Covington House - Vancouver, WA
N 45° 39.149 W 122° 39.976
10T E 526003 N 5055491
The Covington House is an historic log cabin located in Vancouver, Washington. It was relocated to its present site in September 1926
Waymark Code: WMAA69
Location: Washington, United States
Date Posted: 12/11/2010
Views: 5
"The Convington House in Vancouver, Washington, was built by Richard and Anna Covington of London who had come to Fort Vancouver to teach children of the Hudson’s Bay employees. In 1848 the Covingtons entered a “donation claim” of 640 acres (2.6 km2) in the Fourth Plain area where they built this log cabin and established a boarding school run by Anne while Richard ran the farm which he called the Kalsus Farm. The children slept in the loft. The Covington's log cabin was known as a center of hospitality and musical entertainment in early Vancouver. They brought the first piano to the Pacific Northwest from England and taught music to many of the area’s children.
Covington was elected Clark County school superintendent in 1862 and 1863. In 1867 Richard received an appointment to work in the United States Patent Office, under the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant, so he sold their farm to William C. Hazard for $2,100 and moved to Washington, D.C. At the time of their departure, they gave their piano to a friend who, in turn, gave it to Nan Maynard Rice a number of years later. In 1967, Miss Rice gave the piano to the Fort Vancouver Historical Society.
For many years the cabin stood empty, at one time it was used as a barn. In 1925 an interested group came together and raised the money needed to save the building which was in advanced stage of wear - a barren, weathered building with unkempt shingles, and open windows and doors. A small piece of fence sagged dispiritedly in one part of a weed-grown lot. The log cabin was dismantled with the logs numbered and relative positions noted in order to reassemble them at its present site in September 1926. There were several needed additions: new windows, large stone fireplace, lean-to kitchen and a shake roof. Fully restored, the Covington House is now maintained by the Covington House Vancouver Heritage Ambassadors and serves as a local meeting place for several groups and as a unique wedding chapel."
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The original location coordinates were estimated based on the following information included in a National Register of Historic Places waymark by Rose Red (visit link): "When the Donation Land Claim law went into effect in 1848, Richard and Anna staked out a claim of 638 [640] acres about five to seven miles northeast of Fort Vancouver (in the center of Sec. 4; 5 and 8; 9 Township 2N Range 2E of Willamette Meridian) at the edge of the primeval forest. They were one of the first to settle well inland from the Columbia River."