Category: Cemetery Biographies

 

Margaret Stout née Stillwell (1885-1932)    

Headstone GPS Coordinates: 

Birth: 31 October 1885, Troy, Miami County, Ohio  

Death: 28 June 1932, Seattle, King County, Washington

Relatives in Seabeck Cemetery:Sarah Stillwell née Wilson, Margaret C. Selby née Wilson, Dempsey Wilson, Margaret Wilson née Woodruff, Mary Bell Selby,  Lloyd M. Selby, Alice Hite née Wilson, Joseph S. Selby

American Revolutionary War Patriots*: Jeremiah Stillwell (Pennsylvania)

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

 

Margaret W. Stout née Stillwell was born on October 31, 1885, in the family home on Market Street in Troy, Miami County, Ohio. She was the younger of two daughters born to Elias H. Stillwell, a Civil War veteran, and Sarah “Sadie” Wilson. Her sister Mary was four years older.

When Margaret was four years old, her father died, leaving Sadie to raise two young daughters alone. Elias had owned timberland, which Sadie sold in order to support the family. Margaret grew up in the same Market Street home where she had been born, attended local schools, and graduated from Troy High School.

At eighteen, Margaret moved to Columbus, Ohio, to attend Ohio State University. Around 1905, the university had no dormitories for female students, so they rented rooms in nearby boarding houses. OSU would not open a women’s dormitory until 1908, and even then it accommodated only 60 students despite the fact that about 600 women were enrolled at the time.

By 1910, Margaret was working as a stenographer for the railroad office in Columbus and living with her mother, who had also relocated to the city. They rented a home off 11th Avenue, just steps from the OSU campus.

During this time, Margaret met Harry Loren Kneisly of Galveston, Texas. Harry had lived with his aunt and uncle in Troy before attending OSU, where he likely met Margaret. On August 17, 1912, at the age of twenty-five, she married Harry in Houston, Texas. Harry worked as an electrical engineer.

By 1915, the couple had moved to Waxahachie, Texas. Around this period, Margaret wrote an article advocating for women’s suffrage that was published in the Dallas Morning News and later reprinted in the Miami Union in her hometown.

Sometime before 1917, Margaret and Harry separated. Margaret relocated to the Wallingford neighborhood of Seattle, where she worked as a stenographer. Around 1922, she met James Montgomery Stout, a divorced father. They married in March 1923 “back East,” according to their marriage announcement, and settled in Seattle, where James worked as a salesman. That same year, Margaret’s sister Mary died in Chicago.

It is unclear how long Margaret and James lived together. By 1930, they were estranged. Margaret was living in Seabeck, Washington, in her mother Sarah’s home, along with her grand-niece, Celine Chilson. James, meanwhile, was living in New Jersey with his daughter. On the 1930 census he listed himself as “widowed,” though Margaret was very much alive in Seabeck.

Margaret continued living with her mother and great-grandniece. During this time, she became ill and was admitted to Martha Washington Hospital in Bremerton, likely with severe abdominal pain. Doctors diagnosed her with hysterosalpingitis, a bacterial infection of the fallopian tubes, as well as a pelvic abscess. She underwent treatment, and the abscess was drained, but she remained hospitalized for nearly a month.

On June 28, 1932, at age forty-six, Margaret died unexpectedly from a pulmonary embolus—a blood clot that traveled to her lungs. Such clots were a known complication after pelvic infections, prolonged bed rest, and surgery. In the early 1930s, effective treatments such as blood-thinning medications were not yet in widespread use, and physicians had few options beyond supportive care. As a result, a significant pulmonary embolus was typically sudden and often fatal.

Margaret’s funeral was held at Lewis Chapel, where the community brought an abundance of flowers in support of her grieving mother, who had now lost her last surviving child. Margaret’s remains were sent to Seattle for cremation, and her mother placed her ashes atop the grave of Margaret’s grandmother, Margaret Wilson. When Sarah died in 1941, she too was cremated and placed beside her daughter.

