The Miner Family home once on Cemetery Road near the 10300 block. Frank and Clara (variously listed as Clarissa and Cloussia) arranged the sale of the first acreage for the cemetery. Their daughter, Ella, was the first white child born on the island.
Block 1, NE

The burial of Lucy Gerand (born in 1836) seemingly the longest surviving Native American resident of Vashon-Maury and a Puyallup Elder who lived for part of her life in the S'Homamish village on Quartermaster Harbor-- where, in 1852, there were reportedly 40 Native resident individuals-- received long overdue recognition in 2008 when her unmarked grave was finally marked and a ceremony held attended by Puyallup Tribe and Cemetery Board officials and interested public. Gerand was integral in shedding light on Native culture on Vashon Maury specifically. She was interviewed in the 1920s and testified in a 1927 Native claims case. Block 1, W

Not surprisingly, the most imposing obelisk is the marker of a doctor but one whom lived on the island only twelve years. Doctor Simon Linton arrived on Vashon in 1904. He was born in Fort William, Scotland circa 1856 and graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1877. He sailed to India as a ship's surgeon and volunteered for service in the Boer War. Following recuperation from malaria and typhoid fever, he resumed practice in England in 1903. Divorced from his wife Margaret in 1901, Linton and his sons left Europe and made their home in Burton until Dr Linton died from a heart attack while driving home in his Ford, following an obstetrical delivery on Vashon in 1916. His two sons (Robert and James) both graduated from the University of Washington and Harvard and were also doctors.
Block 2, SW

A tall Doug fir rises up snug to the Van Olinda marker of Oliver and his wife Ida (too snugly in fact). Author of the first published history of Vashon-Maury, History of Vashon-Maury Islands, (1935) Oliver Van Olinda maintained numerous enterprises from reporting, running a wireless office, and taking hundreds of documentary photographs, throughout his time in the Puget Sound area as well as serving as Historian of the Vashon-Maury Pioneer Society for 18 years. Born in Illinois on Christmas Day 1868, he came to Vashon in 1891. He and his father, who also later settled here, (Civil War vet Elmer) ran several newspapers here and in Stanwood, and Oliver also maintained a house on Whidbey Island. Please see the extensive holdings of his papers and amazing photos at the University of Washington at: https://content.lib.washington.edu/vanolindaweb/index.ht ml.

Block 2, NW

The Shermans, Salmon and Eliza (born 1836, NY and 1846, WI) arrived on Vashon in 1877. With them came their relatives the Prices and the Gilmans. All three families were the first permanent white settlers on Vashon. Salmon was a Civil War vet, a blacksmith in Tacoma while establishing his Vashon homestead and sawmill, commuted by rowboat, then by his sailboat “Black Joe,” then a steamboat “The Swan.” The Shermans made their home at the head of Inner Quartermaster Harbor where, today, eight generations of the Sherman descendants still reside
Block 3, NE

Thomas McNair filed his claim on his 160-acre property June 6, 1884. Thomas was born in 1851 in Virginia. His wife, Marietta, was born in Missouri in 1855. His 1889 home he built on Burton Hill is a King County Landmark. McNair commuted to Tacoma weekdays by rowboat. When he was gone, his wife claimed she was “the only white woman south of the (Judd) creek.” In addition to his home at 22915 107th Ave SW, he did the carpentry on two houses on the corner to the south, as well as the Baptist Church and Quartermaster School. Block 4, SW

Developers of a huge greenhouse (The H Harrington Co/The Beall Greenhouse Co) on Vashon, Hilan Harrington and his wife Ella came to Vashon from New York in 1889. Their Queen Anne-style home built in 1892, was designated a King County Landmark in 1987. Partnered with Tom Beall Jr (grandson of Lewis Cass Beall Sr) the business was once the largest employer on the Island. The 150,000 square foot operation included over 50 greenhouses constructed with window glass from Belgium. Inside grew vegetables and flowers. continued

Harrington sold to Beall in 1912. By then Hilan and Jennie Harrington's daughter, Jessie, had married L.C. Beall Sr. They had four children, Lewis Cass Jr, Connie, Wallace, Magruder, and Allen.

Wallace's sons Tom Sr and Ferguson concentrated on flowers. LC Jr also branched out to chickens and his hen won a national egg-laying contest in 1921. In the 1960's the plant was the largest producer of roses west of the Mississippi and also specialized in orchids. But with the high cost of heating, eventually the operation was moved to Columbia. The business was closed in 1989. Block 4, NW

Terkel Hansen, first president and founder in 1909 of the first Vashon Bank, came to the island in 1907. His grandson is celebrated Northwest artist Art Hansen (1929-2017). Terkel Hansen was born in Skogbarg, Denmark. Leaving Denmark at age 14, he apprenticed in the world of commerce with his uncle in Iowa.

