First Homesteader: Thomas McTighe

The property now known as "the Point" at 394 Shallow Shores Road, Lake Samish, was originally divided in two: the West Parcel (in section 35 of Township 37, Range 3E) and the  East Parcel (lots 12 through 15 in section 36 of the same township and range). Thomas McTighe acquired the West Parcel in approximately 1899 through the Homestead Act.

McTighe, originally from Louisiana, was a veteran of the American Civil War (1861-65), having enlisted as a Confederate soldier at the age of 13, according to his gravestone in the Bayview Cemetery in Bellingham. The 1900 census listed him as a farmer and widower. 

When he died in 1909 at the age of 63, McTighe’s obituary said he had been a Whatcom County resident for a number of years, “living on his ranch near Lake Samish.”