Gustaf Scott, (1841-1926)

Headstone GPS Coordinates: Burial location unknown.

Birth: 22 August 1841, Marbäck, Östergötland, Sweden

Death: 6 September 1926, Seattle, King County, Washington

Relatives in Seabeck Cemetery: Sophia Scott née Fredel

American Revolutionary War Patriots*: None.

Disclaimer: These lines have not been officially proven by NSDAR standards

 

Gustaf Emil Adolfsson Skott was born on August 22, 1841, in Marbäck, Östergötland, Sweden. He was the son of Adolf Mård Pettersson (1819–1900) and Maja Christina “Stina” Larsdotter (1811–1888), and he grew up as the second oldest of their eight children.

On November 6, 1870, Gustaf married Sophia Susanna Eriksdotter Fredel in Marbäck. Sophia had been born on June 3, 1849, in Lommaryd, Jönköping, Sweden, the first of three children born to Erik Johan Fredel (1822–1890) and Anna Stina Johansdotter (1822–1855). Her father worked as a carpenter, and her mother died when Sophia was just five years old. After her father remarried, Sophia gained eleven half-siblings.

Gustaf and Sophia began their family in Marbäck, where their first five children were born: Gustaf Emil Jr. (1871–1964), Sophia Olivia “Olive” (1873–1948), Carl Oscar (1876–1961), Maria Lovisa “Mary Louise” (1878–1953), and Johan Aron “John Aaron” (1881–1930). Before the family made their permanent move, Gustaf traveled alone to the United States and back to Sweden twice. Finally, on August 5, 1881, they departed together from the port of Göteborg aboard the SS Romeo, stopping in Hull, England, before continuing on to America. They landed in Philadelphia and eventually made their way to Cass County, North Dakota. The long journey by sea and land must surely have been arduous with five small children in tow, including a newborn.

The family arrived in North Dakota during the height of the Dakota Boom, when the Dakota Territory was rapidly filling with settlers and becoming a center of farming. Most were recent European immigrants. Many lived in sod houses and formed colonies, with the largest Norwegian settlement centered around Fargo in Cass County. While there, Gustaf and Sophia’s sixth child, Edith Mable (1884–1978), was born in 1884.

By 1887 the boom had ended. Drought and declining wheat prices strained homesteaders, and many began to move on. This may well have been the case for Gustaf and his family. By 1885 they had relocated to Marsh Grove in Marshall County, Minnesota, becoming one of the town’s first pioneer families. The area—named for its marshes and poplar groves—was being settled and farmed largely by Norwegian immigrants. Settlers cleared the land of trees, planted crops, and harvested by hand. In Marshall County, Gustaf and Sophia welcomed three more children: Albert T. (1886–1979), Edith Wilhelmina (1890–1992), and Hulda Clara (1891–1991).

After seven years in Minnesota, Gustaf brought his family west, arriving in Seattle in 1892. Around this time, he became a naturalized United States citizen and began using the spelling “Scott” instead of “Skott” for the family name.

The family homesteaded near the Norton precinct in Coyle, Jefferson County, west of Seattle on the southern tip of the Toandos Peninsula. This rural community, situated along the shores of Hood Canal, was known at the time as “Fisherman’s Harbor”—a fitting name, as Gustaf worked there as a fisherman. The area called Norton was named after Frank Norton, who built a cabin there in 1874. Earlier, pioneer Marshall Blinn had acquired much of the southern peninsula around 1862 and established a logging camp and sawmill in Seabeck across the canal. Much of that land was later deeded to the Washington Mill Company and Puget Mill Company. Fisherman’s Harbor was officially renamed Coyle in 1908, after the town’s first postmaster, when its first post office was established. Residents could travel to Seabeck by mailboat, which ran between Seabeck, Coyle, and Brinnon.

In 1893, Gustaf and Sophia’s tenth and final child, Otilia Matilda Dorothy “Tillie” (1893–1984), was born in Coyle. By 1900, six of their children were grown and living throughout the Puget Sound region, most with families of their own. The younger children attended the town’s one-room log schoolhouse with about fifteen other students. In 1910, only Tillie remained at home, along with two young boarders, eight-year-old Ida Holten and four-year-old Samuel Holten. Despite their young ages, they do not appear to have been related to the Scott family, and how they came to live there remains unclear.

Two of Gustaf’s sons, Albert and John, stayed in Norton. Albert worked as an engineer operating a “steam donkey,” a steam-powered winch used in logging and maritime work. By 1909, John owned and operated the town’s general store and, by 1911, also served as the town barber.

In 1918, the Flu Pandemic swept across the United States and Europe. On March 14, 1918, after eleven days of illness, Sophia died of broncho-pneumonia in Coyle at the age of 68. Two days later she was brought to Seabeck and buried in Seabeck Cemetery.

By 1920, Gustaf was retired and living at home. His son John and John’s wife, Félicie (née Virolle, 1889–1969), were living with him. John, a “farm fisher,” had returned to Norton after serving in France during World War I. It was there he met and married Félicie in 1919 before bringing her back to the United States.

During the final two years of his life, Gustaf moved to Seattle to live with his oldest son, Gustaf, at 13 West Dravus Street. On September 6, 1926, at the age of 85, Gustaf died at Norwegian Hospital in Seattle after battling senility and cancer of the lip, face, mouth, and neck for three years. Six days later, he was brought back to Hood Canal and laid to rest beside Sophia in Seabeck Cemetery. Sadly, no headstone or grave marker remains to mark where they are buried.