Chong Wa Benevolent Association, Seattle西雅图中华会馆

Type

Overseas Daoist Temples

Location

United States · Washington State · Seattle · 522 Seventh Avenue South (at Seventh Avenue and Weller Street).

First built

Already operating by 1892, as attested by the renchen-year account books; the present building was completed in 1929 and opened in 1930.

Overview

The founding date of the Chong Wa Benevolent Association in Seattle is generally given as ‘about 1900’ or as its 1910 incorporation, but account books from the renchen (1892) and guisi (1893) years discovered by CINARC prove that it was already operating by at least 1892, promoted by Chin Gee Hee and Lau Kin of the Wa Chong Company. The account books contain explicit records of religious expenditure: in February 1892 three sacrificial meats and shrine candles were purchased for $2.50, and ten days later a pair of shrine candles and assorted candies were purchased for $1.25, proving that the association maintained a shrine and performed sacrifices in its early years. The present association building was completed in 1929 and opened in 1930, designed jointly by the architect Max A. van House and the Chinese-American architect Wing Sam Chinn, and is a landmark of Seattle's International District. Today the Chong Wa Benevolent Association is fully secularized, focused on community service, a Chinese-language school, and seasonal festival celebrations, and no longer maintains a shrine — a trajectory of ‘de-religionization’ quite common among Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Associations across North America.

Highlights

• Account books from 1892 prove the association operated earlier than commonly claimed
• The account books record purchases of sacrificial meats and shrine candles
• The 1929 building was co-designed by the Chinese-American architect Wing Sam Chinn
• Today fully secularized, with no shrine remaining