Searches for Unmarked Graves at Fort Simcoe Narrow Focus Areas

By Tammy Ayer. Yakima Herald-Republic.

If you are a boarding school survivor or a descendant, resources are available from the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition at boardingschoolhealing.org.

FORT SIMCOE HISTORICAL STATE PARK – Sharp barks occasionally broke the stillness of an October morning. Loud and urgent, they were the dog’s way of saying “here.”

This remote day-use park on Yakama Nation land is closed for the winter, but work to find unmarked burials continues. Handlers and their dogs, specifically trained to find historic human remains, spent two days working in specific areas within the park’s 196 acres.

They already knew there was potential for unmarked graves in those areas because volunteers with Cairn Canine Detection have been here before. They have refined their focus in working with Jon Olney Shellenberger, the archaeologist who has been leading efforts to locate unmarked and unknown burials at this place, long known as Mool-Mool for its bubbling springs. It was the site of a government-run boarding school for Indigenous children from the fall of 1860 to 1920 – the first on-reservation Indigenous boarding school in the United States.

Catholic nuns operated another boarding school for Indigenous children in what was then North Yakima from 1889-96. The Francis Xavier Indian Boarding School closed after the nuns learned that the U.S. Department of the Interior would no longer subsidize private sectarian schools.

The boarding schools at North Yakima and Fort Simcoe were among more than 400 boarding schools for Indigenous children that the U.S. operated or supported between 1819 and 1969. An investigative report released in July by the Department of the Interior identified at least 973 student deaths at the schools nationwide – a number expected to increase – and marked and unmarked graves at 65 of the schools.

Suzanne Elshult and her dog Kili walk toward a flagged post that marks the corner of a 50 meter by 50 meter search area Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024, at Fort Simcoe near White Swan, Wash. Evan Abell / Yakima Herald-Republic

At the park

Volunteers with the canine detection nonprofit have visited Fort Simcoe four times over two years, with two days of searching each time. After marking with small flags where dogs had alerted on Oct. 22, they pulled up the flags and took different dogs to those areas on Oct. 23 to corroborate the previous alerts.

They also searched the adjacent area and had additional alerts, which were corroborated, said project leader Suzanne Elshult. When the dogs find the highest concentration of odor they’ve been trained to search for, they will go into a specific position and bark.

Shellenberger will use ground-penetrating radar in the areas with the highest numbers of alerts. He has donated his time to search, as have others working with him.

“I’m wrapping it up for now, my end,” he said. “Then I’ll start working on ... a report to submit to (Yakama Nation Tribal Council) in June.”

His report will include findings, interpretations and recommendations for future work there as well as management of the property itself, Shellenberger said. “It will include future research avenues as well,” he said.

The site west of White Swan is federal trust land held for the Yakama Nation. Washington State Parks leases Fort Simcoe from the Bureau of Indian Affairs through a 99-year lease dated Dec. 31, 1956. The park is within the boundaries of the Yakama Reservation and is under the jurisdiction of the Tribal Council.

“We’ve taken it to a point,” said Shellenberger, describing the work as “phase 1, with potential for other phases.”

Layers of history at Mool-Mool

Fall and spring are ideal for historic human remains detection dogs to search because mornings are cooler and scent stays closer to the ground. Dry conditions are best, but water can carry scent, too. During searches last spring, one dog walked along and into a small creek.

“You can put the dogs out and depending on the environmental factors, the ground temperature, the air temperature, different days will make different odors accessible,” Elshult said. “One day, (dogs may) alert on one grave; the next day, another grave.”

Historic human remains detection dogs are specifically trained to search for historic and prehistoric human remains. They help locate lost burials, burial grounds and cemeteries and, as at Fort Simcoe, are being used to survey the lands of and around federal government-run and supported boarding schools for Indigenous children.

Three certified dog teams and one in training participated in the October searches, Elshult said. Search planner Guy Mansfield worked at a picnic shelter and his wife, June, handled remote mapping and operations.

In their four visits to Fort Simcoe, Cairn Canine Detection volunteers have searched 30 acres, Elshult said. Searching is a painstaking process, and covering the entire property would be time-consuming even if searchers were hired and working full-time.

This area has been cherished and visited by Indigenous people for thousands of years. It had long drawn Yakamas and other Indigenous people to the area for camping and resting while traveling to and from the Simcoe Mountains. Indigenous people also lived in the area.

