Jacob Hagen, 1905-1907

Headstone GPS Coordinates: Burial location in cemetery is unknown.

Birth: 1905, Seabeck, Kitsap County, Washington

Death: poss. 1907, Seabeck, Kitsap County, Washington

Relatives in Seabeck Cemetery: Petra Inga Hagen, Infant Girl Hagen

American Revolutionary War Patriots*: None

On September 5, 1902, two Norwegian brothers—Anders Mathias Torstensen Kvalheim and Peder Martin Torstensen—sailed from Bergen, Norway aboard the ship Allan, accompanied by their wives and young children. After arriving in America, both families adopted the surname Hagen and settled in the Pacific Northwest, making their home in Seabeck, Washington. Among the children whose lives would become part of Seabeck’s early immigrant history was Jacob Hagen.

Jacob Hagen was born in Seabeck in 1905 to Peder Martin Torstensen and his wife Karen Jacobsdatter Vange, who were then known as Peter and Karen Hagen. He was their third son. Tragically, Jacob’s life was short. Two or three years after his birth around 1907, he died of pneumonia. Although no official record of his birth or death has been located, Jacob’s existence is confirmed through family memory. His eldest brother, Ingvald Hagen (1901–2001), later told Seabeck historians about his little brother who was buried in Seabeck Cemetery, likely near other young relatives.

Jacob’s brief life was not the only childhood loss endured by the Hagen families. His cousin, Petra Inga Hagen, daughter of Anders Mathias Torstensen Kvalheim and Pernille Karine Hansdatter Kvalheim—known in America as Andrew and Pernille Hagen—had arrived from Norway as a toddler. Petra was born on March 1, 1901, in Selje, Sogn og Fjordane, Norway, and baptized on April 8, 1901. On July 24, 1905, at just four years old, she died at the family home in Seabeck from what was described as “brain fever,” likely encephalitis or meningitis. Her death notice in the Seattle Daily Times mistakenly identified her as a boy named Peter, but emigration and baptism records confirm that the child was a girl. Petra Inga Hagen was buried in Seabeck Cemetery in an unmarked location.

Andrew and Pernille Hagen eventually moved to Marysville, Washington, where they raised the rest of their family. Peter and Karen Hagen, Jacob’s parents, remained in Seabeck with their children. Other siblings of Andrew and Peter also emigrated from Norway and settled primarily in the Tacoma area.

Special note: Despite the shared surname, Peter Hagen of Norway is not the namesake of Peter Hagen Road. The road honors Percy “Pete” D. Hagen (1899–1978), originally from Pennsylvania, who lived at the end of the road and served several terms as president of the Crosby Community Club in the 1940s.