Digital Bob Archive

Willoughby Island near the southern end of Glacier Bay and Willoughby Cove in Lemesurier Island in Icy Strait were both named by Navy officers for Richard G. Willoughby. That came about in the summer of 1880 when Commander L.A. Beardslee and Master Gustav Hanus were exploring the area and were joined by Willoughby who was on a prospecting trip.

When he was prospecting Willoughby had an eye for more than just mineral deposits. He staked a strip of land at Point Adolphus on Chichagof Island for a cod fishery, and a cove just inside Glacier Bay for a salmon fishery. No development took place at Point Adolphus, but Willoughby built a cabin at the cove and put in a garden, including a large strawberry patch. And he sold a piece of the shoreline for a saltery to Charles C. Bartlett, described as a Port Townsend merchant.

Willoughby was at Bartlett Cove in the summer of 1883 when the steamer Idaho, Captain James Carroll, dropped anchor there with lumber, nets, salt, barrel staves and hoops and other supplies for the saltery. Aboard the Idaho was Eliza R. Scidmore, a writer for the St. Louis Globe Democrat. In Willoughby's store, she wrote, there were \"curios and baskets.\" She didn't say what else was in stock.

She did write: \"When Dick Willoughby told Captain Carroll of the great glacier 30 miles up the bay, the captain said he would go there. And he took Willoughby along, perhaps not fully believing him.\" But it was true. They anchored near the glacier and the tourists climbed along one edge of it and had a wonderful time. Captain W.E. George, the pilot, named both the inlet and the glacier for John Muir and later notified Coast Survey in Washington. He also named Scidmore Island, but that name didn't stick and today we don't know which island it was.

When the Idaho was on her way back from that first visit by a steamboat to Muir Glacier, Willoughby spun a tale to Captain Carroll about a shortcut to Sitka, one that would save several hours of steaming. His pitch must have been exceedingly persuasive because Carroll bought the story. Miss Scidmore chronicled what happened.

\"After we returned Dick Willoughby to his home, we had a seven-hour enforced anchorage on the succeeding day in a narrow fiord on the end of Chichagof Island which Willoughby had described as an unknown channel, 'a hole in the mountain,' and a shortcut to the open ocean that he had traveled many times himself. Following up his 40-fathom channel, the lead marked shoaling waters and before we know it the Idaho ran her nose on a sloping bank and stayed there until the returning tide floated her off.\"

The ship returned to more navigable channels, but left her name behind. The Geographic Dictionary credits Captain George with the naming, \"for the steamer Idaho which grounded here.\" It was one of Dick Willoughby's more successful hoaxes, and he perpetrated many of them, including the famous \"Silent City\" in Glacier Bay, of which more another time.