It was free land that brought many early settlers to Oregon. On 10 acres atop a hillside in South Eugene is where many of those people found their final resting place. It’s Eugene’s Masonic Cemetery where at least 2,500 people are buried.The cemetery was founded in 1859—the same year Oregon became the 33rd state. Its residents read like a who's who of Eugene and Lane County. First, there's Eugene's founder Eugene Skinner.
“He's buried here with his wife," Mary Ellen Rodgers, cemetery’s administrator, tells us.
Oregon's first governor John Whiteaker is also buried at the cemetery alongside his family.
“His son John died first in the 1880s,” Rodgers explained. “John was a doctor and there was a measles epidemic."
Most of names of the streets you drive on in Eugene and Springfield, including Patterson, Chambers and Harlow were named after people buried at this historic cemetery—Dr. A.W. Patterson, businessman Frank Chambers and Mahlon Harlow the first Lane County clerk. There are grave sites for Eugene's first street car driver Wiley Griffon, artist Maude Kerns and four University of Oregon presidents rest here, too.
"Lucian Campbell, Prince Lucien Campbell, one of the university's president and his wife are in the mausoleum," Rodgers said.
What you won't find at this cemetery are neatly manicured lawns.
Rodgers explained, “We've tried to keep it mowed and cleared out, but you're fighting nature. So we decided to enhance the bio-diversity to keep it like a cemetery you might have had in the 18th century."
More than a 100 types of native plants have been found to grow here and over the years, many gravesites have been uncovered underneath the undergrowth. But this cemetery still has some secrets.
“There are some people who are here, but their burial sites are unknown,” Rodgers told us. “I have the obituaries. I don't know where they are."
And in the Hope Abbey Mausoleum:
“There are some crypts in there that are just locked,” Rodgers said. “And so, there are still mysteries to be solved."
And that is what Rodgers and the cemetery staff is working to do: uncover and preserve the area's past—for the future.
The staff has worked with the Genealogical Society to compile a list of everyone who's buried in the cemetery including names, dates, location, and family ties. They hope to publish that information in a book later this year.
