Mike Vouri, historian and Chief of Interpretation at San Juan National Historical Park will be presenting on the life of Jim Crook this coming Sunday, October 26th, at the San Juan Island Library. Library director, Laura Tretter and Kevin Loftus from the San Juan Historical Museum will also be present to talk about the Jim Crook Collection. Following upon their successful collaboration for Washington Rural Heritage, the two organizations will soon be working with the National Historical Park, the Town of Friday Harbor, and local citizens to produce a new digital collection documenting the history and culture of San Juan Island.
[caption id="attachment_133" align="alignleft" width="250" caption=""Jim Crook in Red Cap". Click on the image to read about how Jim lost his eye."]
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Arriving on the island in 1875 (when Jim was only two), the Crook family homesteaded a piece of land known as English Camp, formerly inhabited by British Troops during a 12-year border stand-off with the U.S. known as the Pig War. The Crook family built a working farm on the land, and Jim turned out to be made for pioneer life; he was a skilled farmer and carpenter, and an inveterate tinkerer and inventor. Looking through the collection, one can't help but be astonished by his ingenuity, resourcefulness, and sheer industriousness. Just a handful of the things Jim did in the course of everyday life at English Camp:
- Designed a pulley system to automatically make his bed.
- Built a two-story house overlooking Garrison Bay.
- Constructed a sawmill on his property. (The boards on this barn were cut using that mill. Framing timbers were salvaged from logs along the beach.)
- Repurposed an old English saw pit for use as a forge.
- Raised sheep, harvested their wool, and built both a picker and a carder based on images he saw in catalogs...then spun said wool and made his own clothes.
Crook also took it upon himself to care for the historic structures at English Camp, such as the old English blockhouse. He stayed on San Juan Island his entire life, and continued to live at English Camp after the property was deeded to the National Park Service in the 1960s.
A great place to start learning more about Jim Crook is this video, narrated by Jerry Larson, or this audio from an interview with Jerry Jameson.