 

Sarah “Sadie” C. Stillwell née Wilson, (1858-1941)    

Headstone GPS Coordinates: 

Birth: 16 June 1858,  Zanesville, Muskingum, Ohio, USA          

Death: 16 May 1941, Bremerton, Kitsap County, Washington,USA

Relatives in Seabeck Cemetery: Margaret Stout née Stillwell, Margaret C. Selby née Wilson, Dempsey Wilson, Margaret Wilson née Woodruff, Mary Bell Selby,  Lloyd M. Selby, Alice Hite née Wilson, Joseph S. Selby

American Revolutionary War Patriots*: Unknown

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

 

Sarah “Sadie” Stillwell née Wilson was born on June 16, 1858, in Zanesville, Muskingum County, Ohio, to Dempsey Wilson, a Civil War veteran, and Margaret Woodruff. Sarah was the third of the Wilsons’ five daughters.

She likely grew up in Summerfield, Ohio, attending school and helping her mother at home. Her father worked as a saddle maker and produced other leather goods to support the family.

On November 23, 1880, at the age of twenty-two, Sarah married Elias Henry Stillwell, a thirty-six-year-old Civil War veteran who had also grown up in Summerfield. When Elias was about twenty, he enlisted in the Union Army and served in the 92nd Ohio Infantry, Company D. He later served under Ohio native William T. Sherman in every major campaign, including Sherman’s infamous “March to the Sea,” during which Union forces caused an estimated $100 million in property damage all through the state of Georgia. After the war, Elias suffered from lingering health problems, but by the time of his marriage to Sarah, he was successful in the timber business and owned several parcels of land.

In 1881, Sarah and Elias welcomed their first daughter, Mary Lucretia Stillwell, in Troy, Miami County, Ohio, where the family had settled. Their second daughter, Margaret S. Stillwell, was born in 1885.

In 1888, Elias was charged by the State of Ohio with battery, assault, and “using obscene language in the presence of females.” He was fined for the offense.

Elias’s health declined rapidly, and was unable to work. By 1889 he was drawing from his war pension and classified as an “invalid.” On June 30, 1890, Elias died at the family home in Troy. Sarah was thirty-two, and her daughters were eight and four years old.

To support her family, Sarah relied on Elias’s pension and gradually sold portions of his timber land. By 1900, she and her daughters were still living in their Troy home on the income from the pension and land sales.

That same year, Sarah’s eldest daughter, Mary, married Alva Collins at the Stillwell home in Troy. With sixty guests in attendance, the Buckeye newspaper described it as one of the “most notable society events of the season.” After their honeymoon in Cincinnati, Mary and Alva returned to live with Sarah.

By 1904, Sarah had moved to Columbus, Ohio, likely to be closer to her younger daughter, Margaret, who was attending Ohio State University. Margaret later married and relocated to Texas.

Although living alone, Sarah remained involved in her family’s lives. In 1914 and 1915, she cared for her granddaughter Margaret Eva Collins after Mary’s husband passed away. Mary had two daughters—Margaret Eva and Mary Elizabeth. Mary Elizabeth stayed with her grandmother Collins in Troy, while Margaret Eva lived with Sarah.

In 1918, Sarah moved west to Crosby, Washington, to be near her sister Alice Hite and other family members living in Seattle. She purchased her own farmhouse on Seabeck Road, where she lived independently but close to the Hite family. In 1921, her granddaughter Margaret Eva moved west to join her after graduating high school in Troy. The younger granddaughter, Mary, also eventually joined them in Washington.

In 1923, Sarah received the heartbreaking news that her eldest daughter, Mary—who had remarried a man named Jack Wilcox—had died in Chicago at the age of forty-one. Her cause of death is unknown.

In 1923 and 1924, both of Sarah’s granddaughters married. They settled in Seattle and Seabeck before eventually moving to the San Francisco and Oakland areas in California.

By 1930, Sarah was still living in Crosby. Her daughter Margaret returned to live with her, likely due to marital estrangement. Sarah’s great-granddaughter, Coline Chilson, was also staying with her, probably because her parents were separated at the time.

Sarah was remembered as a kind woman with many friends in Crosby. She continued to support herself through income from land sales and her husband’s pension. But sorrow struck again: in 1932, her last surviving child, Margaret, died suddenly in the hospital. The community expressed deep sympathy and sent many flowers in recognition of Sarah’s devastating loss.

Sarah remained in Crosby, surrounded by her nieces and great-grandnieces. Her great-granddaughter Coline eventually went to live in Oakland with her mother, Mary, but Sarah made trips to California to visit her granddaughters and great-granddaughter. After returning from one such visit in 1939, she contracted a severe case of pneumonia but recovered.

