History of Ferndale
By Curt Cunningham

Ferndale is located about 8 miles northwest of Bellingham on the Nooksack River. The area was originally called Te-tas-um by the Lummi people and was at the lower crossing of the Nooksack River. The upper crossing of the river was at Everson. The town was named for the ferns which were found in abundance there.

One of the first settlers in Ferndale was Billy Clark, a Texan who came to the northwest during the gold rush of 1858. He lived here with his wife and family for over a decade. When Billy sought to prove the ownership of his property, he was stunned to learn that he could not. Some years earlier, he had relinquished his American citizenship in order to be employed at the Hudson Bay Company at Fort Langley, Canada. Because he was now an English citizen, Billy Clark was not eligible to claim title to the property. He sought help from an old friend, Darius Rogers, who was employed at the Bellingham Coal Mine.

Rogers promptly filed claim to the 174 acre site, which made him the first legal owner of the property. Billy Clark eventually left and built a new homestead at East Sound on Orcas Island. When Rogers secured his claim in 1882, there were only a few neighbors; Thomas Barrett, who lived by the lake that bears his name, Thomas Wynn and John Tennant, both had Indian wives, as many other settlers in the area did.

John Tennant helped to organize the first school and establish the first church. Thomas Wynn established the first blacksmith shop and brought in the first wagon to the area. The settlement was now referred to as " Jam." This was because of the large log jam on the Nooksack River near the settlement.

Most of the settlers of the area in the 1870s located near the river. There were no roads, only meandering, muddy trails that wound through the woods. Most of the travel was by canoe. In 1884, the Northwest Diagonal Road was opened up to Ferndale, and it connected up with a road that ran northwest toward Blaine.

In 1886, the Guide Meridian Road was opened, but Whatcom county continued to be isolated from the reat of the state until 1893, when the Great Northern built its railroad to Bellingham. The line ran through Ferndale, Custer and Blaine, and across the border to Vancouver, British Columbia.

Ferndale was platted in the 1880's and was incorporated in 1907.