New Sequalitchew Cemetery

In the 1980s while Weyerhaeuser was moving dirt to build Northwest Landing, a number of unmarked graves were uncovered: including Native Americans, Hudson’s Bay Company, and Puget Sound Agricultural Company personnel. This New Sequalitchew Cemetery, adjacent to the 1843 Fort Nisqually site, was created to receive these unknown remains. Four unknown Native American graves and seven European graves are located in the New Seqaualitchew Cemetery.

In the 1980s while Weyerhaeuser Company was moving dirt to build Northwest Landing, five graves were uncovered under a rather large lone fir tree approximately 500 meters southeast of the 1843 Fort Nisqually. Three of the graves were identified as HBC employees Charles Forrest, John Edgar and William Legg. Two of the graves were identified as a teenage European male and a middle-aged European female. A grave, first uncovered in 1912 during the building the Black powder plant, was identified as a European and is also reburied in the cemetery.

Many Native Americans from other tribes visited Fort Nisqually, 1833-1870, trading furs with Hudson's Bay Company employees for European goods. Four unknown Native American graves were uncovered and their remains were accorded due ceremony by the Nisqually Tribe and interred in this little cemetery.

Daugherty, Richard D. A Data Recovery of Hudson's Bay Burials at Northwest Landing, Pierce County, Washington. Olympia: Western Heritage, Inc., 1990.