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Month: June 2025

The Sunset Heights Plat in Fremont

Posted on by Valarie

In 1871 in Norway, 21-year-old Oline Anrud married Hans Onsum, and the couple set out to start new lives in America.  They touched down briefly in Wisconsin before continuing the westward journey to Seattle in Washington Territory.   

In the 1870s and 1880s the couple spent some time in Seattle, where Hans had a meat market, and some time in rural Snohomish County. Perhaps Seattle’s Great Fire of June 6, 1889, made the couple decide that they would settle in the city where explosive population growth post-Fire, created the best economic opportunities.  The Onsum family with their four children settled in a home on “Madison Heights,” on the hill above downtown Seattle. 

In 1883 Oline’s younger brother Ole Anrud followed the Onsums to the USA with the same pattern of stopping in Wisconsin, before arriving in Seattle.  Ole Anrud worked as a watchmaker until, in 1887, he could afford to get married.  He returned to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, for the wedding.  By June 1887, Ole and his bride, Mathilde, were living in Woodinville near Seattle, as recorded by census enumerator Ira Woodin. 

In 1889 the two couples, Hans & Oline Onsum and Ole & Mathilde Anrud, went in together on a real estate investment on the growing edge of a new community, Fremont.  Fremont, located north of Seattle’s Queen Anne hill, had been organized as a plat in 1888 with lots marked out for houses and businesses. It was outside of the Seattle City Limits at that time and it had been organized with a separate name like a suburb.   Fremont’s total land area was about 212 acres, reaching from the present site of Seattle Pacific University, up to today’s North 39th Street, with Fremont Avenue as the centerline of the community.  

The Anrud & Onsums plat was on undeveloped land on the north side of Fremont from 42nd to 45th Streets.  Their plat, which they named Sunset Heights, was on a high elevation with good views, and with Phinney Avenue at its centerline.  The Anruds & Onsums did not live in Sunset Heights themselves; it seems that it was a real estate investment where they intended to derive income from selling lots.

As of the plat filing in 1889, property owners could give the streets in their plat, any names that they chose.  The original plat map shows that today’s Phinney Avenue was first called Onsum Avenue, and today’s Francis Avenue was called Anrud.  The engineer who surveyed to lay out and measure the lots, was R.H. Thomson, later to become famous for his plan to flatten the hills of Seattle.  The Sunset Heights plat document was notarized by Percy Rochester, an attorney specializing in real estate along with his business partner George Boman who was himself a resident of the Fremont area. 

The Sunset Heights plat was filed with King County on May 6, 1889, and the timing could not have been better.  Just thirty days later, Seattle’s Great Fire knocked down quite a few blocks of the downtown business district but it resulted in a do-over and an economic boom.  People streamed into Seattle to get in on the rebuilding of the city, and those people needed places to live.  In the year following the Fire, more than 400 plats were filed in King County, and property investors like the Onsums & Anruds were able to sell lots for houses.  

As of 1890, the Onsum and Anrud families seemed settled and prosperous in Seattle.  But within the next ten years, both Hans Onsum and Ole Anrud would die, and their widows would be left to find financial resources to finish raising their children. 

At age 42 in 1897, Ole Anrud was bitten by Gold Fever, or perhaps by a desire to see if there would be good investment opportunities in the Yukon.  In June 1898 Ole set out on a small freight steamer, which was swamped in turbulent waters at the mouth of the Kuskokwim River in southwest Alaska. Ole Anrud was one of the eighteen passengers who drowned. 

Less than six months later, Hans Onsum, age 54, succumbed to health problems. 

Oline Onsum with her four children, and Mathilde Anrud with three children, all under age 21, had to find a way to support their families.  Real estate transactions recorded in Seattle newspapers showed that they still could derive income by selling some lots in Sunset Heights.  By the year 1900, Oline had opened her house to boarders as a source of income.  Mathilde took a different route; she returned to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, to live with relatives. 

By the year 1910, Mathilde Anrud’s oldest two children, ages 21 and 17, were working as stenographers for the railroad in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.  Mathilde’s three children, Mildred, Arthur and Helen, eventually all returned to live in the Pacific Northwest where they married and pursued their careers.  Mathilde, who stayed in Wisconsin, died unexpectedly at age 74 in 1938 while on a visit to her daughter Helen, in Blaine, Washington. 

Oline Onsum and her children stayed in Seattle, where all four married and found careers.  Oline died at age 77 in 1927.  

