News

An unusual mound on the Boistfort Valley southwest of Chehalis proved the perfect place to bury early pioneers — at least until 1887, when a wealthy Canadian farmer bought the property, removed the headstones and plowed the land for crops.

In the early 1850s, Pierre Charles, a Hudson’s Bay Company employee, was among the first whites to settle in the valley. He’s credited with naming it Boistfort, which means “dense forest” in French or alternatively “a small valley surrounded by green hills” or “a French translation of the Indian name of the oak,” according to “The Boistfort Valley: A Southwest Washington Prairie Remnant” by Joseph Arnett, a rare plant botanist with the Washington Natural Heritage Program.

Charles and Elizabeth White arrived in 1852 and, the following December, Elizabeth gave birth to a boy, Cyrus, the first European American baby born in the valley. Elizabeth’s parents, George and Catherine Buchanan, moved to the valley in 1853 and filed a donation land claim for property that included an unusual grassy 2- or 3-acre mound, where they allowed neighbors to bury their loved ones in a corner of the property.

From 1855 until 1887, the mound served as the community cemetery. A 1909 newspaper account said 40 people were buried on the mound, while old-timers set the number at 70. The mound also might have served as a burial place for Native Americans.

One of the early pioneers buried on the mound is Kentucky native Turner Richardson Roundtree, who fought in both the Black Hawk War against Native Americans and the War of 1812 under William Henry Harrison, who later became president of the United States, according to The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume XXXI, History of Washington, Idaho and Montana, 1845-1889. Turner Roundtree’s Scottish wife, Mary Adeline “Polly” Ferguson, who was a cousin to Founding Father and Revolutionary War statesman Patrick Henry, is also buried there.

The Roundtrees, who had seven children, settled in the Boistfort Valley in 1853. Their youngest son, Martin, built a three-room cabin beside the Chehalis River near what today is the Pe Ell McDonald Road. Their granddaughter, Mary Adeline Roundtree, had traveled west in 1852 and, two years later, married Centralia pioneer Joseph Borst.

Turner Roundtree was 73 when he died in March 1868 aboard the steamer Carrie Davis while returning home from Claquato west of Chehalis. His wife, Polly, was nearly 85 when she died in February 1880.

The Roundtrees rest beside at least a half dozen of their grandchildren and great-grandchildren who never lived past the age of 5:

• 2-year-old James A. Roundtree, who died of heart disease in June 1869;

• 3-month-old Allen S. Roundtree, the youngest son of Martin and Mary Lucinda (Brewer) Roundtree who died in April 1871;

• 5-year-old Lucy A. Roundtree, who died in February 1874;

• 3-year-old Henry G. Roundtree, who died in March 1874;

• 4-month-old Ulin M. Roundtree who died on Jan. 1, 1870;

• 7-month-old Willis T. Roundtree who died in April 1871;

• and Thomas William Roundtree, who was a year old when he died on March 22, 1874.

Also buried near the Roundtrees are their sons, Martin Dudley Roundtree, who died in May 1871 at the age of 34, and Perry Oliver Roundtree, who died in April 1875 at the age of 38.

Although other pioneers were buried in the cemetery on the mound, it was a descendant of the Roundtrees who decades later spearheaded the fight to preserve the graves so the dead could rest in peace.

In the fall of 1887, Canadian John Hutchinson bought 375 acres from the Buchanans — paying $4,000, the equivalent of $137,800 today. He prohibited additional burials, banned people from visiting the graves on the mound and refused to let them fence the cemetery — yet he also declined to sell them the cemetery.

In response, Edward and Mary Harris set aside land in the southeast corner of the Turner Roundtree donation land claim for a new cemetery, which they platted on Oct. 4, 1888, and recorded on June 17, 1889, according to The History of Lewis County, Washington by Alma Nix and John Nix. The Boistfort Cemetery, which was donated to a local cemetery association, lies across from the mound near the intersection of Boistfort and Wildwood roads.

On Nov. 2, 1895, the Salem Statesman Journal reported that four barns belonging to Hutchinson burned, destroying 150 tons of hay, 11 head of stock and many farm tools. The article estimated the loss at $7,000, which in today’s dollars would be more than $260,000, but mentioned no cause for the fire.

Thirteen years later, in the fall of 1908, Hutchinson, who had expanded his holdings to more than 600 acres, figured the cemetery had been abandoned so he removed the headstones, placed them in the cemetery across the road and plowed the mound to plant crops.

