William C. McDonough, 1856-1888

Headstone GPS Coordinates:

Birth: 1856, Massachusetts

Death: 30 Oct 1888, Washington, USA

Relatives in Seabeck Cemetery: Ann Clements (née Donahue)

American Revolutionary War Patriots*: None

William C. McDonough was born around 1856 in Massachusetts. His father’s first name is unknown, but he was born in Ireland. William’s mother was named Ann Clements who was born in Maine to her English father John Clements and her Irish mother Ann Crawford. 

In 1860, William and his mother were living in his Clements grandparent’s household along with his young aunts and uncles. In 1868, his mother died at the age of thirty-two in Portland, Maine. By 1870, William was living with his aunt Deborah (Clements) Gaffany and her husband Patrick and their children in Machias, Maine. 

In 1880 when William was twenty-four, he had moved out to Dosewallips, Jefferson County in Washington to work in a logging camp. He likely traveled to the Washington Territory with his uncle John Clements and his wife Ann along with their family. His uncle Samuel Clements and wife Mary and their children had also made the trip and settled in Dosewallips.  Unfortunately that same year in 1880, William’s aunt Ann Clements died, and was buried in Seabeck Cemetery.

In 1885, William was living as a single man in Mason County working as a logger. On October 30, 1888 when he was thirty-two years old (the same age as his mother), he died from unknown reasons. He was buried near his aunt Ann Clements with a similar upright, marble obelisk headstone.