We have the Sunset Heights plat in Fremont to remember the story of these two Norwegian-immigrant families and the impact of historical events including the founding of the Fremont neighborhood, the Seattle Fire and the Yukon Gold Rush.  

Sources: 

Genealogical resources including census; newspaper search. 

House histories: Here is a story of a house in Sunset Heights: 4202 Phinney Ave North.

Plat maps:  King County Parcel Viewer shows the legal description of each house including plat name, and on the right margin of the page is a link to the plat map. 

Sorting out street names: Beginning in 1895, Seattle began to change street names so that there would only be one street with any given name. “Lake,” for example, was used in several places around the city and was the original name of Fremont Avenue. Some other neighborhood got to keep “Lake”. Several more streets in Fremont had their names changed in the early 1900s.

House History: 4202 Phinney Ave North

Posted on by Valarie

Captain Herbert E. Farnsworth made the classic Western migration of a Civil War veteran after the war.  Born in New York State, after the end of the war in 1865, Captain Farnsworth married.  The Farnsworth’s first daughter was born in New York and by the time of the birth of their second daughter in 1871, the family was living in the town of Kidder, Caldwell County, Missouri.  It was a railroad town and Captain Farnsworth, who worked as a carpenter, perhaps was attracted to the growing community where there would be work opportunities. 

By or before 1890, the Farnsworth family moved to tiny Garfield County in the southeasternmost corner of Washington State.  Captain Farnsworth’s name appeared there on the census of Civil War veterans which was done in 1890, for pension applications. 

The Heaton family of New York had also migrated across the USA.  Some of their children were born in Iowa and then finally the Heatons settled in Pomeroy, the county seat of Garfield County, Washington, in 1877.  Mr. Heaton was a millwright, a mechanic who often worked at maintenance of sawmill equipment.  Oscar, the Heaton’s eldest son, went to Seattle in 1890 and graduated with a law degree from the University of Washington.  In 1895 Oscar married Viola, Captain Farnsworth’s eldest daughter.  The couple moved to Seattle where Oscar had a long and successful law practice, and he also became a real estate investor. 

The census of 1900 captured Viola Heaton and her little son, two-year-old Herbert Farnsworth Heaton, on a visit to Viola’s parents in Pomeroy, Garfield County, Washington.  The visit, and the naming of their first grandchild in honor of Captain Farnsworth, seemed to show the closeness of the family.  Ten years later, by the time of the 1910 census, Captain & Mrs. Farnsworth and Viola Farnsworth Heaton were all dead, and twelve-year-old Herbert Heaton was living with his aunt, his mother’s sister, Virginia. 

Viola Heaton’s tragic story involved a “health farm” which later became known as Starvation Heights.  An unqualified “health practitioner” was later convicted of manslaughter after several of the residents, including Viola, died of starvation. 

Oscar & Viola Heaton had been living in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle.  After the death of Viola in 1909, Oscar Heaton made plans to start over again with a new wife, Elma, and a new house, so that he could have a place for his son Herbert to live with him. Oscar married Elma in 1910 and built a new house at 4202 Phinney Avenue North.  Oscar & Elma lived in the house for about ten more years and had two children together.  Oscar’s eldest son Herbert became a successful traffic engineer for the City of Los Angeles. 

The house at 4202 Phinney is two-stories with good views out over its western and southern sides. The house has Austrian Alpine or Swiss Chalet design elements including a wide roof overhang, river rock cladding and a river rock fireplace.  Decorative elements include tulip leaded-glass windows and archways between rooms. 

Subsequent owners of the house at 4202 Phinney modified it into an apartment building with four units.  Current residents of the apartments include the owners, and they love the charming design of the building and its convenient location in the Fremont neighborhood. 

Sources: 

Genealogical info including census and Find A Grave. 

Seattle Department of Neighborhoods, Historic Sites Index; description of the house at 4202 Phinney Avenue North.  Search the index under the address of the house, or choose neighborhood search “Fremont” to see all the listings.

Starvation Heights, by Gregg Olsen, 2005. Seattle Public Library 364.1523.

Fremont’s Pocket Desert

Posted on by Valarie

In Fremont, our neighborhood known for its eccentricity, a small mystery has been hiding in plain sight. The Fremont Neighbor blog has written the following inquiry:

“On the grounds of what is now the Fremont Foundry event venue, 154 North 35th Street, sits a modest postcard-sized plaque reading simply “Fremont Pocket Desert.” No one seems to know its origin story.

The plaque’s location is particularly intriguing given the property’s colorful history. This is where sculptor Peter Bevis, the same visionary who brought us the Lenin statue, once pursued his dream of creating an artists’ community.

