Mystery solved for cemetery on MacLaren property in Woodburn
NOTE: Bonney Cemetery is a private cemetery on state correctional facility property. The public cannot visit without prior special arrangement. If interested, email info@oya.oregon.gov.
Cousins Marilee Westfall and Robin Groshong make a good team. Westfall is an instigator and Groshong a genealogist, and together they unraveled the mystery of a tiny cemetery behind MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility.
They first visited the site in 2019 after Westfall recalled a story published in the Statesman Journal in the mid-1990s.
She had saved the clipping about staff at the Oregon Youth Authority facility in Woodburn seeking help from the public to uncover information about a cemetery on the 172-acre MacLaren property.
A broken headstone offered the only clue, with the inscription: "John T., infant son of … Bonney, Nov. 5, 1870."
The mystery remained for another quarter-century until Westfall moved back to the Willamette Valley and urged Groshong to dig deeper into their family roots.
They are Bonney descendants.
With Groshong's dogged research into county and state archives and Oregon Youth Authority's support, they now know who was buried there, and the graves are marked with new granite headstones and protected by a new decorative fence.
Patriarch, daughter-in-law and grandson rest together
The inscriptions on the light gray stones reveal three members of the Bonney family: Dr. Truman Augustus Bonney, Mary C. (Skeen) Bonney and John T. Bonney.
Westfall and Groshong are great-great-great granddaughters of Truman Bonney.
Truman once owned the land where the cemetery sits. He died in 1868. Mary was his daughter-in-law. She died in 1870 during childbirth. John was an infant when he died in 1870.
Their resting place, isolated behind a locked gate on the MacLaren campus, is on a 10-foot-by-10-foot plateau surrounded by four small cedar trees and remnants of an old walnut orchard.
Oregon Youth Authority removed dead cedar trees that cast a shadow over the site and were at risk of turning over soil, replacing them with cedar saplings native to the Willamette Valley. A wrought iron fence with an archway sign built by MacLaren youth and maintenance staff replaced an unsightly chain-link fence.
"They went above and beyond," Groshong said.
Bonneys winter at Sutter's Fort before coming to Oregon
The Bonney name may be familiar to Oregonians and Northwest residents.
Bonney Butte is a hiking destination on the southeast side of Mount Hood. Bonney Meadows Campground is near Maupin. There's a Bonney Lake in Washington, believed to have been named after someone in another branch of the family.
Bonney descendants from around Oregon gathered last month to rededicate the pioneer cemetery almost lost in history. Most had never met, but all shared a common thread as descendants of a pair of Bonney brothers, Truman and Jarius.
Dr. Truman Augustus Bonney was an early Oregon pioneer. He and his brother crossed the Oregon Trail with their families in 1845. They spent the winter at Sutter’s Fort in California before coming to Oregon in the spring of 1846.
Descendants say there are no records indicating Truman ever practiced medicine. He was the first coroner for Marion County, so descendants assume it was just a nickname for that role.
Much was written about Truman in the 1940s by a columnist for The Oregon Statesman who claimed to be a great-grandson. R.J. Hendricks wrote "Bits for Breakfast" and often shared tales of his ancestors, including a few about Truman and his winter at Sutter’s Fort.
Bonney family lore has Truman's daughter or daughters, depending on the version, finding gold nuggets in a stream in the winter of 1845-46, more than two years before the documented discovery of gold. As the story goes, the girls brought the nuggets to the attention of Sutter, who hushed the matter.
The following spring, the Bonneys left for Oregon and settled in the French Prairie area of the Willamette Valley. Truman staked a Donation Land Claim in 1850 on what is now a state highway along the eastern border of Woodburn.
OYA invests $15,000 in cemetery as stewards of the land
The Bonney family deeded the land with the cemetery to the state in the 1920s, although Groshong has never found any documentation in her research besides mentions in newspaper articles.
In 1991, during the centennial for state juvenile corrections, officials made a public plea for information about the burials, but there was no response.
Four years later, officials again asked for help from the public.
"We have kept the gravesite up because it was part of the deal when we got the land," a correctional facility official said in a 1995 article in the Statesman Journal.
After years of neglect, MacLaren students on the grounds crew were helping maintain the graves. The newspaper reported two headstones missing, with only infant John’s partially intact.
Oregon Youth Authority ramped up its efforts 15 years ago as stewards of the land to restore the pioneer cemetery and put names to the people interred there.
