The Hailstone family
Francis “Frank” Hailstones was born in Scotland in 1859. He and his wife Ester immigrated to Canada with several of their eventual nine children, but dropped the last “s” off their name along the way.
The family settled in the Issaquah area in 1888 and began a long tradition of mining and logging. They also had one of the first feedstores in the area. The original family homestead was at the bottom of Vaughn’s Hill in an area old-timers call Frogtown. Over the years, new roads chipped away at the family’s land holdings. First the road to Redmond, then Highway 10, and finally I-90 demolished all the original Hailstone homes.
Most of the nine children of Frank and Ester stayed in the area, and many married into other local pioneer families. There are about 32 direct descendents still living in the Issaquah area. If you run into someone in Issaquah who loves to hunt and fish and has a luxuriant head of curly hair, it’s probably a Hailstone.
