ARLINGTON — A lone headstone stands sentinel on the quiet hillside green of Pioneer Cemetery.
After 110 years of wet winters, John Grant’s name is barely readable on the worn stone.
A corporal in the 138th Regiment of Indiana Volunteers during the Civil War, Grant moved his wife and children to the Arlington area in the 1880s, when loggers and farmers were busy taming the land along the Stillaguamish River.
Grant died in 1899 at age 62 after suffering from tuberculosis and pneumonia. The obituary in the newspaper described him as “a man of a gentle and kind disposition, who lived in peace and concord with his neighbors who will sincerely mourn his death.”
Though his is the only headstone, Grant’s remains are in good company. More than 30 others were buried in Arlington’s first cemetery, which sits on the bluff above downtown. Without grave markers, though, no one knows exactly where the other bodies were laid. Obituaries from the Arlington Times archives offer the only glimpses into the hard lives of those who died in terrible accidents or succumbed to disease.
During the Memorial Day services at noon Monday, those interred at Pioneer Cemetery and those who took care of the old burial grounds are to be remembered in a special ceremony.
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Pioneer Cemetery closed in 1912 and, eventually abandoned by its owners, fell into ruin until Washington’s state centennial in 1989.
That’s when the late Harry Yost, who lived across the dead-end street, began to care for the cemetery. Yost, a longtime community volunteer, decided something had to be done, said his widow Ruth Yost.
“Everybody was working on the old cemeteries that centennial year,” Ruth Yost, now 84, said. “Pioneer Cemetery was overgrown, covered in trees and quite a mess.”
Because it was a cemetery, Harry Yost had to get permission from the state to log and clear the property. He and his friend Bill Senica donated proceeds from the sale of the timber to the Stillaguamish Valley Pioneer Museum. The men, both World War II veterans, planted grass and then mowed the cemetery for many years.
Yost, who was 87 when he died in February, had asked the city several years ago to take control of the cemetery. After an unsuccessful search for the heirs of the property, city officials obtained legal ownership and city crews, led by Kurt Patterson, began to rehabilitate the grounds.
On Memorial Day, Yost and Senica will be remembered for their efforts when a new monument and flagpole are dedicated in their honor.
Virginia Hatch of the city Parks, Arts and Recreation Commission was joined by members of the Masons, Arlington Rotary Club, the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars and others in raising money for the flagpole and sign.
“This should have been done before Harry died,” Hatch said. “He would have enjoyed directing the whole thing.”
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History enthusiast Frank Barden, a city parks commission member, spent the past three months preparing a booklet about Pioneer Cemetery to be distributed on Memorial Day.
To educate himself, Barden gleaned all that he could from the local genealogical society, the pioneer museum, veterans groups, the archives of the weekly newspaper and books on Snohomish County history.
Especially helpful, he said, was Lora Pennington, cultural resources specialist with the Stillaguamish Indian Tribe.
Barden believes the ancestors of the Stillaguamish Tribe were the first to use the bluff above the river as a burial grounds. Starting in about the 1880s, the early settlers added their dead nearby. With its view of the valley, the cemetery must have been a very pleasant place, Barden said.
Writing the history of the cemetery was a labor of love, he said.
“I feel a real attachment to the people who are buried there and appreciate the tenderness with which the cemetery was treated later,” Barden said. “I hope the booklet also reflects the difficult time that the tribal people had in their early dealings with the settlers. Someday I would like to see the tribe install welcome figures at the cemetery, because their history there is very important.”
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Jack Perin is one of those without a grave marker in Pioneer Cemetery.
In the obituary for the young Indian man, he is called Feven Jack, but no “f” sound exists in the Lushootseed language, Pennington told Barden. More research revealed that the man was named Perin.
On a winter night in 1901, Jack Perin was struck by a northbound freight train and killed instantly.
“A large number of Indians visited the remains and the scene of the gruesome tragedy during the day and manifested much interest and not a little sorrow,” the newspaper story reads. “The deceased has a good farm on the North Fork and leaves a wife, two small children and one babe-in-arms, a pitiful circumstance, indeed.”
There are many stories about the little cemetery with just one headstone, Ruth Yost said.
“It’s a place we must always preserve,” she said.
Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427, gfiege@heraldnet.com.
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