Washington ’ s Pig Headed War
The killing of a pig nearly plunged the United States and Great Britain into war in 1859 . Fortunately , cooler heads prevailed .
By MIKE VOURI
LONG BEFORE THE SAN JUAN Islands were a vacation destination , they were the focus of an international crisis ignited by an unlikely incident : The shooting of a pig in a potato patch . This was the famous Pig War of 1859 , when military and naval forces of the United States and Great Britain almost came to blows in midsummer after the death of a Berkshire boar .
But in the end , not a single shot was fired . The nations opted for peace , an outcome that was commemorated more than 100 years later with the creation of San Juan Island National Historical Park . The issue , aside from mid-19th century notions of honor , was mainly about real estate .
After the Oregon Treaty of 1846 divided what was then known as the Oregon Country along the 49th parallel , the two nations were at loggerheads over the water boundary between Vancouver Island and the mainland . The coveted San Juan Archipelago lay in the middle . It didn ’ t help matters that U . S . settlers were vying for the land where the Hudson ’ s Bay Company raised more than 4,500 head of sheep , or that the
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