The Unfinished Business of a Seattle Civic Titan

The death of Colonel H. H. Hanee, who died at his home in this city yesterday afternoon, creates a greater surprise than the departure to the unknown and unknowable that generally follows the death of a citizen. For the last few years, Colonel Hanee has been in the public eye as a leader and a soldier of Washington. In the ongoing political life of Puget Sound, he has been a prominent and powerful factor. Colonel Hanee put heart and soul into whatever he undertook. He was the inspiration and largely the motive power behind the sanitary commission of Seattle. The citizens of that city will feel that in his death they have lost more than a personal friend. His devotion to the Republican party, and not only of the city but of the state as well, is great. He was well prepared to enter a political campaign, and his name has been heard not only in Seattle but throughout Washington in the battle for the principles of Republicanism. Colonel Hanee numbered friends by the thousands; he was a generous and compassionate man; and in his chosen profession—the law—he was always genuine. His practice and professional duties were exacting; but he served the interests of the corporation with which he was connected, and of his time to every object worthy of charity. His death creates a vacancy that is hard to fill, and his familiar form, thus rudely overthrown in his prime, will long be remembered with sorrow by the many who knew his life.