About Us

BONNEY WATSON’s story began in 1861 when Oliver C. Shorey and his wife, Mary Emeline Bonney, moved to Seattle, then a small town with only about 150 residents. Shorey, a skilled carpenter, was soon commissioned by the University of Washington to carve four Ionic columns for its first building in downtown Seattle. When the university relocated, these columns were preserved as the only relics from its original campus.

In 1868, Shorey and his partner, A.P. DeLin, expanded their cabinet and furniture shop to include casket-making, a natural extension of their craft in that era. This marked the beginning of the business that would eventually become BONNEY WATSON.

As Seattle’s population grew, so did the demand for caskets, leading L.W. Bonney to join his brother-in-law Oliver Shorey’s business in 1881. The firm, then known as Shorey-Bonney, lost its establishment to the Great Seattle Fire in 1889, which started near their Third Avenue and Columbia Street location and destroyed much of downtown.

After the fire, Shorey retired, selling his shares to G.M. Stewart, who, along with Bonney, rebuilt the business in a new brick facility at the same location. In 1903, Harry M. Watson, the sexton of Lake View Cemetery, bought Stewart’s shares, marking the first appearance of the BONNEY WATSON name on the business.

in 1912, BONNEY WATSON moved to a larger location at Broadway Avenue and East Olive, where it remained until relocating to Howell Street in 1962. After operating there for over 50 years, BONNEY WATSON moved in 2019.

Over the years, BONNEY WATSON expanded its services across the region. It acquired Washington Memorial, a cemetery with a funeral home near Sea-Tac Airport, in 1978, added a funeral home in Federal Way in 1989, and purchased Southwest Mortuary in Rainier Beach in 2014.

To this day, BONNEY WATSON is still family-owned and privileged to be the oldest continually operating business in Washington State. Today, BONNEY WATSON serves the Puget Sound area from two locations.