Article by local author Tonya Macalino-
After posting asking for support for the Methodist Meeting House the other day, I realized that many people might not be familiar with the practice that is proposed for the monument. I thought the Washington County Poor Farm (later Hospital) would be a good example.
Site background: The Washington County Poor Farm was a the first version of a social safety net in the county. Before this, the indigent elderly or infirm would survive on scraps of food, hiding from the night in barns and other remote shelters. After the poor farm was established, these folks could shelter there and those who were able also worked the farm. Patients who passed away were interred in the graveyard in the area at the foot of the Lowe's parking lot where the signs now stand.
As a result of having no heritage preservation plan: Lowe's purchased the property with the promise of erecting a historical marker. They were to retain responsibility for maintaining this marker. (This is the same fate that awaits the Methodist Meeting House site.) From the picture, you can see the following:
The Lowe’s parking lot had a large area set aside with a monument as required by our past City officials to commemorate a possible cemetary where our poor farm was. Questions are arising now that the Native graves at the Methodist Meeting House are not being provided equal protection even as the City of HIllsboro celebrates diversity.
1) The site has not been constructed in a welcoming or visually attractive way. This installation would never be a tourist attraction or education installation and therefore misses out on calling notice to the rather terrifying existence that faced the infirm and elderly who had no family support prior to Social Security among many other important historical affiliations.
2) The site has not been maintained or updated as new research has been conducted and is out of date.Vandalism and deterioration makes the signage difficult to read.
3) No one I have ever talked to knows this marker exists.
This site could easily be made part of our town's cultural branding, if it were brought under the city's protection. If you are able to attend the meeting on the 4th, your support would be greatly appreciated. :-) (You can also submit a letter to the Planning Commission, if that is more comfortable for you!)
This site, like the Methodist Meeting House site, is erected to preserve an unmarkered cemetery.
With regards to the Methodist Meeting House appeal hearing on the 4th of September, I'd promised to explain more about the unmarkered cemeteries that are common between both the Meeting House site and the Poor Farm/Hospital site. So here it goes...
When patients at the Poor Farm passed on and no relatives claimed their remains, they were interred in an area of the property without markers--a sort of tidy mass grave.
Sometime between 1923 and 1950, these graves were moved to the Pioneer Cemetery. However, because no one could be certain all the bones were removed, the lower end of the parking lot was designated sacred ground. When Lowe's bought the property, they were not permitted to pave over this section for their parking lot--where the historical marker and patch of grass stand today.
Now, to compare this practice to the Methodist Meeting House site.
The Meeting House also had a cemetery. And similarly, when the building was disassembled and moved into town, many of the graves were moved along with it. But not all.
Of the graves not moved were 5 of Joseph and Virginia Meek's children. These children were of mixed European and Nez Perce blood. It has been suggested that this may have been one of the reasons the children weren't moved with the rest. (Given that Joe was nationally famous and most of the early settler had mixed-race families, I'm not sure, but the move would have been made by later settlers who tended to be much more prejudiced against Native Americans.)
Whatever the motivation, the site of the Methodist Meeting House (currently in the field pictured) then became an unmarkered grave the same as the later Poor Farm. Attempts to locate these graves have been unsuccessful. Archaeologist David Ellis has stated that the acid soil and 100 years of plowing may be the cause of that.
Unlike the Poor Farm, however, the Methodist Meeting House site--believed by most local historians to have been marked by a grove of trees until the late 1900s--has not been afforded the designation of sacred ground and is set for paving according to the building and design plan currently under appeal.
Both sites offer no evidence of internment, yet one is at least minimally preserved and the other is not. I would caution that we not create a situation in which the possible burial site of white people is not given more respect that the possible burial site of Native Americans.
I hope that helps clarify things a bit. Tomorrow I will explain a little more about the importance of the Methodist Meeting House in local history.
PS - For those of you who are wondering how such a famous couple's children could be buried without headstones, take a look at the founder of our town, David Hill's headstone--donated in 1880 by a school children's coin drive 30 years after his death.
