We are heading out of town this month, by boat, heading north and eventually tying up somewhere on the south bank of Samish Island.
This is where Horton’s Palace Floating Gallery is pictured in our Then image that he took around 1885 -- and I am asking for readers to supply the Now image of where on the south side of Samish Island you might think the Horton gallery boat is tied up. The picture accompanied the following story, which provides us with our only clue as to its location.
The Snohomish County Tribune dated November 8, 1928, carried the headline, “Here’s Something for You Duck Hunters To Shoot at -- G. Horton Shot 3,000 of ‘Em in One Winter.”
The story was reported in Horton’s own words: “There was a party that wanted to go on a duck hunting trip, so it did not take much coaxing for me to take the boat and go. H. C. Pettit, wife, and son, Homer Morse, Chas. Creese, A. C. Horton, and I made up the party. We drifted down to the mouth of the river and shot a few days, then got a fair wind for up the Sound and made Skagit flats about dark. After a storm that night, we made the south side of Samish Island the next day and found ourselves in duck heaven. The rest of the party came home for the holidays but my brother and I stayed all winter. It was a very cold winter and when the first snow came I made the picture of the boat that accompanies this article.”
“We shipped over 3,000 ducks into Seattle that winter. We got from $1.25 to $2.25 per dozen for them, dressed! We made a lot of money at it, for on stormy days we shot from 150 to 200 rounds of ammunition per day!”
“I ran the boat on the Sound for five years and then sold it and opened a store in Snohomish which I ran until a fire cleaned me out. All the old-timers remember that fire -- but I am still living in Snohomish.”
Gilbert D. Horton died in his home at 321 Avenue B in 1936. He was 83 years old.
Published in the Snohomish County Tribune, June 18, 2008.