Philip Woolley

Philip Woolley was born in Malone, New York, to an American father and Canadian mother.[1]

Woolley moved to Russell, Ontario in the 1850s, where he worked as a lumberjack and opened a general store. In 1867 he relocated his family to Michigan and, later, to Elgin, Illinois. Building on his experience as a lumberjack and salesman in Ontario, Woolley began selling timber for railroad crossties to the Chicago & Alton Railway.[1]

In 1889 Woolley again moved, this time to Washington state, in hope of growing his railway contracting business by taking advantage of the expanding Northern Pacific Railroad, which had just established a terminus in Tacoma, Washington. Woolley settled in Sedro, Washington, in Skagit County, purchasing 84 acres of land just outside the town limits at a location where he felt the expanding rail lines would cross. Meanwhile, with his sons, he began constructing the Skagit River Lumber & Shingle Mill on his newly acquired property, growing his acreage into a company town named Woolley. A fire in neighboring Sedro prompted many businesses to relocate to Woolley and, in 1898, the two towns were merged as Sedro-Woolley.[2][3]

Woolley continued to enjoy business success in later life, supplying material to the Seaboard Air Line Railroad and taking up part-time residence in Georgia to service his new client.[1]

Woolley married Catherine Loucks of Ottawa on January 23, 1857. They had at least five children. Woolley died at his home on Woodworth Street in Sedro-Woolley in 1912.[1]