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OSWEGO PIONEER CEMETERY The Oswego Pioneer Cemetery is located on part of Jesse Bullock's 1850 Donation Land Claim of 618 acres which extended from just south of the cemetery to the current site of Marylhurst University. Running along the edge of the cemetery is Stafford Road which was used in the 1800s to transport produce to Portland from this area, known as Hazelia. The cemetery is designated by the City of Lake Oswego as an Historic Landmark. Ownership: Bullock gave George W. Prosser, his son-in-law, approximately five acres which in 1881 he platted into nine groups of family burial plots, each containing space for five graves. At the same time, adjacent land was set aside for Sacred Heart Cemetery owned by the Catholic Church. In 1892 Prosser gifted the property for nominal consideration ($1) to the Oregon Iron & Steel Company for use by the community as its cemetery; in 1934 Oregon Iron & Steel transferred the cemetery to the Methodist Episcopal Church in Oswego for $10; and the church in turn sold it for $10 to the Oswego Odd Fellows Lodge (IOOF #93) in 1938. For the next 40 years it was known as the “Oswego Odd Fellow Cemetery.” Upkeep on the property was inconsistent, especially as the IOOF chapter’s membership dwindled. In 1977, Ethel Schaubel (a Worthington pioneer-family descendant) assumed management, together with Bill Blizzard, then-owner of the Lake Oswego Review newspaper. They incorporated the cemetery and were responsible for spearheading restoration to its current state. Today, the Oswego Pioneer Cemetery Association is a 501(c 3) non-profit organization with a board that oversees the cemetery’s operation. The Layout: The cemetery is divided into two areas: the older Pioneer section (blocks 4-9) and the newer section (blocks 1-3, to the right/north of the entry road). A survey of the Pioneer section conducted by the Oswego Heritage Council in 2008 determined from a site survey and from old records that there are 770 burials, of which 97 are missing markers. An additional 700 grave sites were purchased in the late 1800s and early 1900s but never used. A survey of the newer section has not been completed, but there are at least 700 grave and ash burial sites; approximately half are taken. At the foot of the new section is the caretaker’s house which should be completed in 2009. The Burials: The earliest graves in Lake Oswego were found along State Street, southwest of what is now the Lakewood Center for the Arts; approximately 10 people who had died between 1856 and 1879 were moved from there to the Pioneer cemetery to make room for construction of Highway 43, according to Oswego historian Lucia Bliss. The earliest death with burial in the cemetery is that of Florine Augusta Woodruff Davidson, who died November 29, 1880 at age 23 years. The cemetery founders Bullock and Prosser and their families were buried there in the late 1800s, along with a dozen other early families, including the Borlands, Bullocks, Clinefelters, Cooks, Coons, Davidsons, Haines, Headricks, Paulings, Prossers, Shipleys, Wankers, and Worthingtons. Other notables include six Oswego mayors and four Oswego Marshals who represented law and order in the early 1900s. Also interred in the cemetery is Nobel-winner Linus Pauling who was born in Portland in 1901 and died in Big Sur, California in 1994. His ashes, along with his wife’s, were not interred in a cemetery until they were moved by the family from Big Sur to the Pauling plot in 2005. Many Oswego war veterans are buried here: 22 from the American Civil War (1861-1865), 2 from the Spanish-American War of 1898, 22 from the First World War (1914-1918), 8 from World War II (1939-1945), and 2 from the Korean War (1950-1953). One of the Spanish-American veterans was James U. Campbell interred in 1937. He was an Oregon Supreme Court judge from 1930 to 1937 and was Linus Pauling’s uncle by marriage. "Iron making was Oregon's first major manufacturing enterprise and the little town of Oswego was the center of this venture." (Ann Fulton, Iron, Wood & Water, p. 26). Based on information collected by Susanna Kuo in connection with Oswego’s iron history, we have identified more than 30 iron workers who are buried in the Oswego Pioneer Cemetery, and several more in the adjacent Sacred Heart Cemetery. One of the early Oswego settlers was Theodore R. Worthington who was a collier (coal maker) for the Oswego Iron Company. Recognizing the need for more workers, in 1882 he traveled back to his home town, where he raised a workforce of 40 men. On March 8, 1883, they and their wives and children departed by river boat from Ironton and Hanging Rock, Ohio for the 3-week return journey, traveling to Cincinnati, then by train to St. Louis, Texarkana, El Paso and San Francisco where they boarded a steamer to Portland, finally arriving in Oswego by wagon. More information: In 2000, Oswego Heritage Council memorialized the Oswego Pioneer Cemetery with a plaque which is affixed to a metal stand at the entrance to cemetery, located at 17401 Stafford Rd, Lake Oswego, Oregon (next to the Lake Oswego Municipal Golf Course).
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