SUICE, SOOS, OR SUISE CREEK?

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SUICE, SOOS, OR SUISE CREEK? 

 EARLY IMMIGRANTS 

AND THEIR STORIES






The Cemetery

In 1988, Louise (Melin) Merritt began gathering records of those buried in the Suise Creek Cemetery in preparation for publication of an Obituary Book in cooperation with the South King County Genealogical Society. “The cemetery was originally located above Suise Creek on SE 240th”[1] “In 1903, bodies were moved by horse and wagon from the old to the new burial grounds . . ..” located at SE 256th and 132nd Ave SE.[2]

“A few years later some sort of a dispute arose between the Finns and the other Scandinavians, and henceforth most of the Swedes and Norwegians took their business elsewhere. They are predominately buried in the old Meridian Cemetery or the Hillcrest Cemetery in Kent, Washington”[3]


Finnish Immigrants

As the project progressed, Mrs. Merritt decided to compile a history of the immigrants to the Suise Creek plateau around 1900. This book focuses on the Finnish immigrants and is a useful companion to Morris Skagen’s “History of the Soos Creek Plateau from 1860 – 1960” which includes Norwegians and Swedes who settled west of the Finns on the plateau.


Family History Information

More than eighty-five families are profiled in varying detail. Many of the family profiles include the location in Finland from which the ancestors immigrated, their place of birth, and in a few cases their immigration route. The profiles include the names of children, their dates of birth and death and their burial locations. There are many family pictures. Unfortunately, the technology used to reproduce them for this book was primitive. A number of the immigrants originally came to work in the mines near Franklin until they had saved enough money to buy land. The rocky soil of the plateau was not well suited to raising crops, so the settlers operated dairy farms, raised beef, or planted orchards, berries, raised chickens, or a combination of all these activities.



Early Residents' Stories

The stories of early life on the plateau written by descendants of the settlers are fascinating to those of us who have lived on the plateau in the present. It is hard to imagine timber so thick that a wagon could not be driven through it, and herds of moose around the present Lake Meridian.


News Stories

The final section of the book contains stories from local news media about life on the plateau and mining in Franklin, Black Diamond and as far away as Renton and Newcastle.



Where You Can Read This Book

Early Suise Creek Immigrants is available at the Auburn, Bellevue, Covington, Kent, and Maple Valley branches of the King County Library System. It may be “in library use only” at some locations. A used copy was available on Amazon on August 14, 2021.


Recommendation

This book is recommended for those studying the history of western Washington state, those who are studying the family history of early Finnish settlers on the Suise Creek plateau, and those who now live there.



Barbara Mattoon


[1] Louise (Melin) Merritt, Early Suise Creek Immigrants, [no publication information], p. 162.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.


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