THE SHUMWAY FAMILY

THE SHUMWAY FAMILY
Miss Carrie and Miss Emma were hired as the seventeenth and eighteenth teachers in the Seattle
Public School system. Carrie had previously taught second grade in the Edison and Blanchard
community schools prior to moving to Seattle. Sisters Carrie, Mary and Emma were all teaching
school at Seattle’s old Central Grade School in 1889 during the city’s great fire.
Hattie Shumway, the only sister to marry, was married to Fred Parker, but they didn’t have
any children. John was the only brother who married; living with his wife and two daughters,
Antoinette and Ruth, on Waverly Way in Kirkland. Antoinette married Edgar Stanton in the
Shumway Mansion; her sister Ruth was a Tacoma school teacher. Eleven members or relatives
of the Shumway family are buried in the Kirkland Cemetery on Rose Hill in one of the larger
family plots.
SHUMWAY
Kirkland Heritage Society
City of Kirkland
In 1905 Elizabeth Shumway purchased seven acres on the Lake Washington shore from the
Kirkland Land and Improvement Company. Each brother and sister (except John) contributed
$5,000.00 toward the construction of a home they could share. Construction on the stately home
was begun in 1909, supervised by J.G. Bartsch, contractor for Kirkland’s Central School and for
both of Peter Kirk’s homes. Bartsch agreed to construct the Shumway home for $35,000.00 - a
princely sum for the time - however, it cost him $40,000.00 before it was complete!
Carrie Holland Shumway was born
September 7, 1858, in Belchertown,
Massachusetts, and graduated from
Mount Holyoke College, a rare
achievement for a young woman
of her generation. She came to
Washington State with her family
in 1883, first homesteading in the
Skagit Valley, and then moving to
Seattle in 1888, a year before the
territory became a state.
When the Shumway home was first built, the Lake Washington Ship Canal had not been
completed and the lake level was about 9 feet higher than it is today. The family entertained
their friends often on the porch and lawn of the large waterfront home with it’s sweeping view
of the lake. Overlooking the wood-planked Lake Washington Boulevard, the Shumway home
was surrounded by beautiful plantings, including the wisteria that adorned the west facade of the
house. Carrie Shumway had brought the wisteria seeds home with her from Japan, a reminder
of her years abroad.
Carrie Shumway - Credit: Seattle Public Schools
She and two of her sisters were
school teachers, and Carrie
Shumway was one of the original
staff of the T.T. Minor Grade
School in Seattle. She also taught
in the old Seattle High School when
the entire faculty consisted only
of three teachers, and eventually
was appointed vice principal at
that school. She helped establish
Tacoma’s first high school. In
1908, after retiring from the
Seattle teaching staff she taught
English in Tokyo. Upon her return
in 1910, she joined her sisters and
brothers in the recently completed
family home on Lake Washington
Boulevard in Kirkland.
The home was built for seven grown brothers and sisters to offer comfortable living and gracious
entertaining. The main entrance was on the east side of the home and featured two Doric
columns; the adjacent octagonal turret enclosed the main stairway. The home boasted five large
main rooms on the first floor and the north porch and the southern portico which were enclosed
later. Open beam ceilings graced both the living room - as large as a ballroom - and the formal
dining room. Each of the seven brothers and sisters occupied one of the bedrooms on the second
floor.
Kirkland’s First City Councilwoman
Shumway Mansion - from the back
In 1881, three Shumway brothers - George, Edward and John - left behind their family’s declining
farm implement factory in Belchertown, Massachusetts. They looked for opportunities in the
West, and homesteaded near Bow on the Skagit River in Washington Territory. Two years later,
their mother, Mary, and five sisters - Elizabeth, Emily (Emma), Harriet (Hattie), Carrie, and
Mary joined them. In 1888, the entire family moved from Bow to Seattle.
The Shumway Mansion
In 1911, Kirkland had been incorporated for only 6 years and Washington woman had just
regained the franchise to vote in the local elections. Kirkland voters elected Carrie Shumway
as the City’s first Councilwoman; the first to be so honored in the entire state of Washington.
In celebration of her taking office, the Western Woman Outlook (A weekly journal devoted to
Social Education and Civic Betterment), noted her election with modest pride.
Miss Shumway’s Election
Our neighboring town of Kirkland has honored itself in electing, as a member
of it’s Town Council, Miss Carrie Shumway, for many years a teacher in Seattle
Schools. Miss Shumway has taken little interest in politics, she only consented
to be a candidate at the solicitation of her fellow townsmen. Kirkland is further
distinguished by having no saloons.
Carrie Shumway was proud of her deep roots in the United States, tracing their arrival in New
England back to 1620. She was a state historian for the Daughters of the American Revolution.
She and her sisters were also thoroughly
modern women, founding members
of the Seattle Bicycle Club and the
Seattle Camera Club. Carrie Shumway
was a charter member of the Kirkland
Woman’s Club and was active in
both the Community Congregational
Church in Kirkland and the Plymouth
Congregational Church in Seattle.
At the close of an exceptional life.
Carrie Shumway died at the age of 97,
on January 1, 1956, in Tacoma at the
home of her niece, Ruth Shumway. She
was laid to rest in the family plot in the
Kirkland Cemetery.
By 1944 an elderly Carrie Shumway made the momentous decision to sell the family home.
Within two years, three different owners bought and sold this extraordinary house. Through
these sales the upper three acres were lost to one buyer and another had to build the new entrance
road from Lake Washington Boulevard. In 1946, Fred Hall and Dr. Ruth Heyer-Hall purchased
the Shumway home. They ran a rest home and Dr. Ruth Heyer had her chiropractor’s office on
the lower level. It became known as the Heyer Clinic.
The Big Move!
Moving the mansion in 1985 - Credit: Loita t
The Shumway Family
Carrie
Shumway
Carrie Shumway under the wisteria covered trellis
Credit: Arlene André Collection - Kirkland Heritage Society
Shumway Family - Photo provided by Ruth Shumway - Credit: Arlene André Collection - Kirkland Heritage Society
This is the site of the Shumway family home, locally known as the Shumway Mansion. It is part
of the original 160 acre homestead of Edwin and Phoebe Church who arrived in 1875. Thirteen
years later it was sold to the Kirkland Land and Improvement Company for part of the future
town site. Church and Harry French, who owned the homestead to the south and did not sell,
later invested in Kirk’s enterprise with the construction of the brick building at the northeast
corner of Market Street and Seventh Street, now known as the Campbell building.
In 1982, lake shore development
threatened the Shumway mansion with
demolition, and local preservationists
organized an effort to relocate the
venerable historic home. The first
weekend in March, 1985, the community
turned out to watch as the Shumway
home crawled through the streets of
downtown Kirkland and along Market
Street on it’s way to it’s new site in
Juanita. Salli and Richard Harris, who
saved and moved the mansion, restored
it as a reception center and bed-andbreakfast. The building has been
designated a Community Landmark by
the Kirkland Heritage Society.
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