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.”