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Oregon Historic Sites Database

LOCATION AND PROPERTY NAME
address: W Baseline St historic name:Odd Fellows IOOF Cemetery/ Masonic Cemetery
Hillsboro, Washington County (97123) current/other names:Hillsboro Pioneer Cemetery
assoc addresses:1601 SW Baseline St; Tualatin Valley Hwy
block/lot/tax lot:
location descr: twnshp/rng/sect/qtr sect:1N 3W 36
PROPERTY CHARACTERISTICS
resource type:district height (stories): total elig resources:1 total inelig resources:0
elig evaluation: eligible/contributing NR Status:
prim constr date:c.1870 second date: date indiv listed:
primary orig use: Cemetery orig use comments:
second orig use:
primary style: Not Applicable prim style comments:
secondary style: sec style comments:
primary siding: Not Applicable siding comments:
secondary siding:
plan type: architect:
builder:
comments/notes:
Dates seem to be varied for the initial layout of the cemetery grounds. Fitzgerald's Cemetery Survey form (2010) notes the year the cemetery was officially established as 1893. The City information says circa 1860, and another date of circa 1850 is in some sources.
GROUPINGS / ASSOCIATIONS
Survey/Grouping Included In: Type of Grouping Date Listed Date Compiled
   Hillsboro Cultural Resource Inventory Update 2013 Survey & Inventory Project 2013
SHPO INFORMATION FOR THIS PROPERTY
NR date listed: N/A
ILS survey date:
RLS survey date: 05/01/2013
106 Project(s): None
Special Assess Project(s): None
Federal Tax Project(s): None
ARCHITECTURAL / PROPERTY DESCRIPTION
(Includes expanded description of the building/property, setting, significant landscape features, outbuildings and alterations)
The Hillsboro Pioneer Cemetery is a linear property bounded on the south by West Baseline Street/ Tualatin Valley Highway. This busy 4- and 5-lane road is its only access. The Cemetery is made up of at least four different areas which were owned and maintained separately; the primary sections were dedicated and maintained by the International Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) and by the Masonic Lodge, with additional sections later incorporated from Washington County's graves for the indigent, and from the separate Tongue Family plot. According to archived files online for Oregon & Washington cemeteries, the "Old Pioneer Cemetery" has the largest collection of old graves in Washington County, but some of the remains were moved to this location from other cemeteries. There are approximately 3700 gravesites within the cemetery. The cemetery is bounded on its south edge by a dense 5' tall clipped privet hedge with openings in it for three gravel driveways. The arched gateway over one of the entrances has brick piers and open black-painted metal columns; it was added in 2012. The cemetery site is bounded on the north by the right of way of the Willamette & Pacific Railroad (formerly the Oregon Electric Railroad); and on the west by a vacant parcel, with a City of Hillsboro Monument stake identifying the common boundary. On the east is a paved site in industrial use. The driveways into the site extend north and connect around the back (north perimeter) of the cemetery. The cemetery layout is well described in the previous Statement of Significance: The initial formal cemetery was laid out by the Montezuma Lodge # 50 of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) fraternal organization in about 1860, acquired from Thos. H. and E.M. Tongue. They laid out what is now identified in current records as Garden A and B along the eastern portion of the grounds. In 1903, the Tuality Lodge # 6 of the Ancient Free & Accepted Masons (A.F &.A.M.) laid out what is now called Gardens C and D. Later, the IOOF added the portion running west to the property line. This IOOF Addition is now called Gardens E and F, and was platted in 1911. Lincoln Ellsworth Wilkes bought ground from the Tongue family along the north lines of Gardens A, B, C and D, and set up the North Annex to the Hillsboro Cemetery, which was recorded the 19th of June 1929; this was platted and dedicated as a public cemetery in 1929. In 1965 the Tongue family, represented by Thomas H. Tongue III, deeded to the Cemetery Association the small rectangle adjacent to the southeast corner that contains some 24 graves of the Tongue and related families. The markers at the cemetery are generally modest, with flat stone markers or various stone vertical obelisks. Some of the observed symbols on the markers and headstones include various religious symbols, as well as some fraternal or organizational symbols, including the Grand Army of the Republic and Woodmen of the World. Markers are organized in lines running north-south. The ground rises slightly towards the west, and there are various mature trees, both deciduous and evergreen, on the grassy cemetery grounds.
