Hornbrook Cemetery resides off Oregon Rd, a historic former stage road from the mid-1800s. The earliest grave I found here was Hiram N. Jones, who died in 1868. There are also many unknown graves around this grave with concrete headstones. A number of these headstones have actual names stamped. My assumption is there were many wooden headstones whose names eroded away to time.
This community has had three names over the years. It was first named Cottonwood in 1851 by the first gold miners who settled here after gold was discovered nearby and they noticed all the cottonwood trees that flourished along the banks of nearby Cottonwood Creek. The town name was changed to Henley in 1856 in honor of a local senator. The town name was changed again to Hornbrook in 1886 by Southern Pacific Railroad, derived from the brook that ran through David Horn's property.
*Graves of Note*
Lizie A. Deal, born Jan. 19, 1866 and who died May 31, 1866 was the first person to be buried in Henley & Hornbrook Cemetery at only four months of age. Her headstone is still in wonderful shape.
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The Hilt family has many plots here and the patriarch, William Hilt, was born in 1787 and passed away in 1880. He was a veteran of the War of 1812 (although his gravestone doesn't mention this). Thus far, this is the first grave I've encountered of a veteran from that war as well as containing a birth year as old as this on a headstone in the entire state of Oregon and Northern California!
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Grave of woman found hanged. Although I didn't see the grave, there's a small, metal marker that reads: 'WOMAN FOUND HANGING IN TREE'. I located an online article regarding this mysterious death that reads: ...The mystery starts with the grave marker reading, "Woman found hanging in tree."
The story has been told and re-told in Siskiyou County since 1902, when a man riding in the Ditch Creek area came upon a woman who had been hanged from the limb of a tree. She had no identification. The only clue -- "she wore very fine clothes." Who she was, where she came from, nobody knows.
Some remember that a man and woman had arrived by train, hired a horse and buggy, and then drove away. The man had returned alone.
Townswomen Tabitha Jacobs and Susan Jones insisted that woman have a Christian burial, as well as a second marker that reads: "Dum Tacent Clamat"--possibly Upper Klamath dialect meaning "their silence speaks volumes."
(“Dum Tacet Clamat” actually means 'Though Silent He Speaks' and is in reference to many Woodmen of the World headstones that may be found throughout the U.S. Many Woodmen of the world graves are distinctive by their tree trunk or log-type headstones.)
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Indian Jim Apparently, there's a grave of a native American known as 'Indian Jim' who lived to be 112 years of age located here. I didn't see his grave in the cemetery (it may be unmarked).