Person:Henry Van Asselt (1)
Henry Van Asselt
b.11 Apr 1817 Elspeet, Ermelo, Gelderland, Netherlands
d.7 Dec 1902 Seattle, King, Washington, United States
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m. 25 Dec 1862
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Facts and Events
Name Henry Van Asselt
Gender Male
Birth[1] 11 Apr 1817 Elspeet, Ermelo, Gelderland, Netherlands
Marriage 25 Dec 1862 Seattle, King, Washington, United Statesto Catherine Jane Maple
Census 25 Jul 1870 Seattle, King, Washington, United Stateswith Catherine Jane Maple
Census 8 Jun 1880 Seattle, King, Washington, United Stateswith Catherine Jane Maple
Census 15 Jun 1900 Seattle, King, Washington, United Stateswith Catherine Jane Maple
Death[1] 7 Dec 1902 Seattle, King, Washington, United States
Reference Number? Q16030549?


the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Henry Van Asselt (11 April 1817, Elspeet - 7 December 1902, Seattle) was a Dutch immigrant to the US, one of the first to settle the area that is now Seattle, Washington. He came to the area in 1847 and was the longest surviving original settler of King County, Washington, dying at age 85. He married late in life, in December, 1862, to Jane, the daughter of Jacob Maples, and they had four children.[1]

Van Asselt was the eldest child of Helmert van Asselt and Adriana Drost. He came to America in 1847 at the age of 30, working first in New Jersey before traveling to St. Louis and then Bloomington, Iowa. In 1850, he joined a party traveling to the California gold fields. He eventually ended up in Oregon, and fell in with L.M. Collins, and the party that first settled on the Duwamish River near Seattle. Van Asselt's claim is now part of Boeing Field.

During the first session of federal court, which was held in Henry Yesler's log cookhouse on Feb. 13, 1854, Van Asselt, was granted U.S. citizenship. A bachelor at 37, he was losing hope of finding a wife until 1862, when his neighbor's daughter, Jane Maple, accepted his proposal.[2]

In 1860, Van Asselt donated land on which he and his neighbors built a simple frame schoolhouse, the first in King County. Years later, a site was purchased on Beacon Hill for a replacement school. In 1950, that school was replaced by the modern structure that retains the name Van Asselt Elementary School. A nearby street and playing field are also named for him.

Van Asselt eventually moved to Seattle and established a cabinet-makers shop. the Museum of History and Industry has Van Asselt furniture on display.

This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Henry Van Asselt. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
References
  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Henry Van Asselt, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.
  2. ↑ "Seattle at 150: Van Asselt was one of first local suburbanites", in Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    [1], Nov. 5, 2001.


Founders of Seattle, Washington
The founding of Seattle is usually dated from the arrival of the Denny Party on November 13, 1851, at Alki Point. The group had travelled overland from the Midwest to Portland, Oregon, then made a short ocean journey up the Pacific coast into Puget Sound, with the express intent of founding a town. The next April, Arthur A. Denny abandoned the original site at Alki in favor of a better-protected site on Elliott Bay, near the south end of what is now downtown Seattle. Around the same time, Doc Maynard began settling the land immediately south of Denny's. The first plats in Seattle were filed May 28, 1853, and Seattle was incorporated as a town in 1867, by which time it had 350 inhabitants. Credit:Wikipedia, "History of Seattle before 1900"
Denny Party: Arthur A. Denny, his wife Mary, and children; David T. Denny; Carson D. Boren, his wife Mary, their daughter, and Carson's younger sister Louisa; William N. Bell, his wife Sarah, and children; John Low, his wife Lydia, and children; Lee Terry; Charles Terry.
Additional Settlers by 1852: Dr. David S. "Doc" Maynard (1808-1873); Henry Yesler (1810-1892); Luther Collins (1813-1860), Henry Van Asselt, and Jacob and Samuel Maple.
Current Location: King County, Washington  
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