George Anson Meigs

Who was George Anson Meigs?

George Anson Meigs was a prominent entrepreneur, businessman and shipbuilder in Washington Territory.

He was the eighth child of Whiting Meigs and Charlotte Meigs. He received his common school education there and then ventured to Newark, New Jersey, Brooklyn, New York, Key West, Florida, Memphis, Tennessee and New Orleans, Louisiana. He ultimately went to California during the gold rush of 1849, where he opened a lumber business in San Francisco.

In 1854, Meigs purchased a lumber mill from J.J. Felt who had moved it from Appletree Cove, near the present city of Kingston, Washington to a new location at Port Madison, on Bainbridge Island.

Port Madison was founded by Meigs. Meigs enlarged and improved the mill and spent most of his time there, leaving the lumber yard in San Francisco to William H. Gawley. By 1858, Meigs had developed a capacity at the mill of 15,000 board feet per day and it soon ranked with the principal lumber producing plants on Puget Sound. In addition to the lumber mill, Meigs established a dairy farm near the middle of Bainbridge Island.

In 1858, Meigs married Mary Elizabeth Tappan, daughter of Charles Ogden Tappan, in Boston, Massachusetts.