William H. Packer

From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library

William H. Packer was probably among the last living Civil War veterans in Washington State. In his eventful life he was able to strut and fret his hour upon the stage alongside Edwin and John Wilkes Booth, serve in the Union Army, and help found a Socialist Utopian community in Washington State.

Changing his surname from Packard to Packer in order to avoid detection from his family, William enlisted in the Union Army and initially served as a drummer boy but eventually took up arms. He saw quite a bit of action including Gettysburg, Rappahannock, and the fall of Richmond.

The following profile is from page 1 of the March 11, 1921 issue of the Bay-Island News, published in Gig Harbor. The piece was originally printed in the Tacoma Ledger.

BOY ACTOR OF ’59 LEARNS ART OVER

Gig Harbor Man Who Appeared with Booth Studies Stagecraft Here.

“Sputtering gas lights, which cast a yellow glare, floors built on a slope that the audience might have a better view, scenery sections built on flats or rollers, which made a great rumble when brought together in the middle of the stage, and strictly conventional furnishings of the somewhat showy style of the period– such was the stage on which W.H. Packer of Gig Harbor, began in 1859, a boy of 14 years, with Edwin Booth and John Wilkes Booth, a stage career which was cut short by the Civil War.”

“Now, at 76, Mr. Packer is learning modern methods in stagecraft as taught at the Drama Institute last week at the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ clubhouse. Heavy velvet drapes, concealed lights casting a soft, indistinct glow, shaded footlights or sometimes no footlights at all, fanciful settings, such as only a most imaginative mind could evolve, these are some of the changes Mr. Packer has found in the stage of today. But despite the changes, he says he thoroughly enjoyed the institute and believes that he ‘may shift into some sort of play.'”

“Born in Boston, Mr. Packer was attending school there when he had an opportunity to fill an auxiliary role in ‘Hamlet,’ in which Edwin Booth was playing the lead. It was greatly to the envy of his schoolmates that he appeared on the stage at the same time as the great actor. All spare moments following school hours found the boy at the Boston theater, watching every movement, listening to every word of the man whose fame as an American actor had spread throughout the country. A few months later he was given a part in the play in which John Wilkes Booth was then taking the lead.”

Drummer Boy in Civil War

“Then came the Civil War, and Mr. Packer, a boy of 16, enlisted as a drummer boy in the 11th United States infantry. For three years and month he served in the army and on receiving his discharge returned to Boston, where, a short time later, he was married. Mrs. Packer, however had no such admiration for the theater as had her young husband so he gave up his idea of becoming a famous actor and turned his attention to becoming an expert electrician. He and his wife traveled over the United States for a time, the electrician sometimes finding employment in a theater where he gave much time and attention to working out new lighting effects.”

“On their return East, Mr. Packer became head of the city light department at Binghampton, N.Y. Here he continued his experiments in lighting and when Admiral Robert E. Peary returned to the United States after discovering the North Pole, and was to give a lecture in the Binghampton theater, Mr. Packer was asked to arrange the stage.”

“‘That was the hardest job I ever had,’ said Mr. Packer. ‘I wanted to show the Northern lights and a rainbow. I worked on it for a long time but finally managed to get a beautiful effect. Maybe the Northern lights weren’t just right but most of the people had never seen them anyway, so it didn’t make any particular difference.'”

Map of Burley, WA

One of Founders of Burley

“Twenty-two years ago, in the fall of ’98, the wanderlust again seized Mr. Packer and he and his wife started for the Pacific coast. They arrived in Seattle, stayed there for three months and then, with a man by the name of DeArmond, of Colorado, they started to explore the surrounding country. Rich farming land, found not far from Gig Harbor, decided them to start a colony there and, with the advent of a few more families, the settlement was given the name Burley, now six miles from Gig Harbor.”

“Five years ago Mr. Packer’s wife died, just three months before they were to have celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Mr. Packer continued to work his little farm until four months ago when he sold his home and moved to Gig Harbor.”

Our earlier profile of the Burley commune in this blog included a map, and on it you can plainly see W.H. Packer had a nice chunk of land very close to the center of the settlement. Packer was appointed the first Postmaster of Burley in early 1901.

According to Charles Pierce LeWarne’s Utopias on Puget Sound 1885-1915, Packer, who had a white beard at the time, was able to use his thespian skills while playing the part of Santa Claus for the community’s children.

