Kelley Point Park

The city acquired the park site in 1984 from the Port of Portland, which had covered much of the peninsula with dredged material from the Columbia River to create places to build terminals. Pearcy Island and Pearcy Slough were named after Nathan Pearcy, who settled a donation land claim on the island in 1850. Development projects later altered the landforms in this vicinity. According to an article published in the December 1864 issue of The Atlantic magazine, the island was named for a "blind African nobleman" who once lived there and was known locally by this moniker. He was described as "living in great affluence of salmon and whiskey with three or four devoted Indian wives, who had with equal fervor embraced the doctrine of Mormonism and the profession of day’s-washing to keep their liege in luxury due his rank." The name Nigger Tom Island stopped appearing on maps after the narrow slough that separated it from Pearcy Island was filled-in sometime after 1919, making it the northern tip of the larger island. In 1926, a group of Portland citizens persuaded the United States Board on Geographic Names to name it Kelley Point. The name honors Hall Jackson Kelley (1790–1874), a New England resident who during the first half of the 19th century promoted interest in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. Kelley Point was once the site of a small lighthouse. ==References==