Elizabeth “Eliza” Lewis (née Fenn), 1833-1913
Headstone GPS Coordinates:
Birth: 16 January 1833, Manningtree, Essex, England, United Kingdom
Death: 10 February 1913, Crosby, Kitsap County, Washington
Relatives in Seabeck Cemetery: Henry Lewis
American Revolutionary War Patriots*: None
Elizabeth “Eliza” Lewis (née Fenn) was born on January 16, 1833, in Manningtree, Essex, England. Her father was John Fenn of Woodbridge. There are conflicting records regarding the identity of Eliza’s mother.
In the book Thomas and Agatha: Kitsap County Pioneers, written in 1986 by a Lewis family descendant, Eliza’s mother is identified as Mary Ann Howard. However, the book’s citations list only Eliza’s father and do not name her mother. On Eliza’s death certificate, her son Thomas—who lived with his grandparents for a time—listed her mother as “Eliza Fenn.” A baptismal record dated January 22, 1833, from St. Michael and All Angels Church in Manningtree lists Eliza Fenn as the daughter of John Fenn and Elizabeth Fenn, and census records support this information. Based on this evidence, Eliza’s mother was very likely Elizabeth Fenn (maiden name unknown), who was born in Woodbridge, Suffolk County, England, around 1811.
On August 7, 1856, at the age of twenty-three, Eliza married Alfred King Lewis in Hackney, London, England. Alfred was a widower with a young daughter, Caroline, and worked as a shipwright for the Royal Navy, which frequently took him to sea. On April 9, 1857, Eliza and Alfred had a son, Thomas John Lewis. When Thomas was about two years old, Alfred died of a fever while at sea near China. It is unclear whether Thomas ever met his father.
By 1861, Eliza had sent young Thomas to live with her parents in Woodbridge while she worked as a servant in the household of Joseph Miles in Middlesex. On January 2, 1864, Eliza married her second husband, Walter Frederick Newton. According to Thomas and Agatha: Kitsap County Pioneers, Thomas and Walter did not get along. When Thomas was fourteen, he ran away from home and stowed away on a British merchant ship. By the time he was discovered, the vessel was too far out to sea to turn back, and Thomas was assigned work as a cabin boy for the captain and senior officers.
Life at sea did not suit Thomas. He reportedly attempted to jump ship in both Panama and the Hawaiian Islands, without success. In 1871, when the ship docked in San Francisco, Thomas managed to sneak ashore and hide. He worked various jobs on the San Francisco docks, eventually meeting Irish native Francis Xavier Olanie and his young daughter, Agatha Marie. Thomas and Agatha married in 1880, and in 1881 they sailed for Washington Territory, where they would eventually homestead in Seabeck and raise their family.
Before Thomas ran away, Eliza had two sons with Walter Newton: Frederick William Newton, born in 1864, and George Newton, born in 1866. Sometime between 1866 and 1871, Walter likely died. By 1871, Eliza had married James Blaker, a shipwright. The 1881 census shows Frederick and George Newton living in the Blaker household alongside Eliza and her children with James: James Blaker (born 1871) and William Blaker (born 1872). Eliza also had a daughter, Louisa Eliza Blaker, born in 1874, who lived only six months.
Also listed in the 1881 household was Eliza’s seventy-year-old mother, Elizabeth Fenn, who was widowed by that time; John Fenn had died in 1877. In September 1883, James Blaker died in London. Eliza’s mother, Elizabeth Fenn, passed away in 1888.
In 1890, Eliza left England for the United States and arrived in Seabeck, Washington, to live with her son Thomas, his wife Agatha, and their children. Eliza’s youngest son, William Blaker, also traveled to Seabeck, but tragedy soon followed. According to family accounts, William was a sailor who joined a ship carrying lumber to San Francisco. Thomas warned his younger half-brother not to go, believing the ship was overloaded, but William went anyway. The vessel never reached San Francisco, and William died with the rest of the crew in 1891.
On November 22, 1891, Agatha Lewis gave birth to a premature baby. Eliza placed the infant near the fireplace to keep him warm, and the child survived. Eliza was credited with saving his life and named him William, after her late son.
On August 13, 1894, Eliza married William Burn in Seattle, Washington. William owned large tracts of land in what is now Hintzville, though little additional information about him has been found.
By the 1910 census, Eliza was once again living with Thomas and Agatha and their younger children. She was listed as “Eliza Lewis,” marked as “married,” with the number “4” indicating she had been married four times. She may have been living with Thomas and Agatha in 1906 when their house burned down, destroying some of the finer possessions she had brought with her from England.
Eliza died at the age of eighty on February 10, 1913, in Crosby, Washington. On her death certificate, completed by Thomas Lewis, she is listed as “Mrs. Eliza Lewis” and a “widow.” Her headstone reads: “Grandmother; Elizabeth Lewis; BORN Jan. 16, 1833 — DIED Feb. 10, 1913.” She was buried in Seabeck next to her grandson Henry Lewis, the son of Thomas and Agatha, who was born February 5, 1882 then died a day later.
The late historian Fred Just knew Francis “Frank” Xavier Lewis, son of Thomas and Agatha, who lived from 1896 to 1980 in Kitsap County. Frank installed a cement border around his brother’s and grandmother’s graves and carved his initials into it. Frank told Fred that the tree surrounding Henry’s headstone did not grow naturally around it; instead, Francis cut a slot into the tree and placed Henry’s stone there himself.