Mary H. Crafts née Johnson, 1859/1861- 1915
Headstone GPS Coordinates:
Birth: Between 1859-1861, Sweden
Death: 18 May 1915, Seattle, King County, Washington
Relatives in Seabeck Cemetery: Thomas Crafts, possibly Charles Borden
American Revolutionary War Patriots*:None.
Disclaimer: These lines have not been officially proven by NSDAR standards.
Mary H. Crafts née Johnson was born in Sweden between 1859 and 1861 to Johan Johnson and Mary Enstrom (her mother’s maiden name is uncertain). At about twenty-one years old, she immigrated to the United States in 1882, beginning a life that would span multiple marriages and regions before ending in Washington State.
On October 15, 1892, Mary married Charles Borden in Worcester, Massachusetts. Charles was a widower at the time, having recently lost his first wife, Sarah, and was the father of five sons. According to the 1900 census, the three youngest boys were living with their maternal grandparents, while Charles and Mary boarded in Worcester, where Charles worked as a meat clerk.
Around 1909, Mary and Charles relocated to the Crosby area of Kitsap County, Washington. Charles purchased eighty acres of land there, adjacent to property owned by Thomas Harndin Crafts. The 1910 census records Charles working as a retail store salesman, while Mary was employed as a private family cook.
In 1912, Mary was widowed when Charles died of pulmonary tuberculosis. His remains were cremated in Seattle, though the final resting place of his ashes is uncertain; they may have been interred in Seabeck Cemetery.
Two years later, on May 24, 1914, Mary married Thomas Harndin Crafts in King County, Washington. Thomas had been born on November 6, 1855, in Alexander, Washington County, Maine, to Hiram A. Crafts and Esther L. Spearin, and was the eldest of eight children. His family traced its lineage to early New England settlers, including Mayflower passengers Francis Cooke and Isaac Allerton. Thomas had spent his early life farming in Maine before moving to Kitsap County at age twenty-nine, working at the Seabeck mill and later acquiring 120 acres of land in the Crosby area.
Mary’s marriage to Thomas proved tragically brief. Less than a year later, she was admitted to Providence Hospital in Seattle for a hysterectomy due to uterine cancer. She died from shock following the surgery on May 18, 1915, at approximately fifty-two years of age. In her will, Mary left her entire estate to Thomas, including 120 shares in the Kitsap County Oil Development Company of Bremerton.
Thomas survived Mary by only a few years. His exact date of death is unknown, but he is believed to have died in December 1918 at age sixty-three, likely in Crosby, Washington. In his will, he left his property and estate to his brother William Crafts of Alexander, Maine, and bequeathed money and shares in the Kitsap Oil Development Company and the Cooke Mining and Reduction Company—assets originally associated with Charles Borden and later Mary—to his other siblings in Maine.
Mary and Thomas were laid to rest together in Seabeck Cemetery. Their marriage produced no children.