By 1940, Sarah had a live-in nurse to assist with her care. On May 16, 1941, she died of heart failure at her home when she was eighty-two years old. Her health had been poor for several years. Her obituary described her as having a “very kindly nature” and noted that she had many friends who attended her funeral. Her remains were cremated and placed atop her mother Margaret Wilson’s grave, alongside her daughter Margaret’s cremated remains. 

Sarah likely descends from several Revolutionary War patriots, though both her parents’ ancestral lines are difficult to trace beyond her grandparents. While there are potential connections, further genealogical research is needed to confirm these links.

 

Hannible Hamlin Spencer, 1860-1945    

Headstone GPS Coordinates: 

Birth: 5 November 1860, Des Moines, Polk County, Iowa  

Death: 30 May 1945, Seabeck, Kitsap County, Washington

Relatives in Seabeck Cemetery: None.

American Revolutionary War Patriots*: Unknown.

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

 

Hannible Hamlin Spencer was born November 5, 1860, in Des Moines,Polk County, Iowa, to farmers Alexander Spencer and Sarah Lang. He had two older siblings, Elizabeth and Commodore Edwin. By 1870, Hannible was living with his parents and older brother in Jackson, Kansas.

Sometime before 1890, Hannible married Lena Margaret Rice. Their first daughter, Leota Pearl, was born in 1890 in Dayton, Columbia County, Washington. Their second daughter, Hazel Alice, was born in March 1891 in Seattle. In May 1897, Lena filed for divorce. That December, she married John Lloyd and took her two daughters to live with them in Meadowdale, Snohomish County, Washington. It appears that Leota and Hazel did not maintain a close relationship with their father, as they began using their stepfather’s surname, though John Lloyd never legally adopted them.

On November 20, 1897, Hannible remarried in Seattle to Icia Hite, daughter of Ashbel and Alice Hite of Seabeck. They had no children together. In the 1910 census, Hannible and Icia were living in Seattle in the household of Ashbel Hite, along with Alice Hite, George Hite, Robert Hite, and Margaret Wilson. By 1920, Hannible and Icia were residing off Seabeck Road in Crosby.

Throughout his life, Hannible worked in a variety of occupations. While living in Iowa, he was listed as a farmer. After moving to Seattle, he worked as a blacksmith and forger. Later, in Seabeck, he returned to farming and also worked as a faller in the logging industry.

Hannible died at his home in Seabeck on May 30, 1945. The cause of death was recorded as “general debility, senility without dementia.” His obituary named only his wife, Icia, as his survivor and did not mention his daughters, who were still living at the time.

He was cremated at Woodlawn Crematory. According to Fred Just’s notes and plot map, his ashes were placed near the graves of his in-laws, Ashbel and Alice Hite.

 

Henry “Harry” Shaffer, 1840-1880    

Headstone GPS Coordinates: 

Birth: 1840, New York

Death: 8 July 1880, Seattle, Kitsap County, Washington

Relatives in Seabeck Cemetery: None.

American Revolutionary War Patriots*: Unknown

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

Henry Shaffer—known to most as Harry—was born around 1840 in New York. The names of his parents remain unknown, though the 1871 census records them as natural-born U.S. citizens. He may have had ties to Camden, New Jersey, but his exact origins are still uncertain. Research into his early life and family continues.

Henry arrived in Seabeck around 1862. By 1871, he appeared in the Washington Territory census living in Duckabush, Jefferson County, working as a laborer. At some point thereafter, he returned to Seabeck and found employment with Denny K. Howard as a barkeeper in Howard’s saloon.

Harry was known for his humor, and one of his pranks on “Old Anderson” was recorded by Edward Clayson in Narratives of Puget Sound, Hood’s Canal, 1865–1885. Old Anderson, a European immigrant, had learned English mixed with Chinook when he first arrived in Seabeck. He later settled in what is now Holly, making his home with a Native American woman.

Eventually, the Indian Department ordered all Native Americans to move to reservations, except for Native women married to White men. Determined to comply, Old Anderson set out by canoe for Seabeck to purchase a marriage license—unaware that licenses could only be obtained at Port Madison, the county seat at the time. Upon arriving in Seabeck, he stopped at Denny Howard’s saloon, where Henry was tending bar, and asked him to secure a marriage license.

As Clayson recounts, “…the barkeeper [Harry] did not propose to be stuck on such a small affair as that of securing a marriage license, so he dug up out of an old dusty cigar box from behind the bar a last year’s road tax receipt, and wrapped it up in a piece of fancy tinsel paper taken from an old I.X. bitters bottle, and handed it to Anderson as a marriage license with that broad smile of his, which he could hardly control from bursting into a fit of laughter.”

