spirited away
Kitsap’s historic graveyards hold stories and mysteries
Words by Leslie Kelly
The gravestone of a Bainbridge Island settler at the Port Madison Cemetery in the early 1900s. (photo courtesy of Bainbridge Island Historical Museum)
Most people only visit a cemetery when someone is laid to rest, or possibly on Memorial Day. Some find solitude and peace by being at a cemetery—especially a historic one. You don’t have to go far to find a historic cemetery on the West Sound. The Washington Historic Cemeteries Association lists more than a dozen in Kitsap County.
The Port Gamble Cemetery, also known as the Buena Vista Cemetery, is the oldest in the county. The oldest marker is that of Gustave Engelbrecht. In November 1856, the USS Massachusetts responded to an urgent call for help from the town of Port Gamble, where residents, including the local tribe, were under heavy attack by a large war party of Haida tribesmen from British Columbia. A sailor aboard the Massachusetts, Engelbrecht was the U.S. Navy's first man to die in combat in the Pacific. His grave is honored in the center and highest point of the cemetery.
Pete Orbea, who is known as “Paranormal Pete” because of his ghost hunting podcast on WLTK-DB, leads ghost tours of Port Gamble. The ghost story he shares with most visitors is that of a woman who appears near a tall white granite obelisk in the cemetery.
“Going back at least 40 years, people have been in that area and have heard a woman’s voice say ‘Hello. How are you?’” said Orbea. “Those who have seen her say she has long curly dark hair and is wearing a white flowing gown.”
Visitors often stop by the grave of Chief Seattle in the Suquamish Cemetery. At a young age, Chief Seattle earned a reputation as a leader and a warrior, ambushing and defeating enemy raiders coming up from the Green River and the Cascade foothills. The chief of the Suquamish and Duwamish Tribes died in 1866 of a severe fever and was buried with Catholic and native rites in the cemetery at Suquamish. In 1890, a white marble gravestone was placed over Chief Seattle’s burial site. Throughout the years totem poles have been added beside his stone.
Since its founding, Poulsbo has had a cemetery associated with the Lutheran Church that sits on a hill near downtown. As the city grew, residents began to worry the cemetery was too small. In 1911, Mayor Peter Iverson was able to secure 10 acres on Lincoln Hill, and the city purchased it for $525. Elizabeth Rindal’s 1912 grave site, marked with a tall pillar on the main drive, is thought to be the oldest stone in the cemetery.
Kane Cemetery, also known as Port Madison Cemetery, is Bainbridge Island’s oldest. It was founded around 1870 by George Meigs, owner of Port Madison Mill Company, who wanted a place to bury his son. Up until that time, Dead Man’s Island (now Treasure Island), in the middle of the harbor, was the island’s only burial site. But when waves began washing away the bodies that had been buried there, Meigs decided a new cemetery was needed and donated an acre of his land overlooking the town of Port Madison. Today it is noteworthy for having the only columbarium (for cremated remains) on the island.
The seven-acre Port Blakely Cemetery, the island’s second-oldest, was donated by the Port Blakely Mill Company to accommodate the community that grew up around the mill. One of the most interesting things about it is that although white and Japanese mill workers were separated in life, in death they were buried next to each other. Many of the mill workers’ markers are inscribed with “Woodman of the World.”
The origin of Seabold Cemetery, at the northernmost end of the island, is similar to Kane Cemetery. In the late 1800s, Norwegian immigrant John Johnson needed a place to bury his son, so he donated an acre of land for a community cemetery for Seabold’s pioneer families.
Joan (Komedal) Bickerton, whose son Ralph is the current caretaker, has so many relatives on both sides of her family buried there that she’s lost count. One trip to the cemetery stands out in her memory. “This one time, I experienced something I can’t really explain,” Bickerton said. “There had been a young mother and her two children killed in a horrible car accident and they had just been buried near where I was sitting watching Ralph mow.”
“I heard these voices of children saying ‘mommy, mommy.’ But there was nobody around except me and my son.”
Photos: Leslie Kelly
Information for this story was obtained at
the Bainbridge Island Historical Museum,
Suquamish Historical Museum and a history
of Port Blakely written by Romney Brain.
Honoring history one gravestone at a time
When I was a little girl my father often took me to the cemeteries in town. He ran his family’s monument company in Kansas founded in the 1800s. When we went on vacation, the first place we’d go when we got into town was the cemetery. My dad would point out the markers that he helped his dad set.After I moved away, no one was left to care for the family plot in Topeka Cemetery. I suppose that’s why I feel the need to take care of graves where I live. Mick Hersey, a U.S. Navy veteran from Bremerton, taught me the proper way to clean granite and other kinds of grave markers. Hersey has cleaned hundreds of veterans’ markers and trained many volunteers.
I started with the cemetery closest to where I live—Seabold Cemetery on Bainbridge Island. With the proper tools, cleansers and some elbow grease, I saw the stones transformed in just hours. Veterans’ names appeared when they were unreadable before. I wondered what their stories were, what they were like and what brought them to Bainbridge Island. The history of the island is told in these monuments, some with familiar family names that reside on the island today.
Bringing life to a cemetery seems an unusual pastime. But the peace of being in a sacred place for those who’ve passed and caring for the proof of their existence is genuinely rewarding. And perhaps someone back home will find their way to care for my ancestors’ markers.