Rothschild House (Port Townsend, Washington)

The Rothschild House is a house in Port Townsend, Washington. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.^[1] It is included in Port Townsend Historic District which was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1977.^[2][3]

David Charles Henry Rothschild, commonly known as Henry, was one of seven siblings from Suzlbach, Bavaria. Some, including the two youngest, Henry and Betty, immigrated to the United States in the 1840s. Their brother, William, nearly 15 years older than Henry, preceded him to America. William had settled in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, and had established 'The Kentucky Store." Henry joined his brother in this venture, but in 1848, he returned to Sulzbach for 3 months, and then returned to America by way of Cape Horn, directly to San Francisco, California. There, he served as secretary of the Phoenix Quartz Mining Company, and was a member of both the Tehama Quartz Mining Company and the North California Mining Company. It is likely that his mercantile business was directed to prospectors, if he himself was not also prospecting. Henry opened a store with a partner in Nevada City, but sold out the following year and went first to New York and then back to Bavaria. The following year, Henry was back in Nevada City, and opened another store there for a year. He.decided to travel to exotic places for the next 3 years, visiting China, East Indies, Australia, Tahiti, and Society Islands. He returned to San Francisco to mine for 6 months, and opened a tobacco and cigar store in Sacremento. Eventually, he chose to raise a family in Port Townsend, Washington, as it was known as one of the best ports north of San Francisco, and he established another store called 'The Kentucky Store'. This was to be the first general mercantile store in the area, and this business marked the birth of the business community there. His wife, Dorette, was considerably younger, but also from Bavaria.

Henry, or DCH Rothschild had many friends and it has been written that he was a benevolent and kind man. He was extremely well known in shipping circles, which became his main business in 1881, when he renamed his business 'Rothschild and Co. He provisioned ships and did some salvage operations. That business, now called 'Jones Stevedoring', was handled by DCH and his sons, handed down through his daughter's husband, and became enormously successful and weathered the test of centuries.

References