Only later, standing before a judge, did Old Anderson learn that the document he had obtained from Mr. Shaffer was no marriage license at all. In time, however, he secured the proper paperwork and married the woman.

Another of Clayson’s narratives describes “Old Marshall,” who lived alone five miles from his nearest neighbor, growing onions and making shakes. He played the clarinet, with only woodland and bay animals for an audience. On his annual visits to Seabeck, he would stop at the saloon where Henry worked and attempt to entertain the “boys” with his music. Clayson wrote, “Old Marshal was earnest in his attempts to entertain the ‘boys’ with his music, and Harry Shafer had a very strong sense of the ridiculous. The old clarionet would break down about every two or three minutes; some part of it would give out, so the program had many interludes. This afforded an opportunity for ‘refreshments.’” Such evenings could stretch on for two or three hours.

No known records indicate that Henry ever married or had children.

On July 7 or 8, 1880, Henry died in Seattle of heart failure at the age of forty. His death was noted in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

“On July 7th, Harry Schaffer of Seabeck died, and his remains were sent to that place for interment. He came over about a month ago to doctor for the heart disease, but he was too far gone. He had lived in Seabeck for the past eighteen years, and had a host of friends and acquaintances on the Sound.”

 

Mary Bell Selby (1893–1907)

Headstone GPS Coordinates: 

Birth: 16 Jan 1893, Guernsey or Muskingum County, Ohio

Death: 30 Apr 1907, Seattle, King County, Washington

Relatives in Seabeck Cemetery: Dempsey Wilson, Margaret Woodruff Wilson, Alice Wilson Hite, Sarah C. (nee Wilson) Stillwell, Margaret W. (nee Stillwell) Stout, Margaret C. (nee Wilson) Selby

American Revolutionary War Patriots*: Mordecai Selby (Maryland) A101655, Nicholas Selby (Maryland) A101659, William Rogers (Maryland)

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

 

Mary Bell Selby was born on January 16, 1893, in Ohio, the sixth of seven children born to Stanton Selby and Margaret “Maggie” Wilson Selby. She grew up in a working-class family that lived primarily in Cambridge and Zanesville, Ohio, where her father earned a living as a coal miner and her mother managed the household while also contributing through sewing work when needed.

Mary’s early childhood was shaped by both family closeness and hardship. In June 1899, when Mary was just six years old, her father was fatally injured in a mining accident at the Trail Run Mine in Cambridge, Guernsey County. While being lowered into the mine shaft, the cage rope snapped, sending him plunging 120 feet. Though he survived the initial fall, he died the following day from internal injuries. His death left Mary’s mother a widow with seven children ranging in age from sixteen to two, and it permanently altered the course of Mary’s young life.

Following her father’s death, Mary lived with her mother and siblings in Jackson, Guernsey County. Margaret supported the family as a seamstress, while Mary and her younger siblings attended school. Mary was known to have heart problems, a condition that affected her health throughout her short life.

In 1906, when Mary was thirteen, her mother made the decision to move west to Washington State to reunite with extended family. Mary traveled with her mother and four siblings to Seattle, where they settled in the Wallingford neighborhood. The move marked a significant transition for Mary, placing her far from the Ohio communities where she had spent her childhood.

Tragically, less than a year after the move, Mary’s health declined. In the spring of 1907, she contracted diphtheria. Compounded by her existing heart condition, the illness proved fatal. Mary Bell Selby died on or about April 30, 1907, at just fourteen years of age, likely at home in Seattle.

Following her death, Mary’s remains were transported to Seabeck, Washington, where she was buried in Seabeck Cemetery near her maternal grandfather, Dempsey Wilson, a Civil War veteran. Although no gravestone for Mary survives today, the late historian Fred Just’s cemetery plot map indicates that she was buried near her grandfather. While one plot (#88) was once labeled as Mary Bell Selby and marked as a cremation, Mary’s death record clearly states that she was interred whole, suggesting that the plot may belong to another family member. It is therefore believed that Mary was buried intact near the Wilson family graves.

 

Bessie Olson, (1912-1922)

Headstone GPS Coordinates: 

Birth: 06 November 1912, Seabeck, Kitsap County, Washington

Death: 24 March 1922, Medical Lake (Spokane), Spokane County, Washington

Relatives in Seabeck Cemetery: None.

