No. 55 Pioneer Cemetery, Mukilteo

Pioneer Cemetery
513 Webster Street
Mukilteo, WA 98275


Through September 27th, 2012 visitors to the Pioneer Cemetery can listen to an audio tour of the site by calling 585-797-1404. You will be asked to enter the corresponding stop number of the grave you are viewing, to hear the recorded biographies. Each stop of the tour is about 2min in length, the whole tour takes about 1 hour.



The  first  known  burial in Mukilteo, of Capt.  Nathaniel B.Fowler, was made in  1873 on the
property of Morris H. Frost.  Frost, who was then still living, may have at that time  informally designated this  part  of his  property  as a cemetery.  However, he later fell into debt and much of his original property  went into receivership.Louis Kossuth Church and his wife
Emma  must have  purchased this land around 1890. either  from Frost or whoever the receiver was.
Louis and  Emma  had originally intended to reserve  part  of their property  for  a cemetery  and went
so  far  as  to have  their  intention notarized on June 5,   1890. Unfortunately, they did not follow
through with the  formality of having the  property  set aside for dedicated use as a cemetery.  The residential area of Mukilteo  grew up around the  property  at 513 Webster Street; by  l9l9 the cemetery was no longer in use.




"During  the Depression this lovely spot was spoiled,"  wrote Alice
Pallas Brooks, one of the town's early teachers,  in her memoir "Memorial Day  Memories."
"Fences were all removed and the markers knocked down. Some were broken and  some are  lost.
My father with the aid of a friend mended and remounted them. Mr. Frost's marker was broken into two
pieces. . .   
As a  resul t   of   this devastation several grave sites are completely lost." The true number
of burials  is  unknown. The cemetery offers  spectacular views of Possession Sound and Whidbey
Island,  from the top of an embankment  high above  the Burlington  Northern tracks.
Rumor has it that the embankment has  slumped,  maybe more than once,  possibly  bringing some
remains down with  it. 










Through September 27th, 2012 visitors to the Pioneer Cemetery can listen to an audio tour of the site by calling 585-797-1404. You will be asked to enter the corresponding stop number of the grave you are viewing, to hear the recorded biographies. Each stop of the tour is about 2min in length, the whole tour takes about 1 hour.


By 1964 Pioneer Cemetery was over 90  years old and in neglected  condition.
Ronald Kane in the spring of  1965 called for all the volunteer help he could get to cut the brambles and
weeds, to get down to ground level and see what  remained  to be preserved.  No  legal action  was
taken untal 1979, when the  grave marker of  Nathaniel  B. Fowler turned up as a  prank  on  the
doorstep of a real estate office  on the  Bothell-Everett  Highway.
About that  time,  the  Mukilteo Historical Society paid  for  a title, search and discovered  that property around the edges of  the cemetery had been sold, and that legally the cemetery could

conceivably be placed on the tax rolls. ln 1982 the remedial legal
process was completed after which the cemetery officially belonged to
the city. After the legal work was done, the  Historical Society  tried to determine just  who  was buried
there. Volunteers paced north to south, east to  west, and diagrammed the locations of grave
markers and trees. A map was produced from their labors. On the title  page  of the  ffiflp, Valerie Norwine wrote as a dedication that she did this work "in  hopes that
this will  aid  some future genealogist or historian...made possible only from the prodding of
my crazy genealogist mother who did find  missing  links  of  her research in one such document."
Following the 1965 clearing, a list of 25 names was typed. Since then more markers have been added to bring the number of marked graves to 43.  The original source for names of those buried  here appears to be  a handwritten list made by  Louisa Fowler Sinclair, daughter of Jacob Fowler, and  niece of Nathaniel Fowler. Louis who died in 1955, drew up the list from memory at an unknown date.
Much  work remains to  be done into the histories and genealogies of those buried here. Mas Odoi of
the  Historical  Society has translated the markers of the three
Japanese-Goro  Wadatani, Tokumatsu Shirai. and Rikimatsu Joponese Funeral at Pioneer Cemetery 
Okamura--employees of Crown Lumber,  thereby revealing  their death dates and their  homes in
Japan.  Similar work needs to be done for many of the others.
Most of the burials are of  people who came from afar to Mukilteo.
Finding information  about them has been and continues to be  a challenge.


Information on the article was taken from Mukiteo Beacon  & Mukilteo Historical Society