Bainbridge Island

Bainbridge Island is located about seven miles west of the city of Seattle, on Puget Sound in Washington State. It's a short ride by ferryboat from downtown Seattle to Bainbridge, so Bainbridge is the gateway to Washington's Olympic Peninsula. Chief Seattle, whom early European settlers named their city after, lived on Bainbridge at least part of the year. His people maintained winter villages on Bainbridge at Port Madison, Manzanita, Point White, and Lynwood Center. He was probably born either on Bainbridge or on Blake Island, directly south of Bainbridge. In 1792, when he was a young boy, Chief Seattle saw the first Europeans who visited the area--Captain George Vancouver and his sailors, who anchored their ships the Discovery and the Chatham just off the entrance to Blakely Harbor on the southeast corner of Bainbridge. Chief Seattle was also a friend of George Meigs, who established a lumber mill at Port Madison on the north side of Bainbridge, plus a dairy farm near the middle of the island. Meigs read a eulogy at Chief Seattle's funeral in 1866.