American Revolutionary War Patriots*: Hickman Hensley, (Virginia)  DAR# A215926

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

 

On November 6, 1912, Bessie Olson was born in Seabeck, Washington to father Benjamin Olson from Sweden and mother Lillie Hensley from Arkansas. Bessie had an older sister named Annabell, and two half sisters named Zora and Lora White from her mother’s first marriage. Bessie’s half-sisters never lived in Washington, but stayed with other family members in Arkansas.

In 1920, Bessie was living on the family farm with her parents and older sister Annabelle. 

Around April 28th in 1921, Bessie was admitted to the State Custodial School at Medical Lake in Spokane, which was a “school” for children up to the age of twenty-one with mental disabilities. Almost a year after being admitted, Bessie died on March 24, 1922 from chronic endocarditis with mitral insufficiency (heart failure) caused by “mongolian idiocy” (down syndrome). Bessie was nine years old when she passed away. Her remains were sent to Seattle from Spokane, where her family claimed them. 

The Kitsap County Herald published about Bessie’s death and burial on April 14, 1922: 

“Little Bessie, the ten-year-old daughter of Mrs. Olson, passed away a few days ago.  The remains were laid to rest in the Seabeck cemetery, Tuesday of last week.”

Bessie’s grave is currently unmarked, but the late historian Fred Just recorded its location on his plot map.

 

Margaret C. Selby née Wilson, (1861-1935)

Headstone GPS Coordinates: 

Birth: 1 September 1861, Zanesville, Muskingum County, Ohio

Death: 3 August 1935, Crosby, Kitsap County, Washington

Relatives in Seabeck Cemetery: Dempsey Wilson, Margaret Woodruff Wilson, Mary Bell Selby, Alice Hite née Wilson, Sarah C. (nee Wilson) Stillwell, Margaret W. (nee Stillwell) Stout 

American Revolutionary War Patriots*: Unknown

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

 

Margaret “Maggie” Wilson Selby was born on September 1, 1861, in Zanesville, Muskingum County, Ohio, to Dempsey Wilson, a Civil War veteran, and his wife Margaret (Woodruff) Wilson. She was the fourth of their five living children. The Wilson family later settled in Summerfield, Noble County, Ohio, where Dempsey worked as a saddler and leather goods maker. In 1870, the eldest daughter helped support the family by tying tobacco leaves for extra income, while Margaret and her younger siblings stayed home with their mother and attended school.

When Margaret was nineteen years old, she married twenty-year-old Stanton Selby on January 1, 1882, in Guernsey County. That same November, the young couple welcomed their first child, a daughter named Goldie. Over the next fourteen years, they had six more children, born roughly every two to three years: George (1884), Ethel (1887), Joseph (1889), Olive (1891), Mary (16 Jan 1893), and Lloyd (1896). The family lived primarily in Cambridge and Zanesville.

To support his growing family, Stanton worked in the coal mines. In 1899, while employed at the Trail Run Mine in Cambridge, tragedy struck. As he was being lowered into the mine shaft in a cage, the rope snapped, sending him plunging 120 feet. Remarkably, he survived the fall but suffered broken ribs and a fractured arm. The broken ribs punctured his lung, and although he remained conscious for about a day, he succumbed to his injuries on June 9, 1899, at just thirty-seven years old. His death left Margaret a widow with seven children ranging in age from sixteen to two.

In October of that year, Margaret settled a claim against the James W. Ellsworth Coal Company, owners of the Trail Run Mine, for her husband’s wrongful death caused by faulty equipment.

Margaret continued to live in Jackson, Guernsey County, working as a seamstress to support her family. Her fifteen-year-old son George found work as a farm laborer, while the younger children remained in school.

Her eldest daughters soon began families of their own: Goldie married in 1903 and remained in Cambridge, while Ethel married in Guernsey County the following year and also stayed nearby.

Around over a decade earlier in 1889, Margaret’s parents and several siblings had moved west to Seabeck, Washington. In 1906, Margaret decided to join them, bringing her five unmarried children to Seattle. The family settled in the Wallingford neighborhood.

Sadly, another tragedy soon struck. Fourteen-year-old Mary Bell, who had heart problems, contracted diphtheria and passed away, likely at home on April 30, 1907. Her remains were taken to Seabeck Cemetery, where her grandfather, Dempsey Wilson, was buried. Although no marker survives, the late historian Fred Just’s plot map indicates she was buried near her grandfather.

