Nisqually Thurston County, Washington

Name: Nisqually
Address: Washington

Mapped Location

Nisqually: The mapped location is an approximation and should not be used for navigation or wayfinding.

Information

General information on Nisqually

Feature Type: Place

Official, historical, colloquial and alternative toponyms for Nisqually

A brief list of names that this geographic feature has been named

Name	Description
Nisqually	Official

Origin Notes and History of Nisqually

References to Nisqually that document the origin of its place name

NISQUALLY, an Indian word much used for geographic names. Rev. Myron Eells says it is the word Squally-o-bish, "from the tribe of that name." (American Anthropologist, January, 1892.) The Bureau of American Ethnology gives the spelling as Nisqualli and gives many varieties of other spellings in use such as Askwalli, Qualliamish, and Squalliamish. (Handbook of American Indians, Part 2, page 76.) In the medicine Creek treaty made with those Indians by Governor Isaac I. Stevens on December 26, 1854, the name Nisqually is used. The tribe lived at the mouth of a river flowing into Puget Sound and forming part of the present boundary between Pierce and Thurston Counties. The river became known as the Nisqually River; the large delta at the mouth of the river became known as Nisqually Flats ; the portion of Puget Sound into which the river flows was charted as Nisqually Reach; when the exploration of Mount Rainier revealed the main source of the river to be in a huge glacier the name of Nisqually Glacier was mapped. One of the earliest geographical uses of the name was for the river in the journal of John Work, Hudson's Bay Company Factor, on November 6, 1824. (Washington Historical Quarterly. July, 1912, page 211.) The first home of white men on Puget Sound was the Hudson's Bay Company's Fort Nisqually near the mouth of the river. ( See Dupont.) Nisqually Bluff or Nisqually Head, two miles west of the mouth of the river, is shown as Laa Point by the Wilkes Expedition, 1841. (Atlas accompanying Volume XXIII., chart 79.)

Edmond S. Meany in Origin of Washington Geographic Names

Meany, Edmond S., Origin of Washington Geographic Names, 1923 University of Washington, pp 190-191 | Origin of Washington Geographic Names

A Selected Bibliography of Nisqually, Thurston County, Washington

A compilation of essential readings detailing the history, geography, and culture of the region.

Selected Letters of A.M.A. Blanchet, Bishop of Walla Walla and Nesqualy (1846-1879) by Augustine Magloire Alexander Blanchet, Roberta Stringham Brown, Patricia O'Connell Killen

"In 1846, French Canadian-born A.M.A. Blanchet was named the first Catholic bishop of Walla Walla in the area soon to become Washington Territory. He arrived at Fort Walla Walla in late September 1847, part of the largest movement over the Oregon Trail to date. During the thirty-two years of Blanchet's tenure in the Northwest, the region underwent profound social and political change as the Hudson's Bay Company moved headquarters and many operations north following the Oregon Treaty, U.S. government and institutions were established, and Native American inhabitants dealt with displacement and discrimination. Blanchet chronicled both his own pastoral and administrative life and his observations on the world around him in a voluminous correspondence-almost nine hundred letters-to religious superiors and colleagues in Montreal, Paris, and Rome; funding organizations; other missionaries; and U.S. officials. This selection of Blanchet's letters provides a fascinating view of Washington Territory as seen through the eyes of an intelligent, devout, energetic, perceptive, and occasionally irascible cleric and administrator. Almost all of Blanchet's correspondence was in French. Roberta Stringham Brown and Patricia O'Connell Killen have chosen forty-five of those letters to translate and annotate, creating a history of early Washington that provides new insights into relationships, events, and personalities. A number of the letters provide first-hand glimpses of familiar events, such as the Whitman tragedy, the California gold rush, Indian wars and land displacement, transportation advances, and the domestic material culture of a frontier borderland. Others voice the hardships of historically underrepresented groups, including Native Americans, Metis, and French Canadians, and the experiences of ordinary people in growing population centers such as Seattle, Walla Walla, and Vancouver, Washington. Still others describe the struggle to bring social, medical, and educational institutions to the region, a struggle in which women religious workers played a key role. The letters-and the editors' fascinating annotations-provide an engaging and insightful look at an important period in the history of the Pacific Northwest and southwest Canada. Roberta Stringham Brown is professor of French at Pacific Lutheran University. Patricia O'Connell Killen is professor of religious studies and academic vice president at Gonzaga University"-- Provided by publisher

xviii, 272 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Desiderata

Correspondence · First edition · University of Washington Press, Seattle, 2013
Related Catalog Items: Nisqually · Walla Walla County · City of Walla Walla · Thurston County · François Norbert Blanchet

Thurston County

Political Boundaries

Last updated: 2024-06-03