"It has been a labor of respect and civic responsibility, pursued in an informed, committed and constructive manner, focusing on the common good," OYA spokeswoman Jenny Smith said.
She said the agency has spent about $15,000 since, including the cost of the new headstones and the new wrought iron fence and archway sign with “Bonney Cemetery” cut out.
Oregon Youth Authority leaders also partnered with archeologists from the University of Oregon in April 2015 to confirm the number of graves at the cemetery. Three were identified using ground-penetrating radar.
Another archeological team was brought to the site in October 2021 hoping to recover any remaining headstone fragments. One fragment had the raised letters MAR, a clue that would help Groshong in her research.
Searching the archives for more clues to the burials
Groshong started digging in county and state archives in 2019, after she and Westfall took a field trip to MacLaren. Neither knew anything about the cemetery and were surprised how eager the MacLaren superintendent and Oregon Youth Authority assistant director were to support their efforts to document the cemetery's history.
"The day we walked in there as Bonneys off the street, you would have thought we were famous," Groshong said.
The first clues were presented during their visit, written in stone. A partially intact headstone for infant John, including the last name Bonney and a second partial slab of stone spelled out "MAR" in raised block lettering.
Groshong started by researching the donation land claim to see which Bonney, if any, once owned the land. She checked records under Truman and Jarius, along with Truman's son Bradford, who donated part of the land for the townsite of Woodburn.
Truman Bonney's claim matched the township, range and section coordinates of an old Oregon Department of Transportation cemetery study, which listed the site as MacLaren School Cemetery. She found a 1941 map at the Oregon State Archives that confirmed the school was on Truman’s original donation land claim.
The next logical step was for her to sort through Truman's 13 known children, including seven sons, to confirm where each resided in 1870. She determined one son did not come west with the family, and four others had died prior to 1870, leaving only Bradford S. and Charles Reuben for her to investigate.
She said the youngest, Charles, held the key.
Marriage certificate provides more than just coincidences
The 1870 Federal Census Records for Waconda, Marion, Oregon, showed Charles Bonney as being employed as a harness maker and residing with his 19-year-old wife, Martha. His first marriage had never showed up on anyone’s genealogy work.
Marion County marriage records showed C.R. Bonney married Martha S. Keen on July 27, 1869.
After struggling to research Martha's family, Groshong requested a copy of the original marriage certificate and realized there had been a transcription error. Charles married Martha C. Skeen, not Keen.
Martha never appeared after the 1870 census, and Charles remarried two years later, leading Groshong to conclude she had died.
With matching death dates for infant John T. and Martha and similarities between the stone fragments, there were too many coincidences to ignore. Charles and Martha were married in 1869 at the home of the same justice of the peace, who the year before witnessed Truman Bonney's last will and testament.
Truman died in 1868, and his actual burial site was unknown. Groshong said theories had been tossed around for over two decades, as long as she had been doing genealogy.
"The prevalent view was that he was buried somewhere on his own land claim, as were so many pioneers of his era," she wrote in a September 2019 "Mystery Solved" summary she submitted to Oregon Youth Authority.
It also would have been customary to bury other family members next to a patriarch.
"It just makes sense," Westfall said. "If you were going to bury a baby and then the mom, you would want them by family, someplace safe."
Groshong cited three or four sources for every fact and conclusion presented to Oregon Youth Authority officials. She said they took some time to authenticate her research.
"When that came back with an A+ on it, that's when they got excited," she said.
Descendants gather to celebrate the restored site
With COVID-19, the availability of supplies and the usual red tape, the project to restore the cemetery took another four years.
The state asked Westfall and Groshong to choose the style of markers, and it was important to them that they looked similar to something from that era.
The stones are simple yet elegant. Martha's has a rose. John's is smaller and in the middle. Truman's has a covered wagon.
Fragments of John's original marker are encased in a metal, rectangular box outside the fence.
Westfall and Groshong invited other Bonney descendants to gather in late August for a rededication of the cemetery. Some of them had never met, making introductions in the MacLaren parking lot before winding around the property to the hidden cemetery.
They took turns inside the enclosed area, taking detailed snapshots of the three new headstones, then posing for group photographs in front of the Bonney Cemetery arch.
"It's so wonderful the mystery has been solved and it's been restored," said Sam Barry, who attended from eastern Oregon.
Capi Lynn is a senior reporter for the Statesman Journal. Send comments, questions and tips to her at clynn@statesmanjournal.com or 503-399-6710.
This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Mystery solved for cemetery on MacLaren property in Woodburn