The U.S. Army built Fort Simcoe in 1856 amid the Yakama War of 1855-58, but its time as a military installation was brief. In 1859 it was turned over to the Indian Service – the predecessor to today’s Bureau of Indian Affairs – for use as the Yakama Indian Agency until it relocated to Toppenish in 1922. Fort Simcoe also had a post office, police department and jail, numerous businesses and the boarding school.

Students weren’t allowed to speak their language or wear traditional clothing. The boys wore military-style uniforms, and their long hair was shorn. The girls wore dark stockings and dresses of plain or subtly striped fabric. Christianity subverted Indigenous religious practices, and school administrators replaced some students’ given Indian names with English names.

The history of this place also involves Northern Paiute people from central-eastern Oregon. In January 1879, more than 540 Northern Paiute people were forced to leave Camp Harney in Eastern Oregon to travel 350 miles to Fort Simcoe after the Bannock War of 1878. Adults and children died during what they call the Walk of Sorrow.

Northern Paiute people also died at Fort Simcoe after arriving, wrote Sarah Winnemucca, a leader of the Northern Paiute people incarcerated at Fort Simcoe.

Careful work

With such a deep history, the area is important to many. Those with Cairn Canine Detection created map with high priorities while also respecting the culturally sensitive site.

“(Guy Mansfield) developed a probability based canine guided search plan. .. You develop criteria on how to prioritize. This area, is it close to where there is a marked grave? Is it close to a large tree? A lot of times, burials were by significant landmarks,” Elshult said. Mansfield worked with Shellenberger on a priority list, she added.

“That’s what Guy does ... and (June Mansfield) is responsible for mapping and helping make sure that the dogs are deployed where the priorities are on the day of the search.”

Elshult originally reached out to Shellenberger in December 2022, she said, and she and Guy Mansfield did their first scouting at Fort Simcoe the following March.

“In the first six days that we were there, we had mostly run-offs. We might have had a hit in a particular area, but it never became more than that one hit. It could be prehistoric; could be a soldier; could be a Native boarding school child,” Elshult said. “We were hoping to find a cemetery.

“The last time we were out there in March, we had an area where we had multiple hits. And part of what we wanted to do was bring in a fresh dog ... to corroborate and that dog did corroborate,” she said of their October searches. They also wanted to search the adjacent area “very carefully.”

She’d like to do more research if possible, Elshult said, because they had many alerts in that area. “That was really exciting for us. It felt like kind of a breakthrough,” she added.

Buried at Fort Simcoe – or not?

Researchers want to identify and account for every single student and staff member who attended or worked at the Fort Simcoe boarding school. But records aren’t in a single location. Some resources are available locally, and at the National Archives in Seattle. Other boarding school records are in storage and might not be accessible.

Those seeking documentation of burials at Fort Simcoe also encounter challenges. Death certificates, newspaper stories and even some boarding school students referred to burials, unmarked and untended graves at Fort Simcoe, but there is no known official record or map showing a cemetery there.

The Find-A-Grave page for Fort Simcoe notes two marked graves, those of Nathan Olney and Ruffin Thompson, among 30 burials. They include Captain Eaines and his wife, Christine Eaines, who both died on Aug. 13, 1908. A brief newspaper story reported their deaths under the heading, “Indian Chief Killed,” with Eneas as their last name.

“Chief Eneas of the Yakima Indians was killed at a railroad crossing near Parker’s siding in Yakima county Thursday,” it said. “He was driving with his wife when his rig was struck by a train and both were instantly killed.”

According to their death certificates, the couple were buried at “Fort Simcoe Cem.” Another news story said they were buried at the “Catholic Cemetery” at “Fort Simcoe.” Research by Yakima County historian and author Jo Miles showed they are buried at St Mary’s Catholic Cemetery on Coburn Road just southwest of the Catholic church in White Swan. The gravestone has her first name as Augustina.

It’s possible that some death certificates noting Fort Simcoe as the place of burial may actually mean cemeteries within a few miles of Fort Simcoe. Along with trying to find accurate records, that adds even more challenges to documentation.

“There’s definitely a problem with the records,” Shellenberger said.

Reprinted with permission from Yakima Herald.