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Frank Peabody, Early Edmonds Eccentric

A standout among early Edmonds' notable citizens, Frank Peabody was a true eccentric and arguably the most colorful and confounding character of Edmonds' early years.

Frank Peabody was never mayor. He never served on the City Council. He was an outsider, an eccentric, a gambler, a schemer, a risk-taker and truly one of fortune's favorites. He was undoubtedly the most colorful character to have graced the town of Edmonds during its formative years.

Born in Massachusetts in 1855, little is known of Peabody's early life. He was barely 10 years old when New York Tribune publisher Horace Greeley wrote the famous words, "Washington is not a place to live in. The rents are high, the food is bad, the dust is disgusting and the morals are deplorable. Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country." Within a few years, Manifest Destiny had taken over the hearts and minds of Americans, and Peabody was no exception.

Seduced by dreams of fortune and adventure in the West, Peabody left New England in 1876 never to look back. He operated a frontier store in Fort Worth for a few years, then tried prospecting in New Mexico and Arizona. A few small strikes gave him enough money to purchase a hotel in Flagstaff, AZ, but it soon burned to the ground and he lost everything. Undaunted, he pulled up stakes and once again headed west to seek new opportunities.

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Arriving in Seattle in 1887, he was fascinated by reports of gold and silver strikes in the Washington Cascades. But all he had was $5 and a gold watch, not nearly enough to outfit himself for prospecting. An inveterate risk taker, he pawned his watch and went to a local gambling house.

Peabody was a skilled and shrewd gambler, and within a few hours had won $1,400 at faro. He used the money to outfit himself and his new partner, an experienced prospector named Joseph Pearsall. The duo set out for the Cascade foothills with high hopes of striking it rich.

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Once again, fortune smiled on Frank Peabody. On July 4, 1889, he and Pearsall were prospecting along the divide separating the Sauk and Skykomish river drainages. They spotted some glittering deposits, traced them north to Seventysix Gulch, and soon realized that they'd stumbled upon one of the richest strikes ever found in Washington.

A fan of Alexandre Dumas' novel The Count of Monte Cristo, an exuberant Peabody exclaimed: "This is richer than Monte Cristo!" They recorded their claim as the 1776 Independence Group, but the name Monte Cristo stuck.

Word got out, a frenzy of claim-staking quickly followed, and by 1891 the Monte Cristo area boasted 40 claims and 13 mining operations. But it was soon found that the rich surface deposits did not continue far into the ground. The surface deposits played out quickly, and after several years of steady decline, mining operations ceased in 1907.

The town of Monte Cristo survived as a tourist destination for several more decades, but the county road was flooded out in 1980, and the only remaining business in town, a lodge, burned down in 1983. Today Monte Cristo is a ghost town. Some original structures are still standing, and the four-mile-long road into town remains popular with hikers and mountain bikers.

Peabody and Pearsall apparently saw the writing on the wall and sold out in 1891 for a handsome profit. Peabody used his share to form a Seattle-based land speculation syndicate, the Coon, Kingston and Peabody Company. They purchased tracts of land in several locations, including Edmonds. 

Peabody came to Edmonds around the turn of the century as resident manager of the company's holdings. He remained in Edmonds for the rest of his life, dealing in real estate from his office on the southwest corner of Fifth and Dayton across from the Yost garage.

The same entrepreneurial spirit that had led him into prospecting also led Peabody in 1911 to become a principal backer and treasurer of the ill-fated Boyes Monorail Edmonds Company. Boyes proposed to build a monorail from Edmonds to Seattle, promising a 10-minute ride into Seattle for 10 cents. Plans were drawn up and construction begun on track. A gala celebration on May 2, 1911, kicked off the project, but it failed to attract sufficient investors. Aside from a few post holes along the proposed route and some half-completed cars, nothing more was heard of the monorail.

During these years, Peabody became increasingly eccentric, and his appearance and personal habits raised many local eyebrows. He grew a long white beard and bore a striking resemblance to George Bernard Shaw. Like Shaw, Peabody was an avowed vegetarian.

Peabody became the third person in Edmonds to purchase an automobile (behind Allan Yost and Henry Urban) when in 1912 he bought a Ford to use in transporting potential buyers to properties he had for sale.

He was fond of riding the steamers back and forth from Seattle, but it wasn't for the scenery and the fresh air. Instead, he spent his time at the card tables, using his consummate gambling skills to extract money from anyone brave (or naive)  enough to sit across from him. He had an uncanny ability to guess the cards held by his opponents and the skill and cunning to turn this to his advantage.

He approached business like a card game. He was shrewd (some would say unprincipled) in his dealings, charming, crafty and conversational. He had a disarming manner, but as with cards, in business he played to win and did whatever he could to stack the deck to his advantage.

One example was the Peabody Building, which he constructed at the end of City Wharf. The official purpose was to store carts, rope, winches and other equipment used to load and unload steamers. But the huge sign on the roof advertising Peabody's services caused many in town to suspect that the building's real purpose was to ensure that the first thing travelers to Edmonds would see was a pitch from Frank Peabody. He maintained office space in the building and was known to greet new arrivals and personally offer his services as they disembarked, thereby getting a jump on his competitors.

His temperament kept him an outsider to civic affairs, his only involvement being a single term as president of the Chamber of Commerce in 1913. Although he was later appointed to the school board, the other board members refused to seat him. Officially arguing that his appointment had not been made according to law, it was more likely due to the other members simply being uncomfortable at the prospect of working with the eccentric, opinionated and manipulative Frank Peabody.

In his book Edmonds, The Gem Of Puget Sound, Ray Cloud recounts this anecdote about the adventuresome Peabody, who also valued a dollar.

"Not long after WWI, when a stunt flyer was taking up passengers from the Edmonds beach in a 2 seat open cockpit biplane at $5 for 5 minutes, Peabody approached the pilot after each landing offering him $3 for a flight. Finally there were no more $5 passengers and the tide not yet covered the sandy beach and Peabody was offered a ride for $3. He clambered into the seat like a youngster going to the circus as he was carried off into the blue with his white beard swept back over either shoulder by the wash of the propeller." 

After spending the last three decades of his life in Edmonds, Peabody died July 22, 1930, at 77. Almost a quarter century later, a bronze plaque was dedicated to his memory at Monte Cristo on August 16, 1953.

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