Thomas Henry Butcher, 1839 – 1883

 

Headstone GPS Coordinates: Location in the cemetery is unknown

Birth: 1839, England

Death: 21 April 1883, Seabeck, Kitsap County, Washington

Relatives in Seabeck Cemetery: Thomas Butcher (infant)

American Revolutionary War Patriots*: None

 

Thomas Henry Butcher was born around 1839 in England. Little is currently known about his parents or early life. Sometime between his birth and his marriage in 1862, he immigrated to Victoria, British Columbia, where he met Christina Veitch. Christina had emigrated from Scotland as a child with her parents; her father was an early employee of the Hudson’s Bay Company in Victoria.

Thomas was twenty-three and Christina only sixteen when they married in 1862. The couple initially settled in Victoria, where their first two children were born: Jane in 1864 and Isabella in 1868.

Later in 1868, the family moved south into the Washington Territory and settled in Seabeck. There, their family continued to grow with the birth of a son, Fred, in 1869, followed by three daughters: Aimee (1872), May (1874), and Grace, known as “Bessie,” in 1878.

Thomas supported his growing family through skilled labor. In 1870 he worked as a blacksmith, and from 1871 to 1876 he was employed at the Seabeck Mill, earning $85 per month. Despite this stability, the years that followed brought increasing hardship. According to historian Fred Just’s notes, Thomas and Christina had another son in 1879, whom they named Thomas; the child lived only one month and was buried in Seabeck Cemetery.

By that same year, Thomas’s mental health had deteriorated significantly. On June 9, 1879, he was committed to the Territorial Insane Asylum in Steilacoom, an event recorded in Jacob Hauptly’s diary:

“Mr. Thomas H. Butcher was sent off this morning to the Territorial Insane Asylum.”

The 1880 census shows Christina living in Port Orchard with her children, where she appears to have managed a boarding house. Listed as head of household, she lived with five of her children, a servant, five white men employed as loggers, sailors, or laborers, and three Chinese laborers. Christina was recorded as a widow who “kept house,” though Thomas was still living at the asylum.

In 1883, Thomas returned to Seabeck to rejoin his family, but his health was severely compromised. He died in April of that year. Jacob Hauptly recorded his death and the community’s response:

 “April 21, 1883: Mr. Thos. Butcher died this morn. I went around with subscription paper and raised about $150 for the Butcher Family. Funeral of butcher evening of 22nd at 5:30 o’clock. Craig read a prayer. Large turnout. A little sprinkle while at grave.”
The following day, Hauptly noted that the total collected for the family amounted to $184.25.

After Thomas’s death, Christina and her children remained in Seabeck for several more years before eventually relocating to Port Townsend.

Neither Thomas Butcher nor his infant son has a surviving grave marker, and their exact burial locations within Seabeck Cemetery are unknown.