SUICE, SOOS, OR SUISE CREEK?

-

 













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.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Blog contributors love to see your comments!  Whether you read the blog in the email you received or access the blog on the skcgs.org website, you can leave a comment.  Let us know what you think so we can continue to bring you topics you enjoy or find helpful.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Looking for a Needle in a Haystack? GAME CHANGER at FamilySearch

-
Image
Generated with Bing ImageCreator (AI), March 13, 2024 Where is YOUR Needle, Your Missing Record? Genealogical Proof Standard When we use the GPS (Genealogical Proof Standard) as our guide, we all know that "exhaustive research" can be both tedious and exhausting. Is life long enough to search page by page through all the counties where all the members of a family might have lived, paid taxes, bought, leased or sold property, made a will or died intestate? It is possible that the new Full Text Search at FamilySearch will  eventually  allow us to do just that. It has been estimated that 75% or more of the records at FamilySearch were browsable but not searchable; the only indexes those found in the records themselves. Those records are certainly attainable by using those indexes and browsing to the record of interest, but the process is tedious, often frustrating, and slow. And once found, the record must be read and transcribed to be useful. This new Full Text Search tackles a
Read more

What's the Question?

-
Image
We genealogists are often told by experienced researchers how important it is to begin with a research question. I resisted doing this for a long time, but now that I use a series of questions to guide my research, the search is more focused and actually finds more of the history of the family I'm investigating. I use a Google Doc as the  research proceeds, where I keep the question(s), the plan, timelines, checklist of resources to search, etc. all in one place. I've seen others use spreadsheets in the same way, perhaps splitting up things in tabs (Excel or Google Sheets). I prefer a document because I add source citations as I find them and I can begin writing up the case right there in the doc as the hypotheses are proven. Specific Questions in Previous Successes As beginners we often have no clue how much and what details we already know about a person, event or relationship, so it's hard to specify what we want to know. But when looking back at successful research, it
Read more

Help Save This Abused and Neglected Cemetery

-
Image
Screen capture from Google Maps History In an exchange of emails this past week in both the main SKCGS group, and in the Washington-State-Genealogy group, many facts were revealed about the history of the I.O.O.F. Comet Lodge Cemetery, also known as the Old Burying Ground, the Georgetown Cemetery, the Graham Street Burying Ground and maybe more.  FindAGrave sums it up this way: "Since it was established in 1881, the Comet Lodge cemetery site has been whittled away to less than half its original 5 acres. Records are sketchy but it's safe to say that some 500 pioneers were buried here, atop unknown numbers of native Duwamish people. New burials ended in the 1930s. Since then, homes and streets were built on top of many of the plots as the neighborhood around the cemetery grew.  "Upkeep and ownership of the cemetery bounced between the city, civic groups, relatives of Comet Lodge residents, and nearby neighbors. For years, much of the property was allowed to deteriorate int
Read more