Fauntleroy: Community Living Within City

Does the neighborhood shape the people, or vice versa?

Roy Morse, 83, who has lived more than half a century in one of Seattle's most stable neighborhoods - Fauntleroy, in West Seattle - thinks it's a bit of both.

``I'd say the people, but the geography drew them here,'' says E. Richard Brown, who collaborated with Morse on a recently published book, ``Fauntleroy Legacy.'' The book, which both call a labor of love, is available in Fauntleroy-area stores ($15) with all profits going to Fauntleroy Community Church, the Fauntleroy YMCA and a Fauntleroy community-service agency.

Fauntleroy is bounded by Puget Sound on the west, 39th Avenue Southwest on the east, Southwest 47th Street (Endolyne area) on the south and Lincoln Park on the north.

Nature threw in breathtaking views of the snow-capped Olympics and Puget Sound and towering trees (the best remaining stand is in Lincoln Park). People added the Fauntleroy ferry terminal (1925) and a heated saltwater pool (Colman Pool) in Lincoln Park (1941).

But if you ask Morse what really gave Fauntleroy its special togetherness - long before that word was invented - he'll answer, ``The church, the school and the community center.''

With a school to take care of children during the day, a community center to watch over them after school and a church (Fauntleroy Community Church) to keep them in line on weekends, there really wasn't much opportunity for mischief, says Morse, who retired as Seattle's city engineer in 1971.

The first school (grades 1-4) was established in 1906 in the home of John Adams, a pioneer settler. (Fauntleroy, alas, no longer has a school.)

In July 1908, the settlers got together to

The pioneers who settled there earned their money downtown. They didn't want to be surrounded by businesses at home.

build a church. They held services the following day, followed by a potluck dinner. That night the bears came down out of the woods and ate the leftovers.

Fauntleroy had its church and its school. The only thing lacking was a community center. In 1914, Laurence Colman - of the pioneer Colman family - bought the lumber for a YMCA gymnasium-community center adjacent to the church. Again, the people of the community pitched in with carpentry tools.

In documenting Fauntleroy's history, Morse and Brown drew heavily on 48 interviews with families whose roots go back to 1939 or before.

Among them:

-- The remarkable Colmans, credited with Colman Dock, the Colman Building, Camp Colman on Horsehead Bay, Camp Orkila on Orcas Island, Seabeck on Hood Canal and with trying to single-handedly build a railroad from Seattle over the Cascades back in the 1800s.

-- Charles and Hortense Whittaker, whose twin sons, Jim and Lou, became famous mountaineers.

-- Ten Million (Ten was his first name, Million his last). He was a city claims adjuster whose name always attracted comment. The couple's daughter was named Decillian.

-- The Morses, headed by Roy's father, Chester, who was Seattle's city engineer and superintendent of City Light and the City Water Department.

Although there are Browns in the book, E. Richard Brown's family arrived only about 40 years ago and, as relative newcomers, were not included.

The first interview was with Kenneth Colman, philanthropist son of the pioneer Colmans, in the spring of 1982.

``Bob Durham (another resident) and I saw Ken at church and he didn't look too good,'' says Morse. ``We said we'd better get his story before he was gone. I'm glad we did. He died six weeks later.''

It was obvious that the heads of many important families had either died or were growing old, says Morse, who enlisted the help of Brown, administrative assistant at The Boeing Co. Of the 48 people interviewed for the book, 12 have since died.

Today, Fauntleroy is one of Seattle's most beautiful neighborhoods - strong on spacious and costly view homes with well-manicured lawns, and shy on business. Laurence J. Colman's ``Laurentide home,'' built in 1923, and still recognized as one of the finest mansions in town, is occupied by fourth-generation family members.

Besides the ferry dock, which brings more cars than the residents like, there are a bakery, beauty shop, dry cleaner, gift shop and grocery. But Fauntleroy has never had a lot of commerce. The pioneers who settled there earned their money downtown. They didn't want to be surrounded by businesses at home.

Fauntleroy was named by Lt. George Davidson, assistant superintendent of the U.S. Coast Survey, who anchored his brig, the R.H. Fauntleroy, in a cove off Brace Point in the summer of 1857. Fauntleroy was an officer of the Survey, and his daughter, Ellinor, was Davidson's fiancee. Having named Fauntleroy Cove in honor of his future father-in-law, Davidson undertook to honor the rest of his fiancee's family.

He did it by casting his eyes to the Olympic Mountains and its unnamed peaks, proceeding to name Mount Ellinor for his betrothed; Mount Constance and Mount Rose for her sisters; and The Brothers for his future brothers-in-law.

Fauntleroy's first official settlers, in 1881, were a Swedish sea captain, Charles Peterson; his wife, Christine; and their 17-year-old daughter, Mary Elizabeth.

Perhaps the most important early-day settler was John Franklin Adams, who became wealthy by outfitting prospectors for the gold fields and in 1905 put the profits into logged-off land bordering Fauntleroy Cove. One of his first sales was to J.M. Colman, early Seattle businessman, who purchased 17 acres for a summer tent house and named the area Fauntleroy Park.

To attract settlers to his newly platted land, Adams promoted extension of the Seattle Electric Co.'s streetcar line through sparsely settled West Seattle to the Fauntleroy area. The first streetcar arrived in February 1907, crossing Fauntleroy Creek over a wooden trestle and ending its journey at a station appropriately named Endolyne.

The Colmans persuaded several friends from Seattle's Plymouth Church to build summer cabins nearby. Together, they held summer-evening vesper services under the trees on Brace Point. Those services spawned the idea of a community church.

The neighborhood is not as cohesive as it was, say Morse and his wife, Elizabeth, who have been married 60 years.

``But that's to be expected as our whole city has grown beyond what any of us ever dreamed,'' says Morse. ``I'll tell you, though, it's almost impossible to walk the street or go into a store without bumping into someone you know.

``I say that's what a neighborhood is supposed to be.''