That prompted Pat M. Roundtree to lead his neighbors in a fight for an injunction to prevent such desecration of their ancestors’ graves and force return of the headstones to the graves. Superior Court Judge A.E. Rice heard their plea in April 1909 and, the following month, sided with the residents, saying the headstones could be replaced and the graves fenced off and maintained by relatives.

Hutchinson appealed that ruling all the way to the Washington Supreme Court, which heard the arguments in July of that year and upheld the lower court’s ruling to protect the hallowed ground.

In June 1924, when Hutchinson died from a stroke at 85, a news item in The Tacoma Daily Ledger recounted his battle to plow up the original Boistfort cemetery. He was buried at Claquato.

Cemetery records burned in a house fire, but 11 headstones remain atop the mound, marking graves of early pioneers. In the 1940s, a new owner put a fence around the cemetery, but the land became overgrown. Then, in 1982, the Boistfort Lions Club cleaned up the site, erected a fence and a cross, and built steps at the south side of the hill.

According to the Lewis County GIS parcel search, the mound and adjacent property appear to be owned today by Bragg Holding Inc. of Abbotsford, B.C.

Next week, I’ll share additional early Boistfort Valley pioneers, the Blacks and the Raytons, ancestors of Lois (Orloske) Keen, of Centralia, who told me about the Original Boistfort Cemetery on the mound.

•••

Julie McDonald, a personal historian from Toledo, may be reached at memoirs@chaptersoflife.com.

I am an Organic Valley dairy farmer. My grandfather purchased the land we still farm in 1949, and I have a 23-year-old son, Jack, who is in the process of taking over management. He will be the fourth generation of organic dairy farmers on this farm, where we manage 225 acres and milk about 60 cows.

Our cows graze perennial pastures that, in some places, are made up of more than 35 native species. We have found Washington’s summers are getting drier and hotter, so we’ve started planting and grazing summer annuals, like sorghum sudangrass, grazing turnips and anything I can get my hands on to try.

I’ve always loved being around cows, being outside working all the time with the earth. We call it “being grounded with the soil.” I am proud to say our pastures support at least 70% of our cows’ dry organic matter intake for 200-plus days out of the year when U.S. Department of Agriculture organic certification only requires 30%. To be successful, we are intentional with our grazing and want to see as much biodiverse life in the soil and in our pastures as possible.

Our cows become a tool for fostering life, and we’ve been fortunate to have another tool: support from state and federal programs that provide technical assistance and funding to help us be good land stewards.

In the early 2000s, we reached out to the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) for help putting together a grazing plan after learning our farm was home to some of the 1% of habitat left for Kincaid’s lupine, a native plant that hosts the endangered Fender’s blue butterfly. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) would be placing the lupine on the federally threatened list soon, and we needed to prove we were protecting the plant.

NRCS was able to offer us Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) funding to put in additional water lines and fences so we could keep cattle out of areas with Kincaid’s lupine when the butterflies need it most, from April to September. Recently, we joined USFWS’s Partner for Fish and Wildlife program, which will help us put in even more cross-fencing and water features so we can ramp up our rotational grazing.

In nearly 14 years, I am happy to report we’ve been able to increase the population of Kincaid’s lupine on our farm by 33%.

Currently, we are in the process of putting in a solid-liquid separator at the dairy as part of our manure management system. Our cows spend most of their time on pasture, but they come indoors to be milked on average two-and-a-half times per day in the summer and three times per day in the winter. When a cow is ready to be milked, she walks up to an automatic milking machine, which sanitizes her udders and collects data about her milk production and health during the milking process.

Right now, manure from inside the barn is collected in a lagoon. With the solid-liquid separator, we will still have a lagoon but, as the name suggests, the separator will separate solids from liquids. The solids are what typically create greenhouse gasses. Separating them out will save 70 TO 75 metric tons of CO2 equivalent from entering the atmosphere, and we will be able to compost those solids and place them more strategically onto our ground as a slower-releasing, natural fertilizer.

This project is great, but it costs $120,000. Fortunately, I was able to apply for and receive a grant from the Washington Conservation Commission’s Sustainable Farms and Field Grant, which provided $75,000 toward the project with me contributing $25,000. Organic Valley received a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Partnership for Climate-Smart Commodities Program, which I also applied for and received a one-time payment of $500 per metric ton of CO2 equivalent saved using the new technology, or about $35,000.

