Life stories - not ghost stories - were retold over the weekend of some of the estimated 40,000 people buried at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Queen Anne.
The guests who arrived to join the annual walking tour listened to a history lesson that has connections to people in the Seattle area and all across the world.
"Everyone has a story," said tour guide Kim Turner. Although cemeteries are often thought of as a final resting place, the QAHS sheds light each year on the journeys that individuals traveled before arriving there. Some grave markers on the tour were inscribed with names well known to the local community, such as John McGraw (1850-1910), for whom McGraw Street and McGraw Place are named.
McGraw arrived in Seattle in the 1870s at the age of 26, alone and without a dime to his name. He eventually became Police Chief and served three terms as King County Sheriff. As Sheriff he helped suppress local anti-Chinese riots in 1886 when anti-Chinese sentiments were sweeping the West Coast. McGraw would later become the second governor of Washington. He joined the Alaska-Yukon gold rush in 1897 (the catalyst for Seattle's Alaska-Yukon Pacific Exposition (which, along with Queen Anne High School, celebrates its 100th anniversary this year) and returned to Seattle to pursue a business career in real estate.
Isabel Egglin, the coordinator for the tour, said that "we try to make [the tour] as multicultural as possible" because connections exist well beyond the Seattle area.
Filipinos come from around the world to visit the marker of Carlos Bulosan (1913 - 1956) who is known as the first Filipino writer to bring Filipino concerns to national attention. Bulosan came to Seattle in 1930 at the start of the Great Depression, full of ideals of brotherhood and equality. However, just as the Chinese had been the targets of racial hatred, the Filipinos were perceived as the latest influx of non-whites who worked for little pay, effectively taking jobs away from whites. After experiencing racism and the terrible living conditions of a migrant laborer he worked as an activist and writer.
Bulosan's autobiographic novel, "America is in the Heart" has been considered as one of the 50 most important American books ever published.
Another individual on the tour, Green Fields (1836-1914), has only recently been discovered. Fields is one of three black Civil War soldiers buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery.
Cynthia Wilson, with the Black Genealogy Research Group, is currently researching 26 black Civil War soldiers who are buried throughout Washington. Fields' marker was recently placed courtesy of Wilson. Fields was born into slavery on a plantation in Mississippi and managed to escape. He joined the 2nd U. S. Colored Artillery during the Civil War and although he was prepared for combat, he never saw battle. He came to Seattle in 1893 and lived on Queen Anne where he worked as a street cleaner and was well known in the community.
It is customary in cemeteries the family pays for the maintenance of grave sites. Currently, the tombstone of William Bell (1817 - 1887) is in a state of neglect and Egglin is looking for a Boy Scout troop to volunteer to maintain it. Bell arrived as part of the Denny party in today's West Seattle. In 1852 he developed the area now known as Belltown.[[In-content Ad]]