By 1910, Margaret was renting a home in Seattle with her children George, Joseph, Olive, and Lloyd. George worked as a surveyor, Joseph as a construction laborer, while Olive helped her mother at home and Lloyd attended public school.

A decade later, in 1920, Margaret was living in San Francisco with her youngest son Lloyd, who was employed as a craneman in the steel industry. Joseph was also in San Francisco, working in a lumber yard until he was called to serve during World War I.

In April 1927, Margaret, Lloyd, and Joseph returned to Washington, settling in Crosby and living at Hite Center with Margaret’s sister, Alice (Wilson) Hite and other members of the Hite family.

On August 3, 1935, Margaret passed away there from heart failure at the age of seventy-three. Her daughter Olive, who had moved to Hite Center several years earlier, was the informant on her death certificate. The record notes that Margaret was buried whole, not cremated. Although no marker is currently known, researchers believe she may rest near where her parents are buried.

Margaret Wilson Selby likely descends from several Revolutionary War patriots, though both her parents’ ancestral lines are difficult to trace beyond her grandparents. While there are potential connections, further genealogical research is needed to confirm these links.

It is likely that Margaret Selby and her daughter Mary Bell Selby were both buried intact near the Wilson graves. The SCRP hopes to conduct a ground-penetrating radar scan next year to help identify possible burial locations for Margaret and Mary.

 

Lloyd McKinley Selby. 1896-1972

Headstone GPS Coordinates: 

Birth: 27 September 1896, Guernsey County, Ohio

Death: 13 August 1972, Bremerton, Kitsap County, Washington

Relatives in Seabeck Cemetery: Margaret C. Selby née Wilson, Dempsey Wilson, Margaret Wilson née Woodruff, Mary Bell Selby,  Sarah C. Stillwell née Wilson, Margaret W. Stout née Stillwell , Alice Hite née Wilson, Joseph S. Selby

American Revolutionary War Patriots*: Mordecai Selby (Maryland) DAR# A101655, Nicholas Selby (Maryland) DAR# A101659, William Rogers (Maryland)

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

Lloyd McKinley Selby was born on September 27, 1896, in Guernsey County, Ohio—likely in either Cambridge or Byesville. His parents, Stanton Selby and Margaret Wilson, were both born in Ohio. Lloyd was the youngest of their seven children.

When Lloyd was two years old, tragedy struck. His father died from injuries sustained in a mining accident when the rope or cable lowering him into a coal shaft snapped, causing him to fall 120 feet. Lloyd’s mother remained in Ohio for several more years, but around 1906, the family moved west to Seattle to be near Margaret’s mother (Lloyd’s grandmother Wilson) and her extended family. Soon after their arrival, another tragedy occurred when Lloyd’s 14-year-old sister, Mary Bell, died from diphtheria and heart complications.

Lloyd attended public school while living in Seattle. Around 1914, him and his brothers Gorge and Joseph moved their mother Margaret south to San Francisco. Lloyd and his mother shared a home, while George and Joseph established their own nearby households.Lloyd went to work for the Pacific Coast Steel Company as a craneman. In 1917, when he registered for the World War I draft, he requested an exemption, noting that he was the sole provider for his mother.

In 1921, while still employed at the steel mill, a fire broke out after a furnace “lost a heat.” Lloyd and another worker suffered burns in the blaze, though neither was seriously injured, and the fire was quickly contained.

By 1927, Lloyd’s mother’s health had declined, and she required additional care. Him and his mother decided to move back to Washington, settling at Hite Center in Crosby. Lloyd’s sister Olive also moved into Hite Center to help care for their mother. 

In Crosby, Lloyd found work as a lineman on a gas shoveler—likely maintaining the cables and lines of a diesel-powered excavator used in local construction projects. His prior experience as a craneman in California would have served him well. He may have worked alongside his neighbor, Victor Card, who operated the gas shoveler as an engineer.

When Margaret Selby passed away in 1935, she was buried in Seabeck Cemetery. Lloyd and Olive continued to live at Hite Center, and by early 1940, he was working as a huckleberry brush picker. Later that year, in December, he was hired at the Bremerton Naval Yard.

