Pioneer Memorial Cemetery

GPS Coordinates: 46.301882, -118.007368
PLSS Coordinates: Sec. 36 T10N R38E
Location: Dayton, Columbia County
Record count: 37

Ownership: Dayton Historical Depot Society

Directions: Pioneer Cemetery, 2.4 mi W. of Dayton, WA, to reach Pioneer cemetery, travel west from Dayton on Highway 12 toward Walla Walla. At Road 48 turn left into the Patrick Place. Follow their road into their back yard and you will see a road between two fences going up the hill.

Background: Pioneer Memorial Cemetery was created in 1863 when J.H. Newland donated five acres of his homestead to the community of Dayton. Located on a hill west of town, this cemetery was the first developed east of Fort Walla Walla in Washington Territory. In 1954, the nonprofit Pioneer Cemetery Association of Columbia County took possession of the graveyard. In the 1990s, Gladys Boldman secured in perpetuity an easement to the burial ground from Highway 12. She had her family’s burial stones cleaned and polished, and other descendants of the pioneers buried on this ground did the same. In 1999, when Gladys died she was interred in the Boldman family plot. The Gladys Boldman Estate bequeathed $100,000 to the Pioneer Cemetery Association of Columbia County to maintain and manage Newland Cemetery. In 2010, those funds were released to the Dayton Historical Depot Society for the continued maintenance of the burial ground. As of 2024, ownership of the Pioneer Cemetery, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, was transferred to the Society for perpetual care.
Maintenance

Burial Records

• Genealogical Society Transcription, by Pat Higley, 1999, (37 records)

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