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Old Pioneer Cemetery Also known as: Milton Freewater Pioneer Cemetery Milton-Freewater, Umatilla County, Oregon, USA
Cemetery notes and/or description:
This is a highly vandalized cemetery that overlooks the city of Milton-Freewater, Oregon. Most of the city's early pioneers who lived in the side by side cities of Milton and Freewater are buried here. Memorials of these early pioneers are still subject to unrestriced vandalism.
The first burial in this cemetery was that of Laura J. McCoy in May 1878.
"In the mid 1930's several graves were unearthed across the canyon from this cemetery but no identification was ever learned as to the identities. Some of the skulls were identified as Indian and some as white men and it was presumed by newspaper accounts that a battle may have occurred at this spot in the early years as this was the original stage coach road that went through this canyon and over the hill to connect with Dry Creek and on to Weston. OR."
It is believed that the William Frazier family donated this land for the cemetery. The Piper family once owned the farmland around it also. Earliest date on a found headstone was 1878, Jan 20, of George W. McCoy, though a number of Frazier family members died in 1878. It is also referred to as the Old Pioneer Cemetery or the Milton Freewater Pioneer Cemetery.