carolyn and Jai and I renovated one of the cabins for our own use, but the “Big House” was the focal point for all of us.  In 1990 he sold the Big House and the cabins (later renamed the Mariella Inn), but retained the remaining 55⁺ acres and he and Barbara built a new house on the old “Rendezvous” beach.  Many old timers will fondly recall the “Rendezvous” in the summers during the 1950-60’s, when people from all the other islands would congregate, mostly via boat, on our beach for a huge salmon bake and general all-day party.  Dad later told me that he had instigated the Rendezvous as a way to build community while he was president of the Chamber of Commerce in Friday Harbor.

Around 1953 Dad was appointed Western Regional Counsel for the Small Business Administration and we moved to Seattle.  He eventually rose to be Deputy Administrator in Washington D.C.  We returned to Seattle in 1961 and he became a banker with what would become Rainier Bank.  He was Executive Vice President and General Counsel of the bank for many years.

One of the properties our grandfather had acquired in the 1930’s and my father inherited was a 137-acre parcel at Crescent Beach just outside Eastsound.  Around 1980 my father gave the county 20 acres of that property for a park, asking only that it be dedicated to his parents.  It is now called Buck Park.  He also donated seven acres of wetlands at Crescent Beach to the San Juan Preservation Trust. Around 1993, he made a gift of the remaining 110 acres at Crescent Beach to Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle, where he had been chairman of the board for several years.  Virginia Mason subsequently named one of their primary buildings the “Buck Pavilion.”  Although he had made the gift without any formal strings, he was instrumental in ensuring that the property was not broken up as had been proposed by the hospital’s fund managers, but rather was made available to be purchased intact by the Land Bank in order that it could be developed in accordance with the community’s needs. 

Finally, I think it is important to remember that much of the land upon which the Home Trust has an option would not “exist” at all had it not been for his vision.  When the San Juan Sand and Gravel Company approached him in the 1960’s, after their supplies on the “park” parcel had been substantially depleted, he agreed to lease the land to them, but only upon the condition that they eventually regrade the pit back up to its present contours, cover it with reserved topsoil, and replant it with vegetation and trees.  At one time the pit extended 60 feet below Turn Point Road, but thanks to his foresight, our side of what was once Bald Hill is now a pretty attractive parcel of land, while the pit on the other side just barely escapes being a horrible scar on the landscape.

But the part of our family that really goes back in the islands is our mother Georgina Templin Buck’s side.  Our great, great grandfather was Robert Firth.  He came to San Juan Island around 1850 to work for the Hudson Bay Company at their sheep farm where American Camp is now.  After the “Pig War,” the boundary between the U.S. and Britain was arbitrated by Kaiser Wilhelm.  The San Juans became U.S. territory and the Hudson Bay Company withdrew from the islands.  At that time Robert Firth was the “factor” (manager) of their operations on San Juan Island and after leasing the 160-acre farm to him for several years they apparently simply gave it to him around 1870.  Robert Firth and his descendents lived there for another couple of generations.  In fact, he and his wife lived in the house that still stands at American Camp and that was once the Commanding Officer’s house during the military occupation of American Camp.

Our mother grew up on Orcas, but her mother, Jessie Douglas Templin, Robert Firth’s granddaughter, was raised in Friday Harbor.  She grew up in the big old house that once stood where Friday Harbor House is today.  Her father John Douglas owned the Saloon Best.  That building still stands at the foot of Spring Street across from the Ale House.  Douglas Road in San Juan Valley is named for her family, as two of her uncle’s had large farms there.  She married Karl Templin of Orcas.  The Templins had been on Orcas since the 1890’s, and my grandparents owned and ran Templin’s Store in Eastsound.  It was an old-fashioned general store, selling everything from food to fishhooks, candies to shovels, nails to venison.  I have had several elderly people tell me that my grandparents’ generosity and willingness to extend “credit” for years at a time helped many families get through the Depression.

Well, all in all, a very fortunate family to have had the privilege of living in such a very special part of the world for so many years.  And to have had deep roots on both San Juan and Orcas.  The scientist in you might enjoy the random element in a story that my grandmother told my sister towards the end of her very long life.  Apparently Robert Firth Sr., after making the long voyage from the Orkney Islands in Scotland to Victoria B.C. (where the Hudson Bay Company’s operations on the West Coast were headquartered) and having shown some initiative in his early assignments was offered a choice of running two posts, one in a place called Moss Bay, somewhere up in the inside passage on the East side of Vancouver Island and the other on San Juan Island.  Of course, he knew nothing of either one, but a fellow standing next to him at the bar that evening as he was thinking it over said to him that he had been to Moss Bay and the “mosquitoes will eat your children alive.”  It is perhaps thanks to that chance remark from a person otherwise long forgotten that so many of us have had the good fortune to be from the San Juans.  Or, as I always say, choose your ancestors carefully.