Alice Jane Hite (née Wilson)
Headstone GPS Coordinates:
Birth: 28 Jan 1853, Senecaville, Guernsey County, Ohio
Death: 28 Feb 1931, Bremerton, Kitsap County, Washington
Relatives in Seabeck Cemetery: Ashbel Hite, Dempsey Wilson, Margaret Wilson (née Woodruff), Robert Hite, Sarah Stillwell (née Wilson), Margaret W. Stout (née Stillwell), Margaret C. Selby (née Wilson), Joseph S. Selby, Mary Bell Selby, Lloyd M. Selby
American Revolutionary War Patriots*: None found, but possibly.
Alice Jane Hite (née Wilson) was born on January 28, 1853, in Senecaville, Guernsey County, Ohio. She was the eldest of five daughters born to Dempsey and Margaret (née Woodruff) Wilson. In 1864, when Alice was eleven years old, her father enlisted in the Union Army. He served for nearly four months before returning home when his regiment mustered out.
At the age of eighteen, Alice married Ashbel F. Hite, a Union Civil War veteran from West Virginia. The couple married in Noble, Ohio, and soon afterward moved to Marion County, West Virginia, where their first son, George, was born in 1874. After about a year, they returned to Ohio to live near Alice’s parents. There, they welcomed four more children: Icia (1876), Edward (1878), Robert (1881), and Sadie (1885).
Around 1889, the Hite family—along with both of Alice’s parents—moved west to Seattle, Washington, eventually settling in the Crosby/Seabeck area.
Ashbel and Alice lived at what became known as Hite Center, a place frequently visited by Alice’s sisters and extended family. The home was well known locally for hosting community gatherings, family reunions, and parties over the years. Notably, the Kitsap Herald reported in 1924 that the home was wired for electricity, a remarkable feature for the time.
On February 28, 1931, at the age of seventy-eight, Alice died at Bremerton Hospital after suffering severe burns to her arms and chest, followed by pneumonia. According to her death certificate, Alice was partially blind and had walked too close to a sheet-iron heater; her nightdress caught fire.
The tragic incident was recorded in the Kitsap County Herald on March 6, 1931:
A sad accident happened to one of Crosby’s oldest pioneers just a week ago last Saturday.
Mrs. Ash Hite of Hite Center got too close to the hot heater stove and her clothing caught fire.
Mr. Hite, her aged husband [Ashbel], and her oldest son [George] got to her rescue as quickly as possible, but not before the flames had burned her badly. The shock, with her age, was more than life could stand, and she passed away at the Bremerton hospital a week from the day she was burned.
Interment took place at the Seabeck Cemetery at 2:30 on Monday afternoon, with friends and neighbors from all around present. They gently laid her in the ground. Those who loved her will miss her so. It seemed so hard to have her go. She is asleep in peace but leaves a memory behind her of many happy years gone by.
Her aged helpmate, old and gray, who fought a brave fight a long time ago in the war, had a harder fight to face to see his helpmate laid away forever. Sixty years she had lived close by his side, since the day she was made his happy bride. They raised two daughters and three fine sons, who enjoyed their father’s and mother’s golden wedding day a few years ago at the Crosby Hall.
Mrs. Hite’s father and mother are also laid to rest at Seabeck [Dempsey and Margaret Wilson]. We extend our heartfelt sympathy to those left behind. She is not gone so far away, but just waiting there for that great day when all life’s troubles shall be over and we too shall tread that same great shore and meet our loved ones gone on before and live with them forever.