New leadership for cemetery

Within the confines of the 2.1, acres known to most locals as Camp Polk Cemetery, lie hundreds of clues regarding the history of Sisters and its inhabitants.

There are no well-manicured lawns, paved walking paths, or orderly rows of gravestones. Rather, there are bird houses, horseshoes and other cowboy paraphernalia, a variety of personal memorabilia, and more than a little humor as well as sentimental pathos on display.

The land the cemetery inhabits was originally part of the Samuel Hindman homestead which was established after a single winter encampment in 1865-66 by soldiers from Polk County, Company A, 1st Regiment of Oregon Infantry. The soldiers built eight log cabins in which they spent the winter but returned to the Willamette Valley the following spring.

Hindman homesteaded the meadow in 1873 and established a post office called Camp Polk in 1875. The Hindman homestead became an important stage stop on the wagon road between the Willamette Valley and Prineville and the first community in the Sisters area. As the number of settlers grew in the area, a place was needed to bury their dead. In 1880, the Hindman family set aside a portion of their homestead as a two-acre cemetery on the top of a nearby hill which also took the name of Camp Polk.

The current number of gravesites is a moveable figure with some estimates being 170-200 and FindAGrave website listing 340 names of people interred there. About 324 is probably the most accurate.

Photo by Sue Stafford

Some headstones at Camp Polk Cemetery are vivid and "Western." The cemetery is historic.

The oldest known grave is that of Thomas Summers who was interred July 8, 1880. No one seemed to know who he was. In November of that same year, three-and-a-half-year-old Nellie Claypool was buried there. Her family was living at the Fish Lake way station when Nellie became very ill. The nearest doctor was in Prineville, necessitating a trip by horse and wagon. By the time they reached the Hindman place, Nellie was too ill to travel further and died soon after they arrived.

The Hindmans cared for the Claypool family at that sad time. They built a little casket, lined it with cloth, and helped the family bury Nellie in the Camp Polk Cemetery, where her marker is still visible.

With the cemetery originally being part of the Hindman homestead, and later made a separate parcel and part of family inheritances, the question of who owned the cemetery from 1940 to today has had it in legal limbo. For the past 82 years or so, there has been no formal caretaker. People wishing to be buried there have not had to make any formal arrangements. Families staked out burial plots, some of which have never been used. Many graves have no markers or have markers in disarray that are difficult to read. In the earlier days, there were few if any regulations regarding cemeteries and burials.

However, in 1985 the Oregon legislature established the Oregon Mortuary and Cemetery Board (OMCB) and gave it the responsibility for licensing and regulating cemeteries, among other things. OMCB created the Certificate of Authority, which is a license to operate, and without a Certificate of Authority, a cemetery cannot perform internments. Simply put, that means any burials done since 1985 have probably not been legal.

The cemetery did become a County Historic Site in 1986. The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, under whose regulations the cemetery operates, declared the cemetery abandoned. Despite all of this, burials have continued to be done up to the present.

In May 2022, Heidi Baker of Redmond began investigating the question of Camp Polk Cemetery ownership after visiting it for the first time in several years and discovering its lack of oversight and maintenance. She researched and completed a chain of title going back to 1918, as well as collected firsthand accounts on historical knowledge of the cemetery from long time locals. In meetings with the Three Sisters Historical Society, that organization declined to take on the cemetery as a project. However, a few individual TSHS members, Bob Renggli, Jan Hodgers, and Zeta Seiple, were interested in joining Baker to form a separate committee to work on the cemetery project.

In October 2022 they began the process of forming a nonprofit 501(c)(3) committee. Bob Renggli is serving as the president, Jan Hodgers is the secretary, Zeta Seiple is treasurer, and Heidi Baker was a member at large. She has since resigned from the board to pursue some other interests but made a sizeable contribution to getting the organization up and running.

Between October 2022 through January 2023, they established the name of the committee, Camp Polk Pioneer Cemetery Preservation Committee (CPPCPC), as well as determining their mission which includes seeking a cemetery caretaker permit from Oregon Parks and Recreation Historic Cemeteries Program and seeking ownership of the cemetery, which is determined to be the best way to acquire grant money and to provide the highest level of care for the cemetery. Both of those goals have been accomplished.

Photo by Sue Stafford

The cemetery is considered an archaeological site.

To date, the committee has attained their nonprofit status and received their initial caretaker permit and renewed it once. They have hosted Veterans and YouthBuild Cleanup Days in October 2022 and 2023. They received a grant of $814 from the City of Sisters which allowed them to build a tool shed in September 2023. Grayson Sorrels has been volunteering this summer to trim limbs and haul debris away. Hodgers, Seiple, Renggli, and Martha Lussenhop have conducted tours of the cemetery over the last several summers.

To pay legal expenses and permit fees, the committee has already spent $9,000 of their own money. In May 2024, the Deschutes County Circuit Court declared the new nonprofit to be the sole owner of the real property located at 69875 Camp Polk Road, Sisters. Now that they are owners, they have begun the application process for the Certificate of Authority, which is a complex process. Their bylaws indicate they will not only maintain and preserve CPPC but will also have legal burials there. Because a number of the gravesites are over 75 years old, the cemetery is considered an archaeological site which will require other steps to be taken.

An important part of the process will be to have the cemetery surveyed, using LIDAR to find unmarked graves. They need to know where all the existing gravesites are, so they know how much room there is left. This process will likely take a year or more. Therefore, currently, no new burials are possible. Once they have the information on what space is left, it will help them form a policy on what new burials may be allowed.

The cemetery gate is currently padlocked to keep large equipment out. Pedestrians can still access the cemetery and are encouraged to tour at leisure.

The committee greatly appreciates tax-deductible donations of any amount to help with their OMCB application process. Please send donations to PO Box 367, Sisters 97759.

Seiple indicated, "We are also looking for new board members. If you have prior cemetery experience, or experience with non-profit boards, bookkeeping, fundraising, website creation, etc., we would love to have you send us a note, and mail it to the above PO Box. Please include your email and phone number where we can reach you."