Shannon - Cemeteries of Seattle

IMAGES
of America

CEMETERIES OF
SEATTLE

BIRTHPLACE OF SEATTLE. This 1929 photograph shows the monument marking the Denny party landing at Alki Point. The inscription reads, At this place on 13 November 1851 there landed from the Schooner Exact Captain Folger the little colony which developed into the City of Seattle. (Courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives, 46980.)

ON THE COVER: A crowd surrounds the symbolic grave on Memorial Day sometime in the 1920s. Placing wreaths on a symbolic grave by veteran and patriotic organizations is a tradition at the Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Evergreen-Washelli Cemetery. (Courtesy Evergreen-Washelli Cemetery.)

IMAGES
of America

CEMETERIES OF
SEATTLE

Robin Shannon

Copyright 2007 by Robin Shannon
ISBN 978-0-7385-4813-5
Ebook ISBN 9781439642306

Published by Arcadia Publishing
Charleston, South Carolina

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2007928541

For all general information contact Arcadia Publishing at:
Telephone 843-853-2070
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For my son, Jeremy, of whom I am so proud, I love you more, more, more. To my brother Ricky, who tragically died way too young. For my sister Ronda, whom I love most of the time, I dedicate this book.

To my late neighbor and friend, Ethel Gould, whom I can still hear commenting, See, I told you, you can do anything that you set your mind to. For my lifelong friend Katie Russell (KT), I will love you always and forever, for you are always there when I need you. To Big Bird, our Cockatiel who recently died, I can still hear his welcoming sharp squawks when I walk in the house. A warm dedication to my newfound travel partner Laurie ValBush.

And last but certainly not least, I would like to dedicate this book to my mom and dad, who put up with my crazy teen years (which ran into my twenties) but always supported me, no matter what.

CONTENTS

Late one moonless night, while strolling in the dark on an excursion to the Enumclaw Evergreen Cemetery (with permission) with the Washington State Paranormal Investigations and Research group (WSPIR), I turned to Patricia Woolard and asked if there were any good books she could recommend about Seattle cemeteries. As a matter of fact, no, she said. My response to her was, Well I am going to write one, then. That weekend, I did some research online and e-mailed Arcadia Publishing about my idea. Two days later, Julie Albright called from Arcadia, very interested in and excited about my proposal of a Seattle cemetery book. That is how this book came to be. So Id like to give a big thank-you to Patricia Woolard, vice president of WSPIR, and Charlotte Liggett, director of psychic sciences also of WSPIR, who are boneyard buddies for inadvertently planting the seed of an idea that grew into this book, and to Julie Albright for being so encouraging and for giving me the guidance to continue when things were not going so well.

Without Evergreen-Washelli Cemetery opening their doors so graciously and making me feel so welcome, this story could not have been told in full. Warm thanks go to Paul Elvig and Sandy Matthie at Evergreen-Washelli Cemetery for their support, even when they were extremely busy with more important tasks.

Special thanks to photographer Cherian Thomas, whom I am sure I have known in a previous lifetime, for taking such awesome photographs of historical markers. Thanks to Jake () of Private Eye on Seattle Mystery and Murder Tour for her Butterworth contact. Thanks also go to Bert Butterworth Jr. for sharing his family history and photographs. A heartfelt thanks to Jeff Ware for being so prompt in scanning historical photographs from the Seattle Municipal Archives. Thanks to Margaret Riddle from the Everett Public Library for her prompt response to my request for the Wobbly photographs. Thank you to John Lamont of the Seattle Public Library for pointing me to the Clarence Bagley books. Last but not least, thanks to my boss, Randy Shoults, for being so understanding and to Janet Peck for listening to my rambles.

Burial plot numbers for the individuals identified in these images have been included whenever available. These numbers follow the image courtesy lines, in the following format: (Courtesy Cherian Photography, Lot 432.)

Native Americans first inhabited the land of Puget Sound. In a treaty of Port Elliott in 1855, Chief Sealth (Seattle) spoke of the differences regarding death:

To us the ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their resting place is hallowed ground. You wander far from the graves of your ancestors and seemingly without regret. Your religion was written upon tablets of stone by the iron finger of your God so that you could not forget. The Red Man could not comprehend nor remember it. Our religion is the traditions of our ancestorsthe dreams of our old men, given to them in solemn hours of night by the Great Spirit; and the visions of our sachems, and is written in the hearts of our people.

Your dead cease to love you and the land of their nativity as soon as they pass the portals of the tomb and wander way beyond the stars. They are soon forgotten and never return. Our dead never forget the beautiful world that gave them being. They still love its verdant valleys, its murmuring rivers, its magnificent mountains, sequestered vales and verdant lined lakes and bays, and ever yearn in tender, fond affection over the lonely hearted living, and often return from the Happy Hunting Ground to visit, guide, console and comfort them.

Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only a change of worlds.

Native American remains, traditionally, were not left alone until the time of the spirit to make the journey to the happy hunting ground. New moccasins were provided, and on the morning of the service, the bodies of the deceased were washed like newborn babies. Usually they were dressed in their best clothes. After a wake, the deceased were buried with all that they owned.

Both cremation and burials were common for Native Americans. If a member of the tribe died while away from the tribes home area, then a cremation would take place to ensure that no physical portions of the body were left behind for an enemy to make bad medicine with or to interfere with the spirit journey.

Most commonly, ground burials took place in a shallow grave with slabs of cedar over the grave serving as a sort of roof. In some burials, the body was wrapped in rush mats that were laid in the ground and covered by a canoe.

The Denny party landed at Alki Point on November 13, 1851. The first known cemetery in the city of Seattle was on the land of the Denny Hotel at Second and Pine or Second and Stewart from around 1853 to 1860. An 1878 directory claimed that there were about 20 burials at this site. Most were removed and reburied.

The next known burial site was at the first church of Seattle, the Old White Church, which was Methodist and was founded by the Reverend and Mrs. Daniel Bagley. Next to the church was a graveyard at the corner of Second and Columbia. In 1856, two young men who were killed during the short Indian War were buried here.

There were also burials in the old tide flats at Maynards Point. In 1854, a Dr. W. B. G. Cherry was buried there when he died from wounds he received while part of a posse at Holmes Harbor. The few bodies that had been buried there were removed in September 1864.