Thomas Butcher, 1879-1879

Headstone GPS Coordinates: 

Birth: 1879, Seabeck, Kitsap County, Washington

Death: 1879, Seabeck, Kitsap County, Washington

Relatives in Seabeck Cemetery: Thomas Henry Butcher

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Thomas Butcher was born in 1879 in Seabeck, Washington Territory, the youngest child of Thomas Henry Butcher and Christina (Veitch) Butcher. 

Thomas’s parents were long-time residents of Seabeck. His father, an English immigrant born around 1839, had worked as a blacksmith and later as a mill laborer at the Seabeck Mill, while his mother, Christina Veitch, had come to British Columbia from Scotland as a child with her family. By 1879, Thomas and Christina were raising a large family that included older siblings Jane, Isabella, Fred, Aimee, May, and Grace, known as “Bessie.”

Infant Thomas lived only one month. According to notes later compiled by historian Fred Just, the child’s brief life ended in 1879, and he was buried in Seabeck Cemetery. No surviving marker identifies his grave, and the precise location of his burial is unknown.

His death coincided with a rapid deterioration in his father’s mental health. On June 9, 1879, shortly after the infant’s death, Thomas Henry Butcher was committed to the Territorial Insane Asylum in Steilacoom, as recorded in Jacob Hauptly’s diary. The loss of the child and the institutionalization of his father marked a turning point for the family.