Climate-smart programs put farmers at an advantage of being able to help themselves, their farms and the environment all in one package. Most farmers, including myself, can’t afford the giant numbers that it costs to do these projects nowadays, which is why it’s so important that they have access to funds to help them better manage their farms’ soil, water and air quality.

Through the Inflation Reduction Act, roughly $19.5 billion was allocated to the U.S. Department of Agriculture climate smart agriculture and conservation programs. In Congress, the House and Senate Agriculture Committees are in the process of considering the Farm Bill – important legislation that outlines farming policies and funding for the next several years. Some opponents are seeking to use the bill to re-allocate this important funding.

It would be a grave mistake. Farmers need this funding to survive, thrive and meet the agricultural needs of all Americans.

•••

Maynard Mallonee is a third-generation dairy farmer and a member of the Organic Valley Co-Op. He operates Mallonee Farms in Curtis.

Originally founded in the small town of Evaline just outside of Winlock in 1883, the Evaline School officially celebrated its 140th anniversary Saturday, May 18.

The school hosted an open house that dozens attended, including many former faculty and students.

Despite being a small school, averaging 50 students annually starting with transitional kindergarten going through sixth grade, the Evaline School has a certain charm and draw to it, said retired Evaline teacher Marylyn Reep, who spoke at the open house on Saturday.

Reep taught at Evaline from 1978 until 2008. She first heard about it through a principal at Napavine High School who recruited her to work at the two-room school.

“He begged me. A teacher had quit like three weeks before school was supposed to start,” Reep said. “I said, ‘OK, I’ll go for the interview but that’s probably it.’ I came into this school, saw it from the road, and something told me that it was going to tear at my heartstrings.”

Along with Evaline School, its community partner the nearby Hope Grange #155 also celebrated its 120th anniversary with its own open house event Saturday.

“I promise you, if you were at Evaline School, this is a different speech and it’s one page shorter,” Evaline School teacher Susie Duren said during the Hope Grange open house. “Only 120 years, not 140. But it starts off kind of similar because Evaline School and Hope Grange have a similar beginning.”

Hope Grange was founded on March 18, 1904, after railroad operations in the area increased in the late 1800s and Evaline became a popular stop. It had 19 charter members, including Duren’s great-grandparents. 

Hope Grange is located at 120 Antrim Road in Winlock. For more information, including upcoming grange events, follow Hope Grange on Facebook at https://tinyurl.com/7hex6vpv. 

Evaline School is located at 111 Schoolhouse Road in Winlock. To learn more, visit https://www.evalinesd.k12.wa.us/. 

Toledo High School senior Chris Harvey has reached another illustrious milestone.

Harvey banked his 4,000th career half-court basketball shot on Monday as his family and classmates looked on. The achievement comes about eight months after Harvey hit his 2,000th half-court shot, which earned him the nickname “Mr. 2000.”

Much like his previous feat, Monday’s record-breaking shot took place during a student body-wide assembly, complete with a mock ESPN crew to conduct a postgame interview.

“We declare this in the Guinness Book of World Records, and dare someone else try to beat that,” school Principal Martin Huffman said.

After the record-breaking shot, Harvey received a plaque, a metal and a shirt featuring his new nickname: “Mr. 4,000.”

“It feels good, it’s been a long wait,” Harvey said. “It’s been awesome.”

During the 2022-2023 school year, Harvey banked 1,787 half-court shots, Huffman said. Last year, on the final day of school, he made more than 70.

Harvey’s pace this year has been equally impressive. After hitting his 2,000th shot on Sept. 21, Harvey doubled his total in just 242 days, which averages about eight made shots each day, including holidays and weekends.

“It was awesome. I can't thank the team at Irys Deaguero racing enough,” Harvey said after the shot. “They did a heck of a job getting me warmed up. I love my manager very much.”

For comparison, ESPN estimates the odds of making a half-court shot to be about 1%. Between the 2000 and 2016 seasons, players in the National Basketball Association attempted 6,255 shots from half-court and made 165 of them, a success rate of 2.64%. Jamal Crawford and Steph Curry are tied for the most half-court shots during regulation in NBA history at six.

While he needed 17 makes Monday to officially reach the milestone, Harvey left little doubt he would do so.

“What do you have to say to the doubters, to the people that don’t think you can succeed? You’re out here proving them wrong, what do you have to say?” a mock ESPN announcer asked Harvey.

“Thank you,” he responded.