Title Info: Barnaby Mission Cemetery

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Introduction The Barnaby Mission Cemetery index lists individuals interred at the Barnaby Mission Cemetery in Ferry County, Washington. Index information about an individual may include name, birth date, birth place, death date, and names of family members. Dates on the markers range from 1890 through 1950. Burials were moved to New Inchelium Cemetery in 1950. Index data was compiled by Maggie Rail, a member of the Washington State Cemetery Association who has transcribed over 400 cemeteries since 1993.

Abbreviations used in this index:
s/w = stone with
c/o = child of
d/o = daughter of
h/o = husband of
w/o = wife of
b. = born
d. = died
s/o = son of
P = Plot
n/k = next of kin

There are 344 individuals listed in this index.

This index is in English.

This index is open for research.

Notes from transcriber Maggie Rail (current as of November 2009):

Barnaby Mission Cemetery is located at Lat 48° 24' 26"N, Lon 118° 12' 32"W-approx, T34N R37E Sec 36.

It is estimated that there were in the neighborhood of 585 burials removed from the Barnaby Mission Cemetery and reinterred in the New Inchelium Cemetery. Of these, approximately 275 were unknown persons. It was agreed upon between the members of Barnaby Mission families and the Bureau of Reclamation to reinter all unidentified and place one appropriate monument in their memory in the New Inchelium Cemetery.

Barnaby Mission Cemetery was owned and cared for by the Barnaby Catholic Church. At the time of this Relocation process the priest working with the Mission and Reclamation Bureau was Father W. J. Ryan.

Barnaby, or Barnabee in the early records, was established as a mission in c.1869, with the first church building in the early 1890s at the mouth of Barnaby Creek. The cemetery was an important part of this mission and no doubt existed before there was a church. There is much history surrounding this church and community. I only try to gather cemetery information and it sometimes is hard to separate the two.

After 1948 Barnaby Mission cemetery was threatened by severe landslides from the various floodings that have occurred along with the seepage along the banks of the new Lake Roosevelt. Because of this, it was decided by the Bureau of Reclamation that more cemeteries needed to be removed along the banks of the river, besides the first group moved in the late 1930s. Barnaby was one of this new group chosen to be moved. The exact legal description is hard to be sure of. I also found it in one place as Sec 36 T34N R36E. I think it depends upon when it was surveyed and by whom.

I have tried to identify as many as possible from Sexton or church records and Grave Identification list for Barnaby mission, dated 1950. Therefore I might have a few more names than those listed in the Bureau of Reclamation Removal list. These would be names of those who were buried in Barnaby Mission cemetery but no location was found. I am not sure all the names are correct, sometimes the ink was smeared or the handwriting difficult to decipher. As far as I can determine, all were moved to the New Inchelium Cemetery after June 10, 1950. I have added to some of the records with information I found in old church death records for Saint Michaels Mission, in parenthesis, n/k = next of kin.
Citation: Preferred Citation: [Identification of item], Barnaby Mission Cemetery, Washington State Archives, Digital Archives, www.digitalarchives.wa.gov, [date accessed].

Source: Index and transcription notes donated to the Washington State Historical Records Project by Maggie Rail, August 2009.