🪦 Part of A Series On Wrangell Cemeteries 🪦

In the woods behind Wrangell Memorial Cemetery and the Heritage Harbor parking lot sits Wrangell’s oldest cemetery.

Drive a mile out the Zimovia Highway, and you’ll pass the Memorial Cemetery. It’s a wide, open piece of land right off the highway, situated next to a former baseball field. It began as the Redmen Cemetery, named for the social club that started it, but it is now operated by local government. Behind this cemetery, nestled in the woods, is something much older that serves as a lens into Wrangell’s distant past: the Indian Cemetery.

Prior to the arrival of settlers, cremation was the chief form of caring for human remains among the Tlingit. I covered this topic in my episode, The Mystery of Deadman’s Island. In 1876, the first person to convert the Tlingit of Khaachxhan.áak’w to Christianity was a Tsimshian missionary named Philip “Clah” McKay, who organized a congregation, school, and—according to one account—the community’s first Indian cemetery. According to Rev. Thomas Crosby, in Up and Down the Pacific Coast by Canoe and Mission Ship:

While the Indian Cemetery represents the adoption of a Christian tradition, the quiet, wooded area evokes an element of Tlingit tradition, as well. As Dr. Rosita Worl wrote in an essay on death in the Tlingit world, “When an individual dies, we say they ‘Walked Into the Forest,’ a liminal space for us.”

The grave of C.F. Jones

The Indian Cemetery is not just home to the remains of Tlingit people. Recently, I was contacted by Wrangell local Mary Jo Pullman about the headstone of C.F. Jones, born in 1832 in New York, died in 1900. While some of the headstones in the cemetery are moss covered, fallen, or hard to find, Jones’ headstone is very noticeable, easy to read, and surrounded by a protective fence. Mary Jo Pullman has graciously volunteered her time taking photos of Wrangell’s headstones for findagrave.com. This is an incredible website I’ve used for a million projects. She wanted to know if I knew anything about C.F. Jones.

Most of the time, I can’t find information about people this far back. But incredibly, C.F. Jones appeared on the 1900 Census just months before his death, allowing us to piece together his life.

Charles F. Jones came to Fort Wrangel in February 1874 at the fever-peak of the Cassiar Gold Rush. He was among the miners that came while the Stikine River was still frozen over, when some ventured up the river on foot to jump claims or dig for gold into the frozen ground. Jones came to Fort Wrangel with his business partner, Irish-immigrant Edward “Fred” Lynch. Lynch opened a hotel in Fort Wrangel, which he passed along to his son-in-law John Goodwill Grant who himself became a prominent businessman and mayor. According to the 1900 Census, Jones lived with the Lynch family and worked at their hotel.

C.F. Jones should not be confused with Charlie Jones (Chief Shakes VII) who died in 1944 and is buried close by in the Memorial Cemetery. Based on my casual exploration of the Indian Cemetery, it appears that C.F. Jones is among the last to be buried here, as the Redmen Cemetery began shortly after the start of the 1900s, becoming the popular place for Wrangell’s dead to be buried.

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Wrangell Cemeteries

Researching history is amazing, but disturbing headstones is a bad idea. Before attempting to move or clean a headstone, consult with local government, tribal organizations, and next-of-kin to make sure you’re doing it the right way! You never want to be responsible for damaging a grave, even with the best of intentions. There are people in Alaska who are experts in this field, and you should seek out their advice!