The
Columbia
Press
Celebrating
our
100th year
• 1922-2022
1
50 ¢
503-861-3331
January 28, 2022
Vol. 6, Issue 4
Disturbance calls, Historical find uncovers entry to old cemetery
sop County. The area along the
By Cindy Yingst
Skipanon River near Anchor Av-
arrests up over
The Columbia Press
enue and 13th Street in Warren-
It’s amazing what can be found ton was the first county seat.
previous year
just by looking around.
In 1885, the city of Astoria
Claudia and Bob Ellsberg,
along with City Commissioner
Rick Newton, set off Tuesday
exploring an overgrown section
of dune land between New-
ton’s home on Ninth Street and
Oceanview Cemetery.
They found the original cross-
bar marking the entrance to
Clatsop County’s first cemetery.
“When we saw what it was, we
couldn’t believe it,” Bob Ellsberg
said.
Ellsberg has been research-
ing Lexington, one of the oldest
non-Indian settlements in Clat-
By Cindy Yingst
The Columbia Press
Crime statistics were up in nearly
every category last year and, even
though other Clatsop County agen-
cies got far more calls for help,
Warrenton officers arrested more
people.
Warrenton Police Department re-
ceived 8,587 calls in 2021. Officers
wrote 3,159 reports from those calls
and made arrests in 501 cases.
The destination towns of Astoria
and Seaside received far more calls
(15,233 and 15,728 respectively),
yet cases resulting in arrests were
461 for Astoria and 428 for Seaside.
Police Chief Matthew Workