Benton Avenue Cemetery
There’s a certain restlessness to Helena’s Benton Avenue Cemetery, one of the oldest cemeteries in Montana. The cemetery, across from Carroll College, was established in the 1870s, but the earliest deaths date from the 1860s. These are the graves of people who were originally buried in the old mining camp cemetery on Warren Street. In 1875 this cemetery was cleared to build Central Elementary School, and the remains were moved to Benton Avenue. Later, additional construction on the Central School site unearthed more graves.
Workers laying a sewer pipe in 1890 happened upon a wooden box and would have ignored it, but curiosity got the better of them. When one of the workers hit the box with his pick, skeletal remains and a horrible smell poured out. According to the news report, “the bones were collected and thrust back into the coffin […] the contractor for the work is building sewers, not hunting up skeletons, so, unless the city wants to have the box placed in a regular cemetery, it will be allowed to remain where it is.” Other remains were luckier. Shifting ground and flooding on the school site revealed additional coffins, which were duly moved to Benton Avenue.
Benton Avenue Cemetery is open during daylight hours, and as you wander through the drying grass on the 10 acre lot on the edge of town, the history of the city and the state unfold around you. Findagrave.com lists 737 memorials dating from before Montana achieved statehood in 1889, many of which are marked with “M.T.” For “Montana Territory.” Monuments range from simple wooden boards to towering plinths with elaborate wrought iron fences, and mausoleums, like that of the Dingle-Connors.
For some, cemeteries can be a sobering place, a reminder of the way everyone ends up. For me, this was the case with the simple splintered marker of W.C. Child. Owner of and founder of the W.C. Child Ranch south east of Helena, Child amassed a fortune as a prospector and rancher during the 1870s and ‘80s. But he went bankrupt in the silver panic of 1893 and “worried himself to death” according to his obituary.
It’s not surprising that a cemetery like the one on Benton Avenue would have its share of ghost stories. Mary Dunphy died during the diphtheria epidemic of 1885. It is rare for an adult to die of diphtheria, but Mary Dunphy did, and she was buried alongside two children she had been caring for who also succumbed to the disease. Today, visitors report seeing a woman and two small children wandering the area—could it be the ghost of Mary Dunphy and the children buried close to her? A nighttime photo taken of Dunphy’s grave reveals an erie mist, “what some people call ectoplasm, some people call it ghost mist, some people call it dust on the lens.”
Another account of ghostly visions concerns the grave of Fern Marie Wilson, a 15 year old who died in 1911. School groups often visit the cemetery in lessons on Helena history, and on at least two occasions groups of fourth graders reported seeing a teenage girl in a yellow dress gazing into the distance and suddenly vanishing. Could it be the ghost of Fern Marie, lingering over her grave?
Benton Avenue Cemetery is a remarkable location. Each marker (and there are many unmarked graves as well) tells the story of a life, and the story of the lives that person touched. So, whether it is ectoplasm or just dust on the lens, Benton Avenue Cemetery carries the imprints of all the people whose remains rest in the hard Montana ground.
