I’ve long wanted to add Washington’s San Juan County to my county counting list and maybe someday I’ll succeed. Pondering that eventuality I began to grow increasingly curious about its only incorporated town, Friday Harbor (map). Specifically I wondered about the story behind its name.
It seemed unusual to name a settlement after a day of the week. What confluence of events could lead to something like that? Maybe an early explorer sailed into a harbor on a Friday? Maybe even one of the original Spanish expeditions that charted the archipelago in the late 18th Century? Actually that wasn’t the case at all. The name referred to the day of the week although it happened decades later and indirectly.
According to the San Juan Historical Society:
“Friday Harbor was named for a Kanaka — a Hawaiian named Joseph Poalie Friday, who was employed by the Hudson’s Bay Company to tend sheep on the land overlooking the harbor. His was the only habitation to be seen for miles, and when sailors coming along the coast saw the smoke from his camp, they knew they had reached ‘Friday’s Harbor’ … Poalie is a shortened form of ‘Poalima,’ the Hawaiian word for Friday. Joe might have dropped his native surname in favor of Friday when he came to the Northwest.”
That sounded a bit convenient, perhaps apocryphal. I examined the reference using a modern Hawaiian dictionary. It included the word P?’alima and confirmed the definition of Friday. The theory wasn’t completely out of the question. Thus Friday Harbor likely derived from a man either with the surname P?’alima or Friday, in either case Friday.
Friday, Texas, USA
Texas included a small village named Friday. I love encountering Texas place names because I can almost always find an explanation in The Handbook of Texas, published by the Texas State Historical Association. That source noted,
“FRIDAY, TEXAS… was established around the time of the Civil War and was originally known as Ellis Prairie… In 1903, when a post office was established, the name was changed to Friday. By 1914 the community had a general store, a cotton gin, and a gristmill… The post office continued to operate until 1955… The population in 1990 was forty-one. In 2000 it had grown to ninety-nine.”
While the Handbook explained when Friday became Friday, it did not explain why that happened. Even so, it dangled a tantalizing clue. I speculated that there was already an Ellis elsewhere in Texas. The residents probably had to select an unused name in a hurry if they wanted a post office. The pages of 12MC describe numerous instances where unusual names arose from similar circumstances.
Joe Friday Well, Arizona, USA
I mentioned Joe Friday only a few weeks ago in Just the -fax, Ma’am when I wrote,
“Police sergeant Joe Friday never actually said ‘just the facts ma’am‘ on the vintage television show Dragnet, according to Snopes. Rather, the character played by Jack Webb uttered different lines that were later confused with the classic phrase now erroneously attributed to the show.”
Nonetheless Joe Friday had his own well in Arizona (map). Or maybe it was Joe Friday for whom Friday Harbor allegedly derived? Seriously, what were the odds of three different Joe Fridays suddenly appearing in a matter of days on 12MC? I swear it wasn’t intentional. If it were I’d have created an entire Joe Friday article.
Friday Island, Queensland, Australia
Friday Island appeared off of the Cape York Peninsula at the far northern tip of Queensland. It’s about as close as Australia could possibly get to New Guinea. I didn’t find anything unusual about the name. However things took a turn when it combined with some of the neighboring islands including Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday Islands.
And what happened to Monday and Saturday, which don’t seem to be present, and Sunday charted much farther down the peninsula (map)? Notable features included lighthouses on Tuesday and Wednesday, pearl farms on Friday, and a sizable population of about 3,500 residents on Thursday.
Black Friday Lake, British Columbia, Canada
I wondered about Black Friday Lake in British Columbia, Canada, too. Which Black Friday inspired the name? I assumed it wasn’t the 1945 riot at the Warner Bros. studios, or the 1910 suffrage protest in England. Certainly it wasn’t the day after Thanksgiving shopping event in the United States because that would make no sense at all in Canada. Perhaps it referred to the alternate name for Good Friday.
Best Avoided by Those With Delicate Sensibilities
Reader “Glenn” sent an email to 12MC with a map link, and a firm “no comment.” I followed the link, chuckled, and noticed another geographic feature about a mile southwest of there. I replied, “apparently we have quite the, um, interesting theme going on there in Florida’s nether regions.”
Keep those comments, ideas, and discoveries coming!
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