William H. Packer died in the veteran’s hospital in American Lake on November 20, 1937. The Bay-Island News changed its title in 1923 and became the present-day Peninsula Gateway. The Washington State Library has both titles available on microfilm here in Tumwater or via interlibrary loan.

From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library:

We are in the upper lefthand corner. We are on the edge. We are an experiment.

Compared to the rest of the Lower 48, Washington State has always been an inviting place to start anew and try out ideas that would not be allowed elsewhere.

The book Utopias on Puget Sound, 1885-1915 by Charles Pierce LeWarne outlines the collective settlements of Freeland, Home, and Equality.

And here on this very blog we have highlighted the history of Burley.

Not all the cooperative colonies turned out so well. The Newell Colony of 1880 didn’t survive very long:

But one colony, very different than all of the others, apparently never broke ground. It was to be a Dry City, the brainchild of a prohibitionist, and to be set in one of the most two-fisted logger counties in Washington State. The following article was found in The Olympia State Capital, Oct. 12, 1906, but was also run in several other regional papers.

CLEAN TOWN IN MASON

 Prohibition Colony to be Established by Wealthy Architect.

 “Tacoma, Oct. 8. — A city without a saloon, brothel, theater or Sunday cigar store is in process of incubation for the state of Washington. William Arthur, an architect, of Omaha, Neb., intends to establish a city in which the prohibitionists will control and he has selected this state for his colony.”

“In a letter to Rev. Mr. Ketchum, of this city, Arthur says he is negotiating for land in Mason county, which he expects to secure, and he will then proceed to organize his colony and city. Every deed for land will contain a clause forever prohibiting its use for any saloon, brewery or distillery. Municipal ownership of all public utilities, including street railways, will be the order and other advanced ideas of government will be incorporated in the new community.”

“Arthur is a man of considerable means and he is enlisting citizens in the project all over the United States.”

The history of prohibition in Washington State is covered in a most excellent manner by my former faculty colleague and acquaintance Norman H. Clark (1925-2004) in his work The Dry Years. But William Arthur came in under Norman’s radar and was not documented in his works. As far as I can ascertain, Arthur’s plan for a Mason County community never went beyond the concept stage.

Most of the Washington State Prohibition Party activists in the late 19th/early 20th century were educators or ministers. August Bernhardt Louis Gellerman, who established Peninsular College in Oysterville, 1895-1897, came the closest to establishing a place to make the dry vision come true.

William Arthur was born in Scotland in 1860. He immigrated to the United States in 1881 and settled in the area of Omaha, where he apparently joined relatives. He earned a living in the building contract trade and wrote books on the subject such as The Building Estimator, The Contractors’ and Builders’ Handbook, Estimating Building Costs, The Home Builders’ Guide, The New Building Estimator, and Appraisers’ and Adjusters’ handbook. Apparently Mr. Arthur was  not really an architect, he was an engineer.

About the time of the news article above, Arthur wrote The Well-Ordered Household, reissued as Our Home City in 1911. These are the works outlining his vision for a new urban way of living through his planned communities. In the early 1920s in the wake of the Great War he issued a couple books promoting English as the world language in the road to international peace. He died in Omaha July 26, 1945.

A city of 5000 prohibitionists deep in Mason County during the early 20th century would have been a major counterbalance in the history of that area if it had actually happened. Mr. William Arthur deserves a whole chapter in the Washington State book of intriguing historical “what ifs.”

Thanks to Mr. Bill Arthur, grandson of William Arthur, for providing valuable background information for this post.

From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library:

The community of Burley was one of several utopian experiments that had an opportunity to root and briefly flourish in the frontier of Washington in the late 1800s/early 1900s. The story of Burley isn’t quite as filled with controversy and drama as the other collective communities such as the Puget Sound Co-Operative Colony, Equality, Freeland, and Home. Perhaps that makes the place worth a second look.

Burley was founded in 1898 by the Co-Operative Brotherhood, an offshoot of Eugene Debs’ Social Democracy of America. Although the Brotherhood had around 1200 members, only one-tenth of them actually resided in the colony, located at the northern tip of Henderson Bay in Kitsap County, between Gig Harbor and Port Orchard.

