Sandwith Homestead: Cultural Landscape Inventory, San Juan Island National Historical Park, National Park Service
National Park Service. 2009. Sandwith Homestead: Cultural Landscape Inventory, San Juan Island National Historical Park, National Park Service. Cultural Landscapes Inventory Report. 400174. NPS Pacific West Regional Office. Pacific West Regional Office/CLI Database
The Sandwith Homestead is a 5.2‑acre historic site in the northwest of San Juan Island within San Juan Island National Historical Park. The site is significant as the location of a late‑nineteenth‑century homestead farm and subsistence orchard, settled and farmed by Isaac Sandwith from 1875 to 1902. Situated on the lower slopes of Young Hill near English Camp, the Sandwith Homestead consists of the core of the original homestead, including the home site and a remnant fruit orchard. Contributing features include the remnant orchard, as well as several stone features and artifacts scattered throughout the site. The orchard contains 13 contributing cultivated fruit trees and 23 compatible new fruit trees. The contributing trees include varieties of pear, apple, cherry, plum, and apricot. Their layout reveals a grid with 30‑foot spacing, with rows oriented along the contour lines of the hill. The oldest surviving tree in the orchard, a pear that dates to around 1875, as well as some of the older cherries and an apple, exhibit classic characteristics of a nineteenth‑century orchard. At least three of the fruit varieties, a Ben Davis apple and two pears, one a Flemish Beauty and the other a White Doyenne, are historic varieties that are unusual today. In March 2009, 23 new fruit trees were added to the orchard as part of a rehabilitation effort, bringing the total number of fruit trees to 36. The new fruit trees were propagated from scionwood taken from the extant Sandwith orchard trees and the Crook orchard trees at English Camp and planted in the original grid layout. The new fruit trees are non‑contributing, but compatible features within the Sandwith Homestead orchard. The extant historic fruit trees, together with the vegetation patterns, archeological features, and the natural context, continue to convey the significance of the site. The landscape characteristics that contribute to the integrity of the landscape include vegetation, spatial organization, natural systems and features, and archeological sites. Today, the Sandwith Homestead remains in fair condition.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- National Park Service
- Date of Issue
- 2009-09-10
- Publisher
- NPS Pacific West Regional Office
- Units
- PWR , SAJH
- Keywords
- Agriculture, domestic, Exploration, farm, Farmer's Frontier, fruit trees, historic site, Hoffmeister Farm, homestead, Hudson's Bay Company, Isaac Sandwith, Orchard, Recreation, residential, Settlement, Westward Expansion, Young Hill
- Subjects
- CRIS-CL: 400174: Sandwith Homestead