Original Willard Cemetary (sic)

Willard's first graveyard filled in order of death, not by family. When the town buried its first — a five-day-old baby — in the summer of 1854, they laid him in the corner, and each new grave went in the next spot north, whoever it held. Families who wanted to lie together had to wait and hope. That, and the crowding, is why Willard opened a second cemetery up the hill in 1869. In 1923 a flood tore a trench through this old ground and carried markers and remains into the fields west of town.

What the plaque says

Willard Pioneer Cemetery Daughters of Utah Pioneers The Willard Pioneer Cemetery's first burial was August 1854 with the death of five-day-old John Memorial, Jr., son of John Memorial (Memory) and Samantha Wells McCrary. This site, selected by Willard's first settlers, is located one block east of the first group of log houses erected in Willard in 1851. The McCrary baby was buried in the southwest corner of the cemetery. Subsequent burials were north of this gravesite in order of the date of death. Loved ones were not buried by their families unless death immediately followed the last burial. For this reason, a new cemetery was chosen in 1869 on the foothills north of the original location. One hundred fifty settlers were buried in this cemetery, and one hundred ten burials have been documented. Names of the other forty are still being sought. The last known burial in this cemetery was in 1905. The Willard flood of 1923 devastated this hallowed site. Floodwaters, cutting a large trench, caused markers and some remains of the graves to be washed into the fields west of town. Located remains were brought back to the cemetery and buried in a common grave. Headstones and markers were replaced as accurately as possible. 1997 No. 507 Willard Camp

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Powder Mountain — 13 mi
  The largest ski resort in the United States by acreage — a famously uncrowded "PowMow" now remaking itself under Netflix's Reed Hastings.
• Ogden Union Station — 14 mi
  A grand 1924 train depot turned museum complex
• Wellsville Mountains — 16 mi
  The steepest mountains in North America for their height
• Snowbasin — 17 mi
  One of the country's oldest ski areas and a 2002 Olympic downhill venue — world-class terrain that somehow still skis uncrowded.

More markers nearby

• Willard Schools — 0.4 mi
• Three Mile Creek Site — 3.6 mi
• Peter Skene Ogden — 5.5 mi
• Bushnell Hospital / Intermountain Indian School — 5.8 mi