“Sehome” has a long history as a place name in Bellingham.
The Sehome neighborhood is capped by Sehome Hill, with Sehome High School on the hill’s south flanks.
The name “Sehome” predates all of these. Edmund C. Fitzhugh, the manager of the first coal mine on Bellingham Bay, also established the bay’s first town in 1858. He called it “Sehome.”
Fitzhugh named his town after the father of his bride. The chief of the Samish tribe was S’-yah-whom, wrote P.R. Jeffcott, who spoke to the chief’s 98-year-old daughter for his 1955 book “The Story of Old Sehome and the Origin of its Name.”
Fitzhugh received the chief’s permission to marry his daughter and struck up a friendship with S’-yah-whom. But Fitzhugh couldn’t quite pronounce the man’s name. So when he honored his father-in-law by naming a town after him, he came up with “Sehome.”
After the wedding, S’-yah-whom moved to Bellingham Bay to be close to his daughter and Fitzhugh. Despite the bonds he had formed with S’-yah-whom and his family — he also married S’-yah-whom’s sister — Fitzhugh left family and Sehome town behind in 1859. S’-yah-whom returned to Samish Island soon after and died in 1861.
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