Bevis, who died in 2015, was a passionate sculptor who used money earned from commercial fishing in Alaska to slowly build the Fremont Fine Arts Foundry starting in 1979. By 1987, the nearly 22,000-square-foot building housed 11 live-in spaces where artists could work. Back then, Fremont called itself an “Artists’ Republic,” and Bevis believed he could create a true artistic mecca.

But like many of Bevis’ ambitious projects, including his doomed quest to save the art deco ferry Kalakala, the artists’ community eventually faded. By 2012, as tech companies moved into Fremont and the neighborhood’s bohemian character shifted, Bevis sold the foundry for $2.1 million. Currently the building serves as an upscale event venue.

So where does the “Fremont Pocket Desert” plaque fit into this story? Was it one of Bevis’ artistic statements? A remnant from the building’s days as a working foundry? An inside joke among the artists who once lived there?

The plaque’s cryptic message feels entirely in keeping with both Bevis’ unconventional spirit and Fremont’s tradition of playful installations.”

Do you know the story behind Fremont’s “Pocket Desert” plaque? If you have any information about this small but intriguing piece of Fremont history, please reach out to the Fremont Neighbor blog: Home – Fremont Neighbor

House History: 1109 North 47th Street

Posted on by Valarie

This house was built in 1909 for an estimated construction cost of $1,350, according to the building permit. The builder was Albert J. Carr, a contractor who lived in Wallingford. He was known for building houses throughout the University District, Wallingford and Fremont neighborhoods.

The house is a “plan book” design in Craftsman Bungalow style. The plan-book house could be built by a contractor without the use of an architect, and the construction was done by skilled craftsmen such as carpenters, masons and woodworkers.

Craftsman-style design elements of this house include the low-pitched roof with multiple roof brackets and with barge boards on the eaves. The gable ends of this house are clad with stucco and with faux half-timbers, a decorative treatment. The diamond-pattern sash window on the main gable end adds another decorative touch. The prominent projecting entry porch with its gable roof is a characteristic Craftsman house design feature.

The first owner of the house was Mary Hagerty, a 53-year-old widow with her seven children, ranging in age from 16 to 29. Nowadays it is hard to imagine how this many people could live in a two-bedroom, one-bathroom house, but it is apparent that the Hagerty family members were all “pulling together” to make a living. The children of Mary Hagerty all had jobs, including the four daughters who were all schoolteachers.

The Hagerty family had only recently come to live in Seattle. We don’t know why they chose to live in this location in the Fremont neighborhood, but it may have had to do with convenience for traveling to work. One of the daughters was specifically mentioned on the census of 1910 as a teacher at Green Lake Elementary School, and that would have been accessible via streetcar from the Hagerty house in Fremont. The eldest Hagerty son, John, was a railroad worker and perhaps it was with this employment that the whole family decided to move to Seattle from Nebraska.

Mary Hagerty, born in Ireland in 1856, had immigrated to the USA at age fourteen in 1870. In 1879 in Nebraska, she married Patrick Hagerty who was also an immigrant from Ireland. He was twelve years older than Mary and had fought in the American Civil War in a cavalry unit from Minnesota. After the war Patrick Hagerty received a veteran’s land grant in O’Neill, Holt County, Nebraska.

All of the Hagerty children were born in Nebraska, the last in 1894 which was the year that Patrick Hagerty died at age 50. Mary Hagerty applied for her husband’s Civil War pension. After about twelve more years, we presume that Mary must have sold the 320 acres of land they owned in Nebraska, in order to move her family to Seattle and buy the house at 1109 North 47th Street.

The Hagertys only lived at this house a short time, which is understandable since her children were adults and were beginning to make their own way. By 1915 Mary Hagerty was living at 5115 Wallingford Avenue, with just three of her children: one daughter who was a schoolteacher, and Mary’s two youngest sons Paul & Eugene.

By 1930 Mary’s eldest daughter, Nellie, age 49, was living in Wrangell, Alaska, where she was principal of a public school. In April 1930 Mary’s youngest child, Eugene, age 36, was married in Seattle. Mary died in December 1930 at age 74.

Sources:

Bureau of Land Management-homestead land claims of Patrick Hagerty, Nebraska.

City of Seattle Historic Resources Inventory.

City of Seattle building permit #71790.

Genealogical records including census, city directories, Civil War pension records and Find A Grave. Patrick Hagerty’s Find A Grave record ID #169992361.