HISTORY
(Chronological, descriptive history of the property from its construction through at least the historic period - preferably to the present)
The Cemetery was originally part of the Donation Land Claim of Wheelock and Lucinda Simmons, 1866 (boundaries corrected by the U.S. Government in 1907). The cemetery was formed in 1870, according to online notes by Vicki Greer Oliver, or possibly as early as 1850 according to Goldmann's "Statement of Significance." The oldest portions are on the east side, with the first section being officially platted and dedicated by the IOOF in 1893. By 1909, the Wilkes Bros. map of Washington County shows two cemetery plots next to each other; one rectangular and marked "A.F. & A. M. IOOF Cemeteries" and the other just west of it, with an irregular shape, marked "IOOF Cemetery." The 1909 layout shows an unnamed roadway on the south, and the Thomas H. Tongue estate on the north and east, with the Oregon Electric Railway extending east to west across the Tongue property just north of the cemeteries. The 1928 Metsker Map shows three plots just south of the rail line, labeled (from west to east) as owned by “Cemetery IOOF,” “AF & AM,” and “IOOF.” Next to the parcel marked “IOOF” is a large parcel noted “Tongues Plat.” The Independent Order of Odd Fellows, or IOOF, is a worldwide fraternal service organization which was especially popular from about 1860 to 1915. The Ancient Free & Accepted Masons, or A.F. & A.M., is also a fraternal organization, often called the Freemasons. The organization has roots in Europe going back centuries, but one of the central tenets of the Masons is charitable works. Fitzgerald's Cemetery survey form (2010) includes the following notes: Creed Turner, convicted of murder, and hung in 1851, was buried here when the site was part of the Tongue farm. The northeast corner of the cemetery contains a large number of unmarked graves. There are babies buried here (a portion of this section is known as “Babyland”), as well as indigents from the Washington County Poor Farm and others who were unable to pay for burial. In 1952, the Hillsboro Cemetery Endowment Fund Association was formed in order to maintain the badly neglected site. In 1973, the City of Hillsboro accepted the deeds to the IOOF and Masons portions of the Pioneer Cemetery from the Hillsboro Cemetery Endowment Fund Association, and took over management of the cemetery.
RESEARCH INFORMATION
Title Records Census Records Property Tax Records Local Histories
Sanborn Maps Biographical Sources SHPO Files Interviews
Obituaries Newspapers State Archives Historic Photographs
City Directories Building Permits State Library
Local Library: University Library:
Historical Society: Other Respository:
Bibliography:
Online City Recorder site with information about the cemetery: http://www.ci.hillsboro.or.us/CityRecorder/PioneerCemetery.aspx Goldmann, Judy and Kim Fitzgerald, "Statement of Significance" for the Hillsboro Cultural Resource Inventory, 2010. Wilkes Bro's Abstract map Washington County Vol. 3 page 348, 1909. Online USGenWeb archives for Oregon & Washington cemeteries by Vicki Greer Oliver(see "hill-a-b" etc as well as "old-pioneer-sec-a" etc): http://files.usgwarchives.net/or/washington/cemeteries/ 1928 Metsker maps: http://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/US/1363672/Page+015+++Township+1+N++Range+3+W+++North+Plains++Roy++Verboort++Christie++Cornelius++Scheffin++Haynes/Washington+County+1928/Oregon/ Oregon State Parks Heritage Bulletin 7, June 2012, "A Sampling of Oregon Gravestone Symbols."