William Card Pierce, 1858-1926
Headstone GPS Coordinates:
Birth: 3 Mar 1858, Roulette, Potter County, Pennsylvania
Death: 1 Apr 1926, Seabeck, Kitsap County, Washington
Relatives in Seabeck Cemetery: None.
American Revolutionary War Patriots*: Samuel Palmer (Vermont), Jacob Hall (New York) Capt. Isaac Hall (Connecticut) A049649, Stephen Cummings (Vermont)
Disclaimer: These lines have not been officially proven by NSDAR standards.
William Pierce Card was born on March 3, 1858 in Roulette, Potter County, Pennsylvania. He was the son of Abel C. Card (1829-1862) and Amanda Delia Clark, and he was the second born of their four children.
William’s father, Abel, worked as a farmer before the family moved to Lima, Pepin County, Wisconsin, around the eve of the Civil War in 1861. Originally settled by Irish and English immigrants, this area attracted settlers looking for a vibrant farming community. However, Abel didn’t have much time to start his farm. He enlisted as a private in the Union Army’s 53rd Infantry, Company G of Pennsylvania Volunteers in October 1861. Within a month he had moved with his men to Washington DC, then crossed the Potomac River into Alexandria, where they joined the newly formed Army of the Potomac. By the beginning of July 1862, the 53rd had participated in the Battle of Fair Oaks, the Seven Days Battles, the Battle of Savage’s Station, and the Battle of Malvern Hill, all located in Virginia.
Following these battles, the 53rd camped near Harrison’s Landing on the James River. It was here that Abel entered the Regimental hospital for chronic diarrhea, caused by poor living conditions and contaminated water, which by the end of the Civil War had accounted for the death of over 50,000 soldiers. Sadly, one of those casualties was Abel, who died on July 31, 1862 when he was 32 years old. Originally buried at Harrison’s Landing, Virginia, he was later moved to Glendale National Cemetery in Henrico County, Virginia.
William was just four years old when his father died. His mother, Amanda, widowed with four small children to care for and the youngest just nine months old, may have supported the family by selling off parcels of their land and obtaining a pension from her husband’s service. She married again in 1870 to farmer and Civil War veteran Henry A. Darrow (1831-1904). He brought two daughters with him to the marriage, and he and Amanda had one child together, a son named Burton “Bertie” Darrow (1871-1881). The family settled in Grant, Dunn County, Wisconsin.
Serious charges were brought against Henry in 1872, when a United States Pension Agent in La Crosse, Wisconsin received information that pension money, which was earned through Abel’s service and meant for his sons William and Daniel, had been used to pay for Henry’s debts. The pension money was meant to take care of the children, but Henry was accused of not only misusing the funds, but concurrently “driving the children from his home…leaving the children without suitable clothing and the privilege of attending school.” At the time, William would have been just thirteen years old. The accusation was investigated by a judge in Dunn County, and it was determined that while Henry had borrowed money from the pension without permission from Amanda, he had already paid it back, with interest. While Daniel was still living at home, William apparently was not, although it’s unclear where or with whom he was living at the time. Henry’s defense claimed that William “had been poorly advised by outside parties and had become unmanageable.”
By 1875, at the age of seventeen, William was living on his own in Douglas, Marquette County, Wisconsin. Neenah Creek runs through the center of Douglas, and William may have worked at one of the many mills in the area. The nearby Wisconsin Central Railroad, completed in 1870, passed through the western side of Marquette County, leading to an increase in industries, factories and settlements.
William married Clarinda L. “Clara” Horton (1858-1951) on July 2, 1879 in Chippewa Falls, Chippewa County, Wisconsin. She was the daughter of David Almeron Horton (1816-1895) and Cornelia Babcock (1819-1911), and similar to William she had been born in Potter County, Pennsylvania.
A few months after their marriage, William and Clara welcome their first child, a daughter named Adelaide Bell “Addie” Card (1879-1930). The following year, the family moved to Sand Creek, Dunn County, Wisconsin, not far from his mother and stepfather, where William was working as a farmer. Sadly, one year later, William’s half brother, Bertie, died at just ten years old.
William and his family appear to have moved around quite frequently over the next decade. Their daughter Grace was born in 1883 in Star Prairie, St Croix County, Wisconsin, followed by their son William Almarian Card in 1886 in Rhinelander, Oneida County, Wisconsin. Their last three children, Henry Horton Card in 1889, Charles Reuben Card in 1891, and Victor Ira Card in 1885, were all born in Minocqua, Oneida County, Wisconsin.
By 1900, the family was living in Akeley, Hubbard County, Minnesota, where William was working as a carpenter. At the time, Akeley was home to the Red River Lumber Company, and the town saw development skyrocket in 1902 when a sawmill was built. Between the lumber mill, sawmill and a train depot built in 1889, Akeley quickly turned into a boomtown and the mill became the largest in the state. The town was also the “birthplace” of mythical folk hero Paul Bunyan.
Once again, the Card family didn’t settle here for long. Around 1905 they moved to Harpster, Idaho County, Idaho, and by 1910 they were living in nearby Elk City, a remote and mountainous quartz mining town. William, Clara and their youngest son Victor lived in this isolated town located deep in the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest, where William worked as a farmer. William and Clara’s son, Henry, was living in Lewiston, Idaho with his wife when he died unexpectedly in 1918 at the age of 28 following surgery from appendicitis. The sudden death of their young son must have been profoundly difficult for William and Clara.
At the time of Henry’s passing, William and Clara were living on their own in Clarkston, Asotin County, Washington, where William was a 60 year-old fruit farmer. Named after William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Clarkston is known for its agriculture,
especially its fruit farms located along the Snake River, and it is the easternmost port in Washington.
It’s unclear when exactly William and Clara moved to Seabeck, but it would have most likely been around 1921. Seabeck, once a thriving lumber mill town, had been a ghost town for decades. In 1915, acreage was purchased by a former lumberman named Jim Coleman, who transformed the site into a retreat center for families, which is now the present-day Seabeck Conference Center. Never one to hesitate on a new venture, it could have been the potential rewards of an early start in a future resort town that drew William to the area, where he worked as a carpenter.
William died on April 1, 1926 in Seabeck at the age of 68 years old. He died of angina pectoris, often associated with coronary artery disease, and arteriosclerosis, which is associated with heart attacks and strokes. He was buried on April 6th at Seabeck Cemetery. While the location of his burial within the cemetery is known and confirmed, no headstone exists to mark his grave.