In 1942, Lloyd’s brother Joseph returned from the Yukon, where he had lived for twenty years, and moved in with Lloyd. The brothers lived together through 1950, running their own brush-picking business. Eventually, Lloyd relocated to Port Gamble, where he worked at the local sawmill until his retirement in 1966 at the age of seventy. By then, he was the last surviving member of his family.

After retiring, Lloyd continued living in Port Gamble with his niece, Martha Harnden. In 1972, he suffered a stroke and was taken to the Bremerton Convalescent Center, where he passed away three days later on August 13, 1972. He was cremated at Woodlawn Crematory and interred at Seabeck Cemetery, marked by a handmade concrete gravestone.

Over time, knowledge of Lloyd’s burial in the cemetery was lost. Local historians Fred Just and Freddi Perry did not include his name in their Seabeck Cemetery burial lists. While working in the cemetery, Fred discovered a simple concrete marker reading “At Rest. 1896–1972,” but its owner was unknown. In 2023, during cemetery restoration work by the SCRP team, the same marker was rediscovered buried near a tree in the Brown family plot. Through research, an SCRP genealogist confirmed that the marker belonged to Lloyd Selby—his obituary noted burial at Seabeck Cemetery, and the birth and death dates matched the inscription. The SCRP team was thrilled to solve the mystery of the unidentified marker and to finally restore Lloyd McKinley Selby’s name to the Seabeck Cemetery burial list.

 

Joseph Seth Selby, (1889-1958)

Headstone GPS Coordinates: 

Birth: 3 April 1889, Byesville or Cambridge,Guernsey County,  Ohio   

Death: 26 April 1958, Portland, Multnomah County, Oregon

Relatives in Seabeck Cemetery: Margaret C. (nee Wilson) Selby, Dempsey Wilson, Margaret Wilson née Woodruff, Mary Bell Selby,  Sarah C. née Wilson Stillwell, Margaret W. (nee Stillwell) Stout , Alice Hite née Wilson, Lloyd Selby

American Revolutionary War Patriots*: Mordecai Selby (Maryland) DAR# A101655, Nicholas Selby (Maryland) DAR# A101659, William Rogers (Maryland)

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

 

Joseph Seth Selby was born on April 3, 1889, in either Byesville or Cambridge, Guernsey County, Ohio, to Stanton Selby and Margaret (Wilson) Selby. He was the fourth of seven children in a working-class family navigating the hardships of America’s industrial heartland at the turn of the century. His father, Stanton, first labored on farms before taking up work as a coal miner—a dangerous yet common occupation in southeastern Ohio, where mining towns dotted the landscape during the late 1800s.

Tragedy struck early in Joseph’s life. In 1899, when he was just ten years old, his father was killed in a mining accident. The rope or cable of the cage that was lowering him into a coal shaft snapped, sending him plunging 120 feet to his death. 

Following Stanton’s death, Joseph’s widowed mother remained in Ohio for a few years before moving her family west around 1906. Like many Americans during this period, the Selbys sought opportunity and kinship in the expanding cities of the Pacific Northwest. They settled in Seattle, Washington, near Joseph’s grandmother Wilson and several of his mother’s relatives. Sadly, shortly after their arrival, Joseph’s fourteen-year-old sister Mary Bell died of diphtheria and heart complications—an all-too-common fate in the era before antibiotics and widespread vaccination.

The surviving family lived in Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood, a growing working-class area. Joseph began working as a building laborer, contributing to the city’s rapid urban expansion. Around 1914, as the timber industry thrived along the Pacific coast, Joseph moved south to Boulder Creek, Santa Cruz County, California, to work as a woodsman. His mother and brothers George and Lloyd followed to the San Francisco Bay Area, where Joseph continued to help support his mother financially.

By 1917, Joseph was employed by the Hilton Lumber Company as a woodsman. That same year, the United States entered World War I, and Joseph registered for the draft. Though he was not immediately called to serve, records show he registered again in July 1918, likely reporting for basic training before the war’s end in November. 

After the war, Joseph remained in California before returning north to Washington in 1919. The 1920 census lists him living in a timber camp near Clear Lake in Skagit County—still working the forests that fueled the region’s growth. That same year, lured by the enduring allure of the North, he headed to Alaska. In May 1920, he boarded a ship for Skagway and crossed into Canada at White Pass, declaring his intent to prospect for gold. Although the great Klondike Gold Rush had peaked two decades earlier, smaller operations and individual prospectors like Joseph continued to seek fortune in the Yukon wilderness.

