A Monument to the Pioneers and Settlers of Tombstone

by Rita Ackerman

As travelers head south on Highway 80 from the I-10 Comstock Hill looms up on the right and then the entrance to the Boothill Graveyard suddenly appears on the left. The gravel parking lot is flanked on the north by a rustic fence of ocotillo spines.  Few seem to notice the large rock monument to the right of the curio shop but there was a time when it stood out as a lone sentinel on the side of the hill. The monument was built by the Roy Fourr post of the American Legion and dedicated on May 30, 1938 to the unknown settlers and drifters buried at the old cemetery.

A simple door on the side of the gift shop gives entrance to what was once the Tombstone City Cemetery now known through out the world as Boothill Graveyard.

The cemetery was first shown on a map made of the Tombstone townsite in 1881 by M. Kelleher. It reportedly reached from the corner of Second and Safford Streets west to Highway 80 and then north beyond the present border. The exact boundaries have been lost to time and development.

The first known burial in the cemetery was of three month old Eva Waters who died of scarlet fever in 1878. She was soon followed by Freddie Foos or Fuss who died of diphtheria at age 7. They are sad reminders that there is much more to Boothill than the outlaws that draw tourists on a daily basis.

The New City Cemetery which can be found by following Allen Street towards Schieffelin Monument was opened in 1884 and many of the graves in the old cemetery were moved there. Those that remained were soon forgotten; the wooden markers stolen or lost to the elements, and the graves melted into the landscape.

One of those graves was that of John P. Clum’s first wife, Mary, who died on December 18, 1880. When a resurgence in interest in the old cemetery appeared in the newspaper Clum wrote a letter to Hon. O. Gibson, Mayor, Tombstone, Arizona. It was published in the Epitaph on March 27, 1925. Clum said he had revisited Tombstone about 30 years after her death and was saddened that he not only couldn’t find her grave but couldn’t find the cemetery even with the help of friends still living in town.

Renewed interest in preserving the cemetery came after a visit by history writer Frederick Bechdolt. In a letter to the editor Bechdolt referred to the cemetery as one of the few remaining “Boothills” and added it would soon be lost if someone didn’t take an interest in its preservation.

The city took note and started a campaign to clean up the site which had been used as a dumping ground for many years. The local Boy Scout troop went about clearing the grounds and a cleanup fund was started with one of the first donations from John Clum.

In 1925 surveyor J. A. Rockfellow donated his services to relocate the original lines of the cemetery so a fence could be erected to protect it.

The city put out calls for any information on who was buried in the cemetery and the approximate location of the grave. Bechdolt mentioned the only grave he could find was the marble marker of Martin Peel who had been murdered On March 25, 1882. Peel’s marker was used as a reference point to design a diagram of the old plots.

More letters were printed in the Epitaph including one from H. B. Maxson who claimed his oldest son was buried in the cemetery in February 1883 by the local undertaker, Andy Ritter. His was one of the bodies later moved to the new city cemetery.

The approximate location of the common grave of the McLaury brothers and Billy Clanton was found and a copy of the original marker “Murdered in the Streets of Tombstone” painted by Frank Vaughn in 1933.

Sadly in 1944 it was noted that the four-foot slab of petrified wood which had been placed over the grave of Quong Kee had practically disappeared because of being whittled down by treasure seeking visitors. It was decided to make the markers as tamper proof as possible. They were made of 31/2 foot lengths of metal pipe sunk in the ground with markers stenciled with information and welded to the posts. (Epitaph, Oct. 5, 1944)

The old city cemetery was bordered by the Chinese and Jewish sections which were considered separate at that time. The Jewish section was surrounded by an adobe wall which was torn down and used to build a Chinese market on the corner of Allen and Third Streets where the park is now. Many of the Chinese were later disinterred and taken back to their homeland because it was believed that was the only way they could join their ancestors. One of the most famous Chinese still there is “China Mary” matriarch of the Chinese community in early Tombstone.

Many more graves were moved or completely lost when the new Highway 80 took a corner of the old cemetery.

Neat rows and metal markers are just a hint at what the old Tombstone cemetery once was. Disease, accidents and the six-gun took a toll on the early inhabitants of Tombstone and time and disinterest nearly wiped out the memory of their resting place. It only takes a moment to stop and hear their voices carried on the wind that seems to always blow across the hillside that is Boothill Graveyard.