Friday, May 6, 2011

Grave Situations: Jacksonville Oregon Pioneer Cemetery


A small winding road just north of town takes you to The Jacksonville Cemetary ,where over 4,000 citizens of the area are buried over a span now approaching 151 years.

This is the second part of a series I began a few months back concerning Jacksonville, Oregon, the oldest American settlement in the area and one that is of major historic interest. My focus on this trip was the Jacksonville Cemetery, which was founded in 1860, th same year that the town itself was incorporated after about a decade of European-American settlements owing to the Gold Rush of 1851 and the land grant program that brought farmers westwards to seek fortunes and at least a better climate for growing food and raising cattle. The big losers in this rugged terrain were the Native Americans, almost all of whom were forced from the area after the sporadic and bloody wars that ran from 1852--1856. After the native peoples were resettled far to a more desolate area north of the Rogue Valley, their landmarks and centers of culture are mostly gone. What remains is sites like these from the next wave of settlers.

Many of the pioneers to this area had a hard time of it. Epidemics such as measles, diphtheria, smallpox and various "bilious fevers" swept away whole sections of families. Some of the earliest Jacksonville settlers were "ruffians" who had been kicked out of California cities. Some harbored sympathies with the southern rebels in the Civil War and plotted mischief or worse against the few Federal soldiers stationed in the area or their free-soil neighbors (now that the Indians were gone). Both sides in that horrible conflict likely brought guns to town, just in case.

But many who came thrived peacefully and established a community with a myriad of churches, fraternal organizations and a disparate mix of peoples whose ancestors would have been surprised to see banding together in this little corner of the American Northwest.

15 comments:

  1. A few more views of the area, and a nice music video partially shot in the cemetery itself.

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  2. I love the whole Jacksonville area - you have to love a town where the whole darn thing is on the National Register....

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  3. What an unusual surname (T'Vault), I have never heard it before.

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  4. I had a friend whose surname was Britt, many years ago now. The family came to New Zealand via Australia, and from the US before that... I wonder...

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  5. Even death does not us part - I wonder if they roll over and kick each other.

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  6. That column has a rather phallic shape don't you think?

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  7. It really is an amazing place in a lot of respects, Will. The best thing that ever happened to Jacksonville in the future was also the worst thing that hit it in the past--in 1883 The Oregon and California Railroad decided to bypass the town in favor of a more direct through a little dusty creek spot called Medford. Jacksonville went downhill but kept itself from morphing into a boring automobile/freeway/mall based metropolis.

    The whole sense of the place would have been changed, even if the locals had saved a hotel or a building or two.

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  8. Yes it is, and I can't (so far) find out about that name's origins, Iri Ani.

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  9. Humm, that is interesting. I wonder what I can find out about the present-day Britt family, which seems to have vacated the Jacksonville area?


    I will see if there's a link.

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  10. LOL! Hopefully their spirits get to have separate vacations.

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  11. Now that you mentioned it, Iri...:-)

    Maybe somebody was compensating...I'm just sayin'.

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  12. Interesting gather of photos Doug, I would tend to think this is a historical site.

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  13. It's very historical Jack, at least by standards of European and Asian settlement in the western USA. The entire town, as Will pointed out, is a histroical site and has some of the few pre-Civil War buildings left standing in this part of the country.

    Glad you liked the photos by the way. :-)

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  14. I like this "last view" its peaceful and serene.

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  15. Me too. The most scenic spot on the hill, and the only area where you get a good look at old Jacksonville.

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