Although it is unclear where, exactly, the Edwards’ home on Baker Bay was located, it is likely that it was within walking distance of Fort Canby where Edwards was employed at the time of his death in 1863. At the time, he was probably the only resident on the bay. This postcard photograph of Ilwaco on Baker Bay, taken from Yellow Bluff in 1905, shows how dramatically the area changed over the next half century.

Bill Edwards (1818-1863)

One of the first “Bostons” (as the Chinooks called the early white explorers and pioneers) to settle on Baker Bay was Bill Edwards. A sailor from Massachusetts, he arrived in 1844. and apparently saw a good business opportunity available in making his home hospitable to travelers or seamen who often needed to wait out storms before leaving the shelter of Baker Bay and heading out to sea.

His Chinook wife, Caroline, was a good cook and there was always a meal ready for the hungry wayfarer. In season, a kettle of duck stew was kept bubbling on the fire. By 1849, a traveler reported that Edwards was equipped with “a nine-pin alley” and offered bowling as the first public amusement on the Washington side of the river.

Presumably, life proceeded well for Edwards, especially after the government began construction of Fort Canby in 1862. Not only did he find employment there, he also sold beef from his farm to the soldiers and construction workers. At age 44, Edwards looked forward to a fine future but in 1863 Jack Fisk, Caroline’s former sweetheart, reappeared after a long absence. Although Caroline appeared to continue rejecting his overtures, it seems that she and Fisk had worked out a scheme that resulted in her going off to Chinook to “tend her sick mother.”

That evening, Edwards was ambushed as he carried boards from the beach and was shot by someone concealed in the bushes. The murderer dragged Edwards’ body to the foot of a tree, propped it up in a sitting position with the rifle in its arms, as if Edwards had committed suicide. Caroline and her male companion were arrested in Chinook, given a preliminary hearing, and were sent to Vancouver where they apparently broke jail and escaped.

Edwards’ good friend John Pickernell was the executor of the estate and wrote to Edwards’ eastern relatives: “I have wrote Mr. Drury all the pertickerlers.” Those included a list of Edwards’ possessions: 24 head of meat cattle, a chest of carpenter tools, and double harness, a plow, crowbar, crosscut saw, spyglass, grindstone, harrow; a government check for $41.92 for labor at Cape Disappointment and $24.24 due for beef delivered at Fort Canby. On the debit side was Edwards’ Astoria bar account for $8.75 and $26 for “one barrell of whiskie.”