Purdy, Washington

Prior to white settlement, the area was inhabited by Native Americans, who fished and clammed on Henderson Bay.{{cite journal|last1=Slater|first1=Colleen|title=From Pioneer Stock: First White Woman Settler on Henderson Bay|journal=Key Peninsula News|date=November 2004|volume=31|issue=11|page=16}}

In 1884, one Isaac Hawk sold {{convert|19|acre|m2}} of land for $23.75 ({{inflation|US|23.75|1884

|fmt=eq}}). The purchaser was logger and Civil War veteran Horace Knapp (born March 23, 1845, in Titusville, Pennsylvania; died February 1, 1913, in Gig Harbor, Washington), who subdivided the land into lots and blocks to form the town of Purdy. The town's naming rights were taken by Joseph W. Purdy, a grocer from Tacoma, Washington, who had donated the materials to construct the community's first schoolhouse; the schoolhouse's land was donated by Knapp.

On February 8, 1885, Knapp married Josephine Fuller, after which they moved to the Purdy area, making her Purdy's first white female settler.The Tacoma Times, March 19, 1939, "First White Woman to Live at Henderson Bay Expires" Knapp owned a floating logging camp on Burley LagoonThe Tacoma Times, June 11, 1948, "Old Purdy School Building Recalls Early Settlement" which included a cookhouse and bunks for the loggers.{{cite journal|url=http://keypennews.com/httpdocs/Jan08/KPN%200108W.pdf|title=Key Peninsula News|volume=36|issue=1|date=January 2008|access-date=11 December 2008}}

A mill was built in 1885 by James Ashton, Joseph Purdy, William Rowland, and a Mr. Sherman on a small inlet of Burley Lagoon just down the hill from present day Peninsula High School. In 1886, the Purdy mill secured its first contract to provide huge lumber with one edge beveled for the construction of a wooden dry dock at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in nearby Bremerton. The mill could underbid their competitors because they used an extra saw to cut the bevel, which allowed them to use only four trips of the saw carriage instead of five.

Purdy became known as a "brawling mill town". The mill's success brought such conveniences as a grocery store and a post office to the area,Peninsula Historical Society the latter sited on Knapp's floating camp from 1886 to 1895 after which the function transferred to Springfield (Wauna, Washington). A long chute along present-day 144th Street brought logs down the hill to the water. Mr Ouellette, known as "the Frenchman", began canning native Olympia oysters gathered from his land on the Purdy spit around 1900. He gathered these native oysters to near extinction. Japanese oysters are still cultivated on Purdy's sandbars and in Burley Lagoon,{{cite book|title=The WPA Guide to Washington: The Evergreen State|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=07PpCAAAQBAJ&pg=PT500|page=500| isbn=9781595342454 |access-date=11 December 2015| last1=Project | first1=Federal Writers' | date=31 October 2013 | publisher=Trinity University Press }} as are clams.

The original schoolhouse was abandoned in the 1890s. In 1900, the second Purdy Schoolhouse was built to replace it on land (also donated by Knapp) located on Sherman Avenue (present-day 68th Avenue). Students spent every other semester at either the Purdy Schoolhouse, or the Wauna Schoolhouse to keep both schools active.{{cite book|last1=1974-75 Students of|first1=Goodman Middle School|title=Along the Waterfront|date=1979|publisher=Clinton Hull Publishing Co., Ltd.|pages=80–82}} The modern-day Peninsula High School now sits on the hill where one of the original schoolhouses was built. The Second schoolhouse stood until 2015, when it was demolished to build a new home.{{citation needed|date=December 2015}}

• "My Father", by Earl H. Knapp

{{Wikivoyage|Purdy (Washington)}}

• [http://visitkitsap.com/cities.asp?ID=56 Kitsap Peninsula Visitor Information - Purdy]

{{Pierce County, Washington}}

{{authority control}}

Category:Unincorporated communities in Pierce County, Washington

Category:Unincorporated communities in Washington (state)