Tenino Forest Grove Cemetery Tour Not a Fright Fest

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The dilemma became clear halfway through summer for Tenino Boy Scout Troop 9014: With a burn ban in place, it couldn’t sell the wood it had cut and stored in order to raise money for the troop. 

Drought conditions forced Troop 9014 to forego their normal campfire wood fundraiser at Millersylvania State Park. What would normally have been about $6,000 worth of wood sales dwindled to nothing because of the burn ban. The troop sold about $1,000 worth of cord wood, but Scoutmaster Jessica Reeves-Rush scrambled to find other ways to make up the deficit. 

They began selling pies to supplement the little savings they had, but it wasn’t enough to finance trips and badge activities for the nine boys currently in the troop. Reeves-Rush discovered a place online where a historical society conducts history tours in a cemetery. She thought it might be a good fit as a fundraiser. The troop is very familiar with Forest Grove Cemetery since it gives it a makeover each May to prepare for the annual Memorial Day ceremony put on by the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Some of the troop members have seen the headstones of distant relatives or wondered about some of the grave markers, so conducting tours of their own cemetery seemed like a good idea.

Partnering with the South Thurston County Historical Society, the Lamplighter Tour (if the weather is clear, luminaries will light the path) began to take shape with the troop and society members joining forces to create a history storytelling event with a personal touch.

It is not intended to frighten anyone, Reeves-Rush said. There will be approximately six stops along the route where a Scout or member of the historical society will relate a story about the person or family buried there. Scouts will conduct the tours in period dress, including 16-year-old Morgan Reeves, who was helping his mom assess the layout last week with Keith Phillips. Morgan is a Scout and Running Start student who studies music. He said he’s looking forward to the event. 



Phillips is a master stonecutter and has been described as “a man born 100 years too late” in newspapers stories and by his associates. He’ll be dressed in the attire of the times and with the tools local stonecutter Andrew Wilson would have used as a stonemason during the 1800s and 1900s. At Wilson’s headstone, Phillips will tell the tale about how Wilson once kicked a skull around with other young apprentices in a Scotland cemetery.

Many of the earliest non-native settlers of the Washington Territory and Tenino area are in Forest Grove and some of their descendants still live in the area, Reeves-Rush said. One area of the cemetery is a mass grave where inmates who died while in Seatco Prison in Bucoda are buried. The area is unmarked, but no plots are allowed in that area to this day. 

“We don’t want to lose some of these stories,” she said.