Annually your Society
holds a walking tour of Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, one of the
very few cemeteries that is still family owned. Originally
owned by pioneers Nils Pederson and the Clise family,
it provides a beautiful backdrop to discuss Queen Anne's
(and Seattle's) heritage, and some of the people who laid
the foundation for today's environment.
Some
of the sites we've visited in recent years included:
-
John
McGraw (1850-1910)
Leaving home at age 14, John ended up in Seattle
in 1876 at age 26, eventually becoming Police Chief. As
Chief during the anti-Chinese riots of 1886, he upheld
the law and
talked the impending mob out of illegal actions against
the Chinese residents. He went on to become
the State of Washington’s
second governor, serving from 1893 – 1897. A
statue of McGraw is located at 5th and Stewart
across from the Westin hotel in downtown Seattle. McGraw
Street and McGraw Place on Queen Anne are named after
him.
-
Anna
Herr Clise (1866 – 1936)
Born in Pennsylvania, she moved to Seattle in
1889 along with her husband, James, where
they purchased the Mt. Pleasant Cemetery
in 1895. In 1907, after suffering the loss
of one of her children, she formed a group of
23 women to raise funds for
what was to become the Children’s Orthopedic Hospital.
The hospital moved to Laurelhurst in 1953, and today is known
as Children’s Hospital. The Queen
Anne location of the hospital is today the
Queen Anne Manor retirement community,
located at Boston and 1st Avenue North. She
lived in Queen Anne on Highland
Drive until 1906,
when she moved
to Willowmoor Farm (now MaryMoor Park) in Redmond.
- Christian
Scheuerman (1834 – 1907)
The Scheuerman family plot has the largest
monument in the cemetery. One of the early
pioneers, Christian was born in Germany, moving
to Seattle in 1860. With a 160
acre donation claim on the Magnolia side of Salmon
Bay, he farmed, as well as owned and operated
a popular saloon in Pioneer Square.
Losing the saloon in the Seattle fire of 1889,
he is remembered for building one of the first
fireproof brick buildings after
the fire, still in existence at 1st Avenue
and Cherry Streets downtown. You can view
his name in the tile at the entrance to the building. He
subsequently donated 23 acres of his farm for
the acquisition of Fort
Lawton, but kept the portion along Salmon Bay. It
is believed that his common-law Native American
wife,
along
with
his
operation
of his saloon,
kept his name out of many of the early Seattle
history documentaries. He was later married to
Kate Bunting (see image at right).
-
William
Bell (1817 – 1887) & Sarah Bell (1819 – 1856)(birds-eye
view)
The Bells arrived in today’s West Seattle as part of the Denny
party, responsible for the founding of Seattle. William,
at age 32, was the oldest member of the group. In 1852
he developed the donation claim between today’s downtown and
Seattle Center, now called “Belltown”. He left the area
when his wife became ill (about 1856), and when he returned
he found out the property value had boomed and he was now a
wealthy man. Bell, Olive, Virginia, and Stewart streets
are all named for his family members. He married three
times, the last to the sister of his first wife Sarah.
His family plot has a rare characteristic in that the border
is made of stone hewn from the first Seattle landing site area,
and then hauled by Bell himself to this final place.
-
Lydia
Galer (d. 1878)
The second wife of Jacob Galer, she lived on the
family
farm located on the top of Queen
Anne Hill between Galer and Highland Drive, east
of Queen
Anne Ave. The
promontory was known as Galer’s Hill, until the
Queen
Anne moniker stuck after the building of
the many houses in the 1890’s.
It is believed her marker is the oldest stone in Mt. Pleasant.
-
Valencia
Shipwreck, 1906
The ship Valencia wrecked off Beale Point, Vancouver Island
on its way from San Francisco to Seattle. Strong currents
in
deep
fog
pulled
the ship onto the rocks after a 250 foot sounding just 3
hrs. prior. 126 were killed--tragedy as rescue boats could
not get close to ship as they too would wreck on rocks. About
seven survived in one lifeboat which escaped. Many men and
all women refused to go into lifeboats after seeing one capsize
as it was being loaded, tossing all in to the sea. Some
of the unknown are buried here.more
In 2005, with our theme of "Everyman Occupations" continued,
we visited these sites:
1 Herald Blekum - "Master and Commander"
2 Elizabeth Levy Cooper & Isaac Cooper - "Merchants"
3 Catharine & David Blaine and Edward Blaine - "Minister
& Teacher"
4 Edgar Bryan - "Assessor, Umbrella Mfr., Tombstone
seller"
5 Bertha Pitts Campbell and Earl Campbell - "Activist"
6 William Nathaniel Bell - "Real Estate"
7 Philip Salisbury - "Publisher"
8 New Westminster Accident - 1909 - "Railroad Workers"
9 Orange Jacobs - "Judge"
10 Joseph B. McKelvey - "Airline Pilot"
11 Laura Wang - "Librarian"
12 Bernard A. Mossett - "Store Window Decorator"
13 George
Cotterill - "Engineer & Politician" (his
residence on Queen Anne)
14 A. T. Vandevanter - "Farmer & Politician"
15 George
Benson - "Druggist & Politician"
16 Halfdan Wick and Clara Wick (also McCurdy) - "Salvation
Army"
17 Sam Smith - "Politician"
20 Gen. Harley and Jane Shaw Jones - "Air Force Officer & Teacher"
23 Howell Jones - "Shipsmith"
24 Cemetery Buildings, Columbarium
25 Neil and Geneva Edwards - "Cemetery Operators"
For
2007, with our theme of the Wellington Disaster, we visited
these sites:
(1) John Bissell*: Pioneer of Burien
(2) George & Eliza Ann Young*: Capitalist and Oregon Trail
traveler
(3) John & Mary
Ross: early Pioneers of Fremont/Queen Anne
(5) Lydia Galer: 2nd
wife of Jacob, early settler of Queen Anne
(6) Carolyn Downs: Activist, medical center
(7) Green Fields*:
Civil War veteran and former slave.
(8) John Brace*: Seattle
Lumberman
(9) John Fox*: Wellington-Railway Postal Worker
(10) Rev. James Thomson*: Wellington-Methodist Minister
(11) Milton Hicks*: Wellington- Brakeman
(12) Seth Beach Family*: Tragic tale of Three Daughters
(13) Luigi Cimmarusti: Wellington- Railroad mass grave
(14) Otto Iverson*, Ann Copland*, Hazel Decker*: Seattle
family
* - new in 2007
A full list of Wellington Disaster victims may be found here.
Check
our "Events"
page to see the details of our next outing.
Note:
If you are a QAHS member, check out the map of the Mt. Pleasant
cemetery in the members
only section, showing 20 major pioneer
sites.
And
for reading this far, if you'd like to search for names at
Mt. Pleasant, click here.
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