What's in a Name? The Kirke Park and P-Patch

Every garden has a story. Tucked into a quiet neighborhood of Ballard is a garden with a particularly unique back story: The Kirke Park and P-Patch.

    

Remnants

Those with a basic understanding of Germanic languages will recognize that the word Kirke means “church.” The park was given a Norwegian name to honor the Scandinavian heritage of the Ballard neighborhood. However, there was a more specific reason for the name: Kirke Park sits on the site of a religious community that once occupied the property for nearly 80 years – not a traditional house of worship as one might find in many neighborhoods, but the residence of a millennialist sect known as the Seventh Elect Church in Israel. Founded in 1922 by a 77-year old preacher, the church dictated chastity, vegetarianism, unshorn hair, and an unquestioning obedience to the authority of its founder, Daniel Salwt. Tall, imposing, with a long-white beard, Salwt ruled over a group of several dozen adherents who handed over property and money to his use, including a parcel of land on Ninth Avenue Northwest Avenue in Ballard.

Thanks to research carried out by the late Barbara Hainley and other neighbors, we know quite a bit about Mr. Salwt, a charismatic, itinerant preacher from the Midwest who arrived in Seattle in 1910 at the age of 65. Attracting followers from among the mill workers and other laborers, he gathered the “elect” to the Ballard property. To house the faithful, he moved (or possibly tore down and rebuilt) a wooden hotel or rooming house to the site, a structure he had also been given. A second, smaller building followed. There, with promises of eternal life, his followers lived communally, turning over their wages to the church and growing vegetables on plots assigned to them. Members also tended fruit trees, berry bushes, and ornamental flower beds. A tradition of gardening and self-sufficiency was established.

When Salwt died at the age of 84 in 1929, church members, believing he was an incarnation of Jesus and that he would rise again, refused to turn over his body to authorities until threatened with legal action. In the following decades a dwindling number of men lived on the church property, the last two dying in the millennial year 2000. The gardens were maintained, at least sporadically. An article in the Seattle Times from 1970 noted that while the church buildings were “somewhat run-down, the extensive flower gardens are neat and well tended.”[i]

            The name SALWT, laid out in bricks, was still to be seen when plans for the park got underway. Photo courtesy of architect Clayton Beaudoin.

End Times

The world did not come to an end, as Salwt had predicted; however, his church did. By 2008, the legal entity that was the Seventh Elect Church was heading for dissolution and the heir to the property was ready to sell. Neighbors had had their eyes on the property for some time and successfully lobbied the city to purchase the land for a small park. With funds from the 2000 Pro Parks Levy and the 2008 Parks & Green Space Levy, the decrepit buildings were torn down and a multi-use park designed by landscape architect Clayton Beaudoin of SiteWorkshop. The park includes a playground, an open meadow, a 31-plot p-patch, a large giving garden, a communal strawberry patch, and many “secret” nooks and crannies.

Kirke is one of our city’s newest parks, dedicated in 2012, but its history is evident in more than just its name. A plaque explains the unusual story of the property. Several concrete foundation walls that were to support a temple that was never built have been reshaped and repurposed to create the illusion of a walled secret garden. The garden shed, designed and built by neighbor and gardener Jennifer Hammill, mimics a picturesque chapel. A few shrubs and trees original to the church’s garden have been retained, including an espaliered apple tree and roses. Beaudoin recalls that “there were many elements that created a sense of ‘ruins’ and we heard many requests to maintain the magic and mystery of the place.”

Friends of Kirke Park, a group of neighbors and gardeners, coordinates garden activities – both work parties, including a Spring Cleanup, and purely social events such as the annual summer Hot Dog Party. Interested community members are invited to contact the Friends by sending a message to kirkeparksea@gmail.com

Kirke Park is located at 7028 9^th Avenue N.W. in Seattle.

 

This post is a product of the Seattle Community Gardening History Project. A version of this story was published in the GROW P-Patch Post, Spring 2022.

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[i] Seattle Times, May 6, 1970, A9. Other sources for this story include an oral history interview with Jennifer Hammill, correspondence with Clayton Beaudoin, and an article by Barbara Hainley titled “The Seventh Elect Church in Israel: Seattle’s ‘Long-Haired Preachers,” published in Communal Societies, Journal of the Communal Studies Association, 35:2 (2015).