There he married Katherine Heggardt in 1894. 'Banker Hansen,' as he was known, was instrumental in the forward progress of Vashon Maury business and deeply involved in every fraternal organization and civic effort possible on the island, from the high school committee, the water district, the Presbyterian Church, the Memorial Committee for this cemetery, on to the developer of the 'Hansen Block.' In 1928 he was a candidate for State representative. By then, most of his immediate family had come to the Northwest, including his parents Jens and Sine and a brother in Seattle. Katherine and Terkel had two children, Howard and Helen (Shields). Just 58 at his death, it came just a few weeks after a surgical procedure. The May 9, 1929 Vashon New-Record proclaimed in large type “Island Mourns Death of Prominent Citizen” accompanied by 5x7 inch photo of Hansen. His son Howard (then working in banking in Olympia and married to Bernice St John) succeeded his father as bank president. This news, as reported two weeks later, read, “We are not having a new family added to our community, we are just having some of our friends back home.”
Block 4, S Ctr

Marjorie Rose Stanley, chief Island
librarian from 1944-1961 retired only when she was forced to at age 70. She was born in 1891 and came to the Island with her parents Hiram and Rose and brothers Clifford and Bert when she was 11. She attended Vashon College (it consisted of grades 7-12) in Burton and studied interior design at the University of Washington. When the King County Library System was established she got the job at the brand new library building, The Vashon Memorial Library (now the Senior Center). An avid collector of photos, documents, and ephemera, (her house was like a museum) she used her passion for history to write “Search for Laughter”-- accounts of Island events and history which was serialized in the local paper in 1967. Land adjacent to her home in Burton was donated by Stanley to the State of Washington, named the Marjorie R. Stanley Natural Area.
Block 6, NW

Norman Edson blazed what is an ever-widening trail of artists on Vashon. Though Vashon's natural beauty and creative energy has spawned hundreds of visual artists, Edson could be considered Vashon's first prominent studio artist. Born in Montreal in 1876 to a painter father, he studied art in Paris, lived in Nebraska, where he was the head of the art department of Omaha College of Music and Fine Arts, then became a photographer's apprentice in Everett, Washington. He came to Vashon in 1921 and established a studio with darkroom next to his home. He was married in 1948 to Henrietta English. His landscape photos capture majestic atmospheric water and mountain views, the most famous of which is “The Sun's Last Glow,” a view from Vashon of Mount Rainier in the western sun. His main media was hand-tinted photos but he also painted in oil, acrylic and pen and ink and played the violin, wrote poetry, and had a printing press. His home still is known as Edson Inn in downtown Burton. His work is still available online.
Block 7, NW

Founded by Issei pioneer B.D Mukai in 1926 the strawberry farm located on now honorary Mukai Lane, Mukai Farm and Garden today is on the National Register of Historic Places with its rare heritage home, Japanese Garden and Barreling Plant. Ben Den (or BD) Mukai immigrated to the US around 1885. To he and his wife Sato, a son Masahiro (Masa), was born April 10, 1911. Sato died of tuberculosis in 1919. BD then married her sister Kuni. BD sent Masa, when a teen, to a Spokane Agricultural station where he experimented with freezing techniques for the their strawberry operation-- which til then could not compete with faster deliveries by mainlanders to the Seattle cont

market. At age 15 BD bought acreage in Masa's (a US citizen) name, retaining power over the operation despite numerous anti-Asian acts. To complement the new home built in 1927 Kuni Mukai designed a formal Japanese stroll garden. Prior to WW II the operation name was changed to Vashon Island Packing Company and Masa was forced to temporarily move to Oregon. BD retired and returned to Japan in 1934. A King County grant enabled the farm and garden to be purchased by a non profit in 2000. Kuni's design is recognized as the most ambitious Japanese garden built by an Issei woman in America. The Farm and Garden can be visited at 18017 Mukai Way SW.
Block 8, SW

For nearly one hundred years the Wax Family farmed and marketed chickens and fruit, and in the 1980s invented “fruit-sweetened” products (no sugar, just a blend of fruits) for their Wax Orchards Natural Products Company. August Wax, born 1888, married Johanna Arick born 1897 in Port Kunda, Estonia. In Kent, Washington they began chicken farming in 1920 then in 1929 moved to Vashon switching to cherries. Their daughter Betsy married a grain and cattle rancher from Alberta, Robert Sestrap, and received a 20-acre lot from her father on now Wax Orchard Road. With hard work and much inventiveness their holdings at one time grew to 270 acres, including Wax Orchards Airport. Their natural sweetener Fruit Sweet® is marketed worldwide.

In 2021, nice new trees were planted, replacing ailing trees here. The new Red oaks were acquired from the Wax Family land. Block 8, NW

VASHON-MAURY PARKS NAMESAKES

Agren Park, 12814 SW Bank Rd

Named after Lt Harold Agren (above L), born 1915. He attended the University of Washington 1935-1940 and enlisted in 1941. He was a casualty of WW II dying on Luzon Island in a prisoner of war camp in 1942. In his honor, in 1956, his parents donated 30 acres to create Agren Memorial Park at the west end of SW Bank Rd.
Block 6, NW

Ober Park, 17130 Vashon Hwy SW

Named after John Ober (above R), born on NJ in 1898. He attended the University of Washington and served in WW I in the Coast Artillery in France. He was married to islander Agnes Johnson. He was a charter member and past commander of the Island Post 2826 Veterans of Foreign Wars, scoutmaster, and beginning in 1937 the Vashon Postmaster for 17 years.
Block 6, SW