In an article for the Oct. 1902 issue of The Arena, W.E. Copeland included this description of Burley:

“About one hundred and twenty men, women and children are resident at Burley, all working except the children under fourteen. Here is a village, with no saloon, no sectarian church, no money, and no competitive stores, managed by the people themselves through a board of directors. Here is the beginning of a new civilization, free from the evils of old …”

“In Burley no wages are paid; the tools, the machines, the lands, the improvements, the cattle and horses, and the wealth produced belong to whole Brotherhood. Each family is allowed a house, not to be alienated while the family remains at Burley. Here is no anxiety about rent, about work for to-morrow, about sickness or old age, about the fate of the family when the breadwinner dies.”

“The property is held in trust by a board of twelve trustees, three of whom are elected annually by a vote of the whole membership. The work done is farming and manufacturing lumber, shingles, and cigars. Every one works who is able.”

Yes, you read that right. Cigars. Not only that, Burley had the largest cigar factory in the state and even had their own label and box. The tobacco was imported Kentucky Burley, hence the name of the community. It seems strange that a settlement with no saloons or gambling dens would not only produce cigars, but name the town after a tobacco. The other utopian collectives would gently chide Burley for this industry.

Burley also had a high quality print shop, and produced a newspaper. The Co-operator existed from 1898-1906. The following article, possibly written the same W.E. Copeland mentioned above, appeared in the issue for Sept. 29, 1900:

 BURLEY AND ITS LOCATION

 “Burley is the present headquarters of The Co-operative Brotherhood. It is a town not greatly different in appearance than villages of its size elsewhere, but the visitor on investigation bent will find that in this case it is true that appearances are deceitful. There are no diversities of interests in Burley such as are common in other places. The land and houses are collective property, and the industries are operated collectively for the common benefit. Burley is a prefiguration of the industrial community of the future. There are no grog shops in Burley, no low dance halls nor gambling dens to corrupt the morals of our youth. We have no prohibition law, nor do we need one. There is no demand for liquor, and there is no profit system to support its sale. The inhabitants of Burley lead healthy, natural lives, and do not crave the excitement which comes from stimulants.”

“Located on the west side of the sound, about fourteen miles from Tacoma, Burley is far enough removed from the busy marts of trade and the influences of the competitive system to secure the uninterrupted working out of its co-operative ideals, and at the same time it is near enough to the outside world to avoid the isolation that would prove undesirable in many ways. The town is most beautifully situated so far as natural conditions go. Located in a valley of surpassing richness, through which meanders a delightful stream of water, abounding in pools filled at all seasons with trout, it is an ideal place for a home. To the east and west of the valley rise bold hills, crowned with the eternal green of firs, and far away to the west beyond the hills rise the snowcapped Olympics, while to the east rise the cascades, with old Rainier standing as a giant sentinel over all. To the south stretches away the waters of the sound, that inland sea which has been aptly termed the Mediterranean of America, and which good judges have termed the most beautiful body of water on the globe. Here, amid the beauties of unsurpassed natural scenery, we have laid the foundation for a new civilization. We are working out our destiny as the pioneers of a new industrial system, and our children are growing up close to nature, leading simple, natural lives, and learning that lesson which is so essential for them to know– that the welfare of the individual is inseparably bound up in that of the community.”

But as it turned out, Burley could not economically sustain itself and eventually disbanded as an organized unit in 1912-1913. Burley continues to be on the map today. Chris Henry of the Kitsap Sun recently wrote a profile of the town and described the present-day area: “Today, Burley is a busy little bump in the road …”

An excellent history of Burley, and other Washington State collective settlements, can be found in Charles Pierce LeWarne’s Utopias on Puget Sound 1885-1915.

According to Brian Herbert in Dreamer of Dune : The Biography of Frank Herbert, the grandfather of the author of Dune was an early resident of Burley. Otto Herbert brought his family to area in 1905, at first settling just outside of the Brotherhood land, but eventually moving within the borders. Frank Herbert was born in Tacoma in 1920 and spent much of his childhood visiting Burley.

This map is from Plat book of Kitsap County, Washington, containing maps of villages, cities and townships of the County, including map of the State of Washington (1909) and shows downtown Burley, called “Circle City” by the residents as the buildings were arranged in a semicircle near an artesian well.