A small family cemetery that’s rapidly becoming one with the forest.
I’m in my happy place when I can locate an old pioneer cemetery hidden away in the woods whose location is unclear or not obvious. It wasn’t too hard to find the Hamlet Cemetery itself, though it’s rapidly becoming impossible to find those buried there.
The hamlet of Hamlet was established in 1891 by Albert, Henry and Andrew Hill, three Finnish brothers and fishermen from Astoria, Oregon. Their Finnish surname was Makela (“Hill” in English). The Hamlet post office was established in 1905, the earliest known burial was 1911, and the cemetery association was formed in 1915. The schoolhouse burned down in 1910 and a replacement was built in 1911. The post office closed in 1953. You can learn more about Hamlet itself in one of Ralph Friedman‘s books, Tracking Down Oregon (1978). “The Small Drama of Hamlet“
Following directions found in Google Maps, we spotted the posts of the cemetery through the trees, and a short but steep path up a hill. The cemetery itself is small, with several wood and wire plot enclosures in various states of disrepair, beyond which is a small area covered thickly in bright green ferns. Despite the entropy, I found the cemetery to be picturesque and restful.
Most of the cemetery has been overgrown by underbrush, blackberries and ferns. Enough paths have been tramped down between the plots to indicate regular visitors. While a few attempts have clearly been made to maintain the plot fences, it’s obvious that in a few generations everything will have disappeared.
One thoroughly modern bit of weirdness was a corked round bottle with a lumpy, questionable reddish fluid inside, left sitting on top of a fencepost. The fencepost was decorated with a round symbol that appeared to be drawn in silver paint marker. The symbol looks purely decorative to me and not ominous in any way. What the bottle contained, or what the symbol means, I have no idea, though it’s probably someone’s idea of an acknowledgement or offering. It’s hard for me to imagine the relevance of something this modern to a gravesite that’s so very old, but who am I to judge?
Following our cemetery visit we picnicked at the site of the old Hamlet Schoolhouse, which is now a very nice community center and is also worth a visit.
Stump and Lamb explores personal growth and meaning via travels to pioneer cemeteries of the West.
This post was originally published at michellerau.com.
michelle rau 