By 1921, Joseph was living in Fort Selkirk and along the Yukon River, working as a woodchopper and likely supplementing his income through fur trapping and gold prospecting during the long, harsh winters. For the next two decades, he made his home in remote settlements such as Champagne, enduring the isolation and rugged conditions that defined life in the Yukon wilderness.

In 1942, Joseph returned to the United States through Blaine, Washington, and settled in Crosby, where he lived with his brother Lloyd. With World War II underway, the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton was operating at full capacity to meet wartime demands, creating a surge of employment opportunities. Joseph secured a position there as a sailmaker and continued in that role until his retirement in 1954.

Joseph’s younger brother Lloyd moved to Port Gamble to work at the local sawmill, and Joseph went to live with their sister Olive. Following Olive’s passing in 1957, Joseph moved in with his niece before eventually relocating to Portland, Oregon, where he found work as a painter’s helper.

In his final years, Joseph battled lung cancer and was treated intermittently at the veterans’ hospital in Portland. He died on April 26, 1958, at the age of sixty-nine, from bronchopneumonia that had ravaged his already cancerous lungs. His body was taken to Miller-Reynolds Chapel and cremated, and his ashes were placed near his grandparents, Dempsey and Margaret Wilson. Joseph never married and had no children.

Although his obituary did not specify the exact location of his interment, historian Fred Just’s plot map indicates that his remains were placed at his grandmother Margaret Wilson’s grave in Seabeck Cemetery, where no marker was erected.

 

Sophia Scott née Fredel, (1849-1918)

Headstone GPS Coordinates: Burial location unknown. 

Birth: 03 June 1849, Lommaryd, Jönköping, Sweden

Death: 14 March 1918, Coyle, Jefferson County, Washington

Relatives in Seabeck Cemetery: Gustaf Scott

American Revolutionary War Patriots*: None.

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

 

Sophia Susanna Eriksdotter Fredel was born on June 3, 1849, in Lommaryd, Jönköping, Sweden. She was 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, she gained eleven half-siblings, growing up in a large and blended household shaped by both loss and change.

On November 6, 1870, Sophia married Gustaf Emil Adolfsson Skott in Marbäck, Östergötland, Sweden. Gustaf had been born there on August 22, 1841, the second oldest of eight children born to Adolf Mård Pettersson and Maja Christina “Stina” Larsdotter. Together, Sophia and Gustaf began building their family in Marbäck.

Their first five children were all born in Marbäck: 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). During these years, Gustaf traveled alone to the United States and back twice before the family made the decision to immigrate permanently. On August 5, 1881, Sophia departed from the port of Göteborg with her husband and five small children—including a newborn—aboard the SS Romeo. After a stop in Hull, England, they continued on to America, landing in Philadelphia before making their way to Cass County, North Dakota. The journey, both by sea and land, must surely have been arduous with so many young children in her care.

Sophia 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 of those arriving were recent European immigrants. Many lived in sod houses and formed close-knit colonies, including a large Norwegian settlement around Fargo in Cass County. While living there, Sophia gave birth to her sixth child, Edith Mable (1884–1978), in 1884.

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

After seven years in Minnesota, Sophia journeyed west again with her family, arriving in Seattle in 1892. Around this time, her husband became a naturalized United States citizen and the family began using the spelling “Scott” instead of “Skott.”

The family homesteaded near the Norton precinct in Coyle, Jefferson County, on the southern tip of the Toandos Peninsula along Hood Canal. The rural community was then known as “Fisherman’s Harbor,” a fitting name, as Gustaf worked as a fisherman. Residents could travel by mailboat between Seabeck, Coyle, and Brinnon. In 1908, when the first post office was established, the town was renamed Coyle after its first postmaster.

In 1893, Sophia gave birth to her tenth and final child, Otilia Matilda Dorothy “Tillie” (1893–1984), in Coyle. By 1900, six of her 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 family, and how they came to live there remains unclear.

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

In early 1918, the Flu Pandemic began sweeping across the United States and Europe. After eleven days of illness, Sophia died of broncho-pneumonia in Coyle on March 14, 1918, at the age of 68. Two days later she was taken to Seabeck and buried at Seabeck Cemetery.

At the time of her death, she had witnessed her family’s journey from rural Sweden to the American Midwest and finally to the shores of Hood Canal. Though no headstone or grave marker now remains to mark her burial place beside her husband, her life was woven deeply into the early history of the communities where she lived and helped raise a family.