Everett's Only Full-Time Bike Courier is Hewitt’s Descendant

Warland Hewitt Wight starts his day with a 22 mile bike ride on the Interurban Trail, riding from Shoreline to Everett. Then he goes to work as a courier in downtown Everett— again, by bike.

Wight rides to about 40 stops around Everett in a given day, delivering documents to lawyers and the courts. He sometimes carries up to 50 lbs of paper in his messenger bag, hunched over handlebars in the rain.

The documents must be delivered on time; court cases depend on the legal briefs and other time-sensitive forms that Wight circulates.

“I can get to places way faster than cars,” he says. There’s no circling the block looking for parking spots. “I can just run in [to a client’s office], there’s nothing stopping me.”

Here’s an example of what his daily delivery route looks like:

Wight often pedals up and down a street that is his namesake.

He's a descendent of Everett founding father Henry Hewitt, a lumber baron who owned large plots of land here at the turn of the twentieth century.* There have been six Henry Hewitts, in fact. It's a family name.

Wight never planned to work in Everett, but he saw an ad on Craigslist for a bike courier. The courier’s office was on Hewitt Avenue. The rest was history.

*Wight on Hewitt Avenue in front of vintage Hewitt clock.*

A bike courier is an efficient delivery service for sensitive documents. Warland’s pedalling cuts down on the costs associated with company car travel— gas, insurance, parking fees.

Right now, in addition to his courier service, he’s working on manufacturing and distributing his own line of bicycle clothing under the name Velo Republique .

Wight wants his bike clothing to be part of the international bicycle community, to serve as a visual signifier of the subculture.

“You get out on the bike... you can meet people you’ve never met before,” he says of the communal aspect of group rides.

He’s working now to start selling Velo Republique through the local GroWashington store, as well as online. His retail website is in the works.

Until he gets his line of clothing off the ground you can find Warland Wight pedalling through the streets of Everett, messenger bag in tow: a fireball of energy in a city that has deep roots for his family.

*About the other Hewitt

Henry Hewitt, Jr., great great grandfather of Warland Wight, owned more timberlands than anyone in the world except for the czar of Russia. He formed the Everett Land Company with money from the Rockefeller family. His partners in this venture were the Rucker brothers.

These were Everett's founding fathers.

If you’re a local reading this, you'll recognize the significance of these familiar street names.