In the 1870s, the town grew up around a large sawmill established in 1851. Except for brief shutdowns, it operated continuously for over a quarter of a century. Boats loaded lumber at the wharves—ties for railroads in California, boards for homes in New Jersey, or shingles for barns in Iowa. Each year roads ran deeper into the forests as lumberjacks sought logs to feed the saws.

One of the early settlers was Jacob Hauptly, who ran a butcher shop in the thriving mill town. He bought his cattle in the Chehalis country, and drove them overland along narrow Native American trails to Union City, where he loaded them on scows to be towed to Seabeck by the steamer St. Patrick.

Seabeck’s prosperity fell into decline when a fire left the mill a mass of ruins and wiped out the means of livelihood for most of the town’s inhabitants. Today, it is a supply point for the camps and summer homes that fringe the quiet warm waters of Hood Canal.

The place was called Scabock Harbor by the Wilkes Expedition of 1841 using a modification of the Native American name, L-ka-buk-hu. In 1847, Capt. Kellett charted it as Hahamish Harbor, using another Native American term. Marshall Blinn, owner of the first sawmill, altered Scabock to Seabeck.