Throughout Fairhaven’s history, the name “Dead Man’s Point” or “Deadman’s Point” emerges as a curious footnote. It refers to a hill that became one of Fairhaven’s vanished landmarks by its leveling in the early twentieth century. Why the morbid name? The answer may lie in Fairhaven’s origins: either an undocumented first contact or the town founding.
Coast Salish people historically used the Padden Creek inlet for hunting, fishing, and foraging over thousands of years. Fairhaven historic markers note not only ancient camps (“1500 B.C.”) in the vicinity but “Legend: Spanish Massacred Here in 1600s.” This marker near the Interurban Trail has prompted confusion: did Spanish contact occur here over 100 years before the 1792 Vancouver expedition?
While shrouded in legend, the area’s history and name origins echo a haunted past that never quite stays dead.
Nobody Expects the ‘Spanish Massacre‘
The “Spanish Massacre” marker sources back to turn-of-the-twentieth-century newspaper articles. A 1936 Bellingham Herald article attributes the story to Lummi oral tradition, dating it to “several years before Vancouver’s flagship poked its nose through the waters of the North Pacific.” This timeline more closely matches known Spanish fortifications at Nootka Island and Neah Bay…