Sarah Moran (née Cartwright), (1857-1882)
Headstone GPS Coordinates: Burial location unknown.
Birth: 05 February 1857, Worcestershire, England.
Death: 18 July 1882, Bangor, Kitsap County, Washington
Relatives in Seabeck Cemetery: Infant Girl Moran
American Revolutionary War Patriots*: None
Sarah Cartwright was born on February 5, 1857, in Worcestershire, England. Little is known about her early life: her parents’ names remain unrecorded, and no details survive regarding how, when, or with whom she emigrated from England. By the mid-1870s, however, Sarah had made her way to the Washington Territory—likely to Union City (now Union)—where she worked as a schoolteacher. It was there that she met Thomas “Tommy” Moran, a young lumberman whose work placed him squarely within the booming timber economy that was transforming the Pacific Northwest at the time.
The couple traveled to Victoria, British Columbia, where they were married on May 31, 1877. They established their first home in the old Webb House, originally built by Thomas Webb near the river north of the present bridge, in what was then a large orchard. Their first two sons were born on the farm: John William “Pat” Moran on April 2, 1878, and Thomas Cartwright Moran on August 21,1879.
Sometime during 1880, the Morans relocated to the small settlement of Three Spits in Kitsap County, north of Seabeck on Hood Canal. [Special note: Three Spits was located on the site of present-day Bangor Naval Base, near Silverdale, WA.] Like many new communities along Puget Sound, Three Spits grew around the logging industry, and Tommy continued his work as a lumberman. Their third son, Arthur Garfield Moran, was born there on November 25, 1880. Travel between Union City and Three Spits at that time was difficult. Hood Canal separated the two settlements, and although the distance by water was only about 15–25 miles, the overland route was far longer and obstructed by dense forests, steep terrain, and limited roadways. In the early territorial era, maritime travel was the lifeline of the region, and residents relied on sailboats, steamers, and canoes to move people and goods throughout Puget Sound.
Tragedy struck on July 18, 1882, when Sarah died giving birth to a daughter who also did not survive. Her body, and presumably her infant daughter’s body, were taken by sloop from Three Spits to Seabeck the following day. Sarah and her daughter were buried in Seabeck Cemetery at 10:30 a.m. on July 20, 1882 by Jacob Hauptly, who was the cemetery’s caretaker.
Soon after Sarah’s death, her husband Thomas moved to Shelton, where he settled, remarried, and raised his family. Thomas died on January 10, 1915, and was buried in Shelton Memorial Park.
What is unusual is that there is a headstone next to Thomas’s for Sarah that reads: “In Remembrance Of: Sarah, wife of Thomas Moran, born Feb. 5, 1857, died July 18, 1882.” The SCRP team presumed that Sarah’s remains may have been exhumed from Seabeck at some point and reinterred in Shelton so her family could visit her. However, Shelton Memorial’s records contain no evidence that Sarah was ever interred there.
The plot in which Thomas is buried was not purchased until February 5, 1911, nearly three decades after Sarah’s death. The first burial in that plot occurred on February 15, 1911, and was an infant grandchild born to their son, John William “Pat” Moran, and his wife, Ella.
It remains a mystery whether Sarah’s marker was originally placed at her grave in Seabeck and later moved to Shelton to be near Thomas, or whether it was created later as a memorial tribute rather than as a marker for an actual burial.