Search finds 45 names of cemetery ‘lost souls’

ELK RIVER, Idaho – Since a 1952 blaze destroyed the original records from this north central Idaho town’s hilltop cemetery, it’s been unclear just who was buried here.

A recent search of local historical records has turned up the names of at least 45 people Elk River residents are calling “the lost souls,” whose remains were in the ground but whose identities and histories were missing from cemetery records.

The new discoveries bring the number of people known to be buried in this isolated outpost east of Lewiston to at least 188.

The investigation started in 2004, when Dawn Tillson, a cemetery district board member, and cemetery district secretary Della Kreisher were reading historical artifacts and found a photograph showing a little girl – identified as “Baby Hill” – being buried.

“I knew there was no Baby Hill in the records,” Tillson said.

The photograph triggered a hunt that uncovered information about the baby, as well the identities of others buried here.

Three military men, William McNew, Francis Carmen and John Sibbets, will be honored Sunday during a ceremony conducted by the Veterans of Foreign Wars posts in Orofino and Moscow to dedicate new headstones on their graves.

McNew, who died at age 79 in March 1925, was a member of the Quartermaster Corps during the Civil War and “was honorably discharged at the close of the great conflict,” according to the obituary Trott and Tillson discovered in the Elk River News.

Carmen died in September 1925. He served in the 7th Wisconsin Infantry and, according to his obituary, was captured by Confederate forces.

Sibbets, a well-known musician according to local lore, died in February 1920. He was in the United States Cavalry and served in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War.

“These three men have been lost since 1952,” Trott said, when a fire burned the local Independent Order of Odd Fellows hall, where the records had been kept.

Knowing these 45 souls were “lost” for 54 years, Tillson, Trott and others involved in the search aren’t taking any chances. A record of those buried is being kept at the new cemetery district office, with copies archived at the Idaho State Historical Society. Tillson also has a third set at home, she says, for safekeeping.