After all the time and work he put into his latest bronze sculpture, Wayne Lewis figured he’d earned the right to have a little fun.

So while installing the 3-foot-tall sculpture of Edward Barrington and his bride in downtown Oak Harbor last week, Lewis asked some visitors, who happened to be Barrington descendants, a personal question.

“I asked them, being family members, if they were really that short?” Lewis later mused.

Perched atop a 3-foot tall cement base, Edward and Christina McCrohan Barrington appear to stand much taller on a sidewalk along Pioneer Way.

The couple were two of the city’s prominent early pioneers, now immortalized by a statue donated by Lewis, a North Whidbey sculptor who also made the “Island Spirit” bronze of a Native American on Pioneer Way and the Dutch boy sweeper statue at Windjammer Park.

“It’s good to see it up,” Lewis said. “It’s been a while. The process takes a while, sculpting and casting and working to get the base made.”

“It’s still not finished.”

As of Thursday, the statue known as “The Barringtons” was still missing a plaque, leaving most passersby to wonder about the identity of this historic couple.

Edward Barrington was a sea captain from Nova Scotia who came to Oak Harbor in the mid 19th century and found great success as a merchandiser and lumberer.

He wound up owning most of the Oak Harbor waterfront land after purchasing two of the town’s original three Donation Land Claims. By owning 640 acres, Barrington controlled development of the town’s waterfront business district until the late 1800s.

Present day Pioneer Way used to be called Barrington Avenue for more than roughly a century until 1951. The Barrington name was placed on a road a block away, where it remains.

After Barrington’s death in 1883, his widow inherited the land and plotted it into lots, setting aside property for town parks such as what is now Smith Park.

The placement of the statue was intentional. It is near the site where Oak Harbor’s first business once stood, a warehouse/store/saloon established by Edward Barrington in the 1850s.

That building was moved across the street and is the structure that presently houses the Oak Harbor Tavern, according to Peggy Darst Townsdin, great great granddaughter of Edward and Christina Barrington.

The art piece is a donation, but an additional $12,000 was needed to cover the cost for bronzing at an Oregon foundry as well as installment.

Darst Townsdin spearheaded the project and led an effort among relatives and community members to raise $6,000, while the Oak Harbor Arts Commission provided a match.

Ron Wallin of P & L Construction donated the cost of labor and materials for the concrete pedestal and Lee Rossi of Oak Harbor Signs gave a special discount for the bronze plaque, Darst Townsdin said.

Cac Kamak, senior planner with the City of Oak Harbor, said he admires the workmanship put into the city’s latest public art piece.

Lewis crafted the work after enlarging a photograph of the couple taken on their wedding day on Sept. 13, 1865. Edward Barrington was 47 at time, McCrohan 19.

A dedication for the piece likely will take place later this month, Kamak said.