Every town has its own history, from large metropolitan area such as New York City all the way down to the small, rural towns in the midwest. More and more, people are turning to websites such as Ancestry.com (and similar) to find out about their history. One town took it upon themselves to tell the genealogical story of their historic cemetery in hopes of bringing their town’s history to light.

Mukilteo, Washington’s Pioneer Cemetery sits on a bluff overlooking the Puget Sounds, where ferries move across the water daily. The cemetery has approximately 43 grave stones and the site dates back to the late 1800s, with the first interment dating 1873 by a veteran of the Civil War. The project of documenting the cemetery’s history was a partnership between Everett genealogist Margaret Robe Summitt, the Mukilteo Historical Society and the city of Mukilteo.

Each grave was documented in a new booklet titled Mukilteo Pioneer Cemetery: Honoring Our History, which is on sale at the city’s Lighthouse gift shop at the waterfront. The 44-page booklet gives the location of each grave and gives a history to each person buried in the cemetery. The project was also a way to help give record to the cemetery as its location on the bluff has deteriorated due to erosion down the hillside.

A majority of the cemetery has been documented but there are still some gaps in information. Anyone with information on the people buried at Pioneer Cemetery may contact genealogist Margaret Robe Summitt at [email protected].

For the full article by Sharon Sayler of the Herald Net, click here.