Colonial Despatches

During the British and American joint occupation of San Juan Island (1859-1872), Captain Delacombe, an experienced officer who had served in the Baltic during the Crimean War and had survived the explosion on board the HMS Bombay, replaced Captain Bazalgette, the English commandant stationed there, in 1867.1 Until the British departed from San Juan in 1872, Captain Delacombe was the commandant of the Royal Marine detachment at the English Camp, on the northern end of the Island, where he lived with his wife (Isabella Anne Harris, 1835-1922) and children.2

In the English Camp, Captain Delacombe oversaw the replacement of old buildings, and the construction of several new structures including the elaborate new quarters for the commanding officer and his family.3 Delacombe and his wife planted an English formal garden at the camp, in an area which had been made fertile during generations of its use as a shell midden by the W̱SÁNEĆ.4

The relatively equal ranks of the two English and American commanding officers on the Island allowed for relaxed relations until the balance was offset by the arrival of a new American officer with a higher rank.5 In response, Captain Delacombe requested the promotion of his own rank to Lieutenant Colonel, to set the two officers on “equal footing.”6 However, Rear Admiral George Fowler Hastings (Commander-in-Chief in the Pacific) opposed and prevented the promotion.7

• 1. E. C. Coleman, A New Commander, in The Pig War: The Most Perfect War in History (Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2009/13), n.p.
• 2. Royal Marine Light Infantry Garrison San Juan Island, 1860-1872, Royal Engineers.
• 3. Cathy Gildert, Historic Landscape Report: American Camp and British Camp, San Juan Island National Historical Park, Washington, 99.
• 4. National Park Service, The Formal Garden, San Juan Island National Historical Park Washingto.
• 5. Coleman, A New Commander, in The Pig War: The Most Perfect War in History, n.p.
• 6. Seymour to Buckingham, 1 August 1868, National Archives of the UK, 9907, CO 60/33. The Colonial Despatches of Vancouver Island and British Columbia 1846-1871. Ed. James Hendrickson and the Colonial Despatches project. Victoria: University of Victoria. http://bcgenesis.uvic.ca/getDoc.htm?id=B68080SP.scx. Accessed 27 March 2019.
• 7. Coleman, A New Commander, in The Pig War: The Most Perfect War in History, n.p.