Eugene Pioneer Cemetery - Eugene, Oregon
Posted by: 
DougK
N 44° 02.571 W 123° 04.621
10T E 493829 N 4876634
The Eugene Pioneer Cemetery was established in 1872 by the Spencer Butte Lodge No. 9 of the Independent Order of Odd fellows (I.O.O.F).
Waymark Code: WMFHP6
Location: Oregon, United States
Date Posted: 10/22/2012
Views: 3
The
Eugene Pioneer Cemetery is also know as the Independent Order of Odd fellows (I.O.O.F) cemetery.
From the NRHP submission form:
The cemetery was established in 1872 by the Spencer Butte Lodge No. 9 of the Independent Order of Odd fellows (I.O.O.F). It includes 752 plots and approximately 4,000 burial spaces with gravestones primarily facing east and west. It holds the remains of twenty veterans of the Spanish American War. One hundred and nineteen Civil War veterans are interred there, more than any other Lane County cemetery. Fifty-one are buried in the Civil War veterans plot. The remaining 68 are buried in family plots within the cemetery.
The landscape's most dramatic features are the large straight double rows of Douglas firs which line the roadways. The firs dominate the original portion of the cemetery but are concentrated to the northwest. They provide a formal order to the landscape and frame dramatic views while clearly defining one's progression along the wide and heavily shaded roadways. The shade and the formality gradually dissipate toward the south in the areas added in 1908. More casual plantings of Port Orford cedar, ash, big leaf maple and various mature shrubs dot the landscape in this portion of the cemetery. The area is more open and sunny with sparser plantings and a less discernible rectilinear pattern, exemplifying a shift in aesthetic tastes from the more ordered community cemeteries of the nineteenth century to the more open lawn cemeteries of the twentieth century.
The funerary monuments mark similar stylistic trends. The earliest nineteenth century plots reflect the concern for order and definition suggested by the rectilinear tree-lined avenues. Most grave plots are clearly delineated by low, relatively simple curbs, some with modest corner embellishments and/or a low step marking the plot "entrance." Some exceptional Victorian plots include the Shelton-McMurpreey family plot, at the southeast corner of memorial square. Its curb is made from large sections of basalt from the quarry at Skinner Butte, owned by the Shelton family. Likewise, the Houston family plot, (in the original plat's southeast quadrant) the Griffin family plot (in the original plat's northeast quadrant) and the Warfel plot (in the original plat's northwest quadrant) are entirely enclosed within low iron fences, exemplifying the Victorian era penchant to distinguish socio-economic class as much in death as in life.
These late nineteenth century plots are dominated by highly embellished monuments which emphasize verticality. Many are ornately carved Vermont blue or white marble, and Norwegian and Swedish granite. The grave of prominent Eugene Judge, J.J. Walton is a limestone obelisk approximately ten feet high atop a square limestone base. The grave of H. C. Humphrey, a prominent Eugene banker is marked by an approximately 13 foot cylindrical monument of carved marble topped with a large carved urn. There are numerous monuments which integrate carved marble and cast zinc. The zinc grave markers are not only among the most ornate but have endured the elements better than many other early monuments.
The cemetery's most commemorative monument, a 25 foot Vermont blue marble statue of a Union soldier with rifle at rest, marks the Civil War Veterans plot which lies southwest of Memorial Square. The statue was provided in the 1902 will of John S. Covell, a Civil War veteran who died in Eugene on January 28, 1903. It was erected in 1903, the year of his death. Like the Civil War Memorial,most of the earliest burial plots are located near the Memorial Square. More recent plots are interspersed in this are abutted to dominate southern portions of the cemetery. Many of the new plots include mass produced contemporary markers, which are generally lower to the ground and less imposing.