STANTON, OCTAVE AND WEAVER CEMETERIES, YAVAPAI COUNTY, ARIZONA

Miner's cemeteries no longer in use.

Made available to The USGenWeb Archives by Ginny McMeans - mcmeans@primenet.com

STANTON CEMETERY

Located North of Wickenburg and South of Yarnell at the base of the hills.
Stanton, Arizona, was originally called Antelope Station and was founded in 1863
by prospectors along Antelope Creek.  By 1860 there were 3500 residents and
Stanton was proclaimed "The Greatest Luminary of the Gem-Stone World".
$100,000,000 in gold, garnets and gems were recovered.  Today, the total
continues to rise.  The original stage stop was owned by Charlie P. Stanton, the
illegitimate son of an Irish lord and a University of Dublin graduate.  Stanton
was once the richest man in Arizona who was shot 13 Nov 1886 by the Lucero
Brothers in the stage stop building.  The town site and surrounding property is
now owned by the Lost Dutchman's Mining Association which allows visitors.  The
original buildings, including the stage stop, opera house and hotel/store,
remain much as they were.  The opera house sports many bullet holes in the
walls, a "girlie" painting over the bar, and badly deteriorated  stage curtains
that date from the Civil War period.  The Association has erected brick end
walls on the opera house that cover and protect the original adobe walls.

There is a plaque near the store that reads "Rich Hill - Pioneer explorer
Pauline Weaver [a male] led an expedition in 1863 that discovered gold nuggets
the size of potatoes on the top of Rich Hill.  The hill became the richest gold
placer discovery in Arizona.  Miners working Rich Hill found deposits of gold in
nearby Weaver and Antelope Creeks as well as the towns of Stanton, Weaver and
Octave grew up near the creeks.  By the early 1900s the gold began to play out.
That, and the general lawlessness of the area, drove out most of the
population."

There is no known cemetery although it is reported that Stanton is buried on a
hill overlooking Stanton.  A plaque in Stanton if "Dedicated in loving memory of
George "Buzzard" Massie, founder and president of Lost Dutchman's Mining
Association Sept 1, 1939 to Dec 26, 1993".

OCTAVE CEMETERY


Located North of Wickenburg and South of Yarnell at the base of the hills .
Octave cemetery contains about 100 graves marked only by metal and wooden
crosses, some covered by stones.  A fence surrounds the 40 by 49 foot cemetery
and a sign on the ground states: "Restored by Lucille Kelley, Phoenix 4x4's,
Scottsdale 4x4 scouters, High Country 4 wheelers".  There is one tall, yellow
iron cross constructed of narrow gauge railway track with a rock in front on
which is painted "78".

WEAVER CEMETERY

Located North of Wickenburg and South of Yarnell at the base of the hills.
Weaver cemetery is fenced, terribly overgrown and hard to walk through because
of the many thorny bushes and cacti.  Many of the crosses that were placed on
some of the 50 or so graves are down and broken.  Most graves are covered with
stones and bushes.  Pressed into the concrete base of the entrance is: "10-83
4WD Club".

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