George Thompson Fonda was born April 12, 1830, at Broadalbin, New York. By the opening of the Civil War he was living in the Midwest. Rather than wait for a Michigan unit to organize, he went toward the fighting and entered the 7th Missouri Infantry in 1861.

His wartime record gave him the first half of an unusually coherent life story. By the Vicksburg campaign he had risen to first lieutenant and worked with the engineers, directing sappers and miners and helping construct bridges and pontoons behind Grant’s army. Later recollections emphasized both the physical demands of the work and Fonda’s energy as an officer.

West to Puget Sound

After the war Fonda moved steadily west. He was in Seattle by the territorial period and became associated with the lighthouse service. Territorial census records identify him as a lightkeeper, and his 1913 obituary said that he kept the West Point Light for nearly a quarter-century.

West Point stood at the entrance to Seattle’s Elliott Bay, where the keeper’s work was practical, repetitive, and vital to maritime traffic. Fonda became well known among local seafaring people and among fellow veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic.

When he left lighthouse service, he built a cottage on the bluff north of Fort Lawton. The location allowed him to continue seeing the flash of the beacon he had tended for so many years. He died in Seattle on July 13, 1913, after more than three decades in the region.

Why this is a Story: The genealogy joins two distinctive chapters—Vicksburg engineering and a quarter-century at a Pacific Northwest lighthouse—into a narrative that is much larger than a list of family relationships.

Sources and references

  • Fonda-Genealogy.pdf: Current genealogy report, Updated July 2026; biographical notes and cited source extracts.