This Old House

The Pickett House, built in Bellingham in 1856, would hardly be considered old in the UK or Europe, but here in Washington state, it's the oldest documented wooden structure on its original foundation, as well as the oldest house in Bellingham.

Phil and I have been meaning to visit it for some time, and today we finally accomplished that goal. Photography is not allowed inside, but you can catch a peek here. The house was decorated for the holidays and the volunteers there were welcoming and informative about its history.

Captain George E. Pickett (1825-1875), a Virginia-born career U.S. Army Officer, came to this area in 1856 with Company D of the 9th U.S. Infantry Regiment to build Fort Bellingham, three miles from the center of town. The early settlers in this area feared raids by the indigenous Haida from what is now British Columbia and Alaska, so they took refuge in the fort's stockade at night when raiders were in the area.

Pickett lived in this house he built in Bellingham above Whatcom Falls, using planks from the local lumber mill built in 1853. At that time, it was a simple two-story "two up/two down" wooden home, with a ladder to the upstairs rooms (likely used for storage, rather than living space) and a lean-to housing the kitchen and the open fireplace that provided heat and a place to cook. (The porch seen here was added later, as were the shingles, a bathroom, and a kitchen.)

Having married in 1851 and become a widower the same year when his first wife died in childbirth, Pickett married a Haida woman in 1857, who gave birth to a son that December and died a few months later. Pickett sent the baby, James Tilton Pickett (1857-1889), to live with friends in another county, and provided for his care and education, but did not see him again.

He left Fort Bellingham in 1861 to return to Virginia, where he became a general in the Confederate States Army during the Civil War, and is remembered for the futile "Pickett's Charge", with more than 50% casualties for the Confederate side, during the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863.

His Bellingham house changed hands a number of times. The last owner deeded the house to the Washington State Historical Society and the contents to the Daughters of the Pioneers of Washington, Whatcom Chapter 5, who later were given the house as well by the WSHS. Designated as a museum in 1941, the Pickett House is listed on the Washington Heritage Register and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.

(Addendum: Pickett took a third wife, LaSalle "Sallie" Corbell (1843-1931), 18 years his junior, in November 1863. After his death in 1875, she wrote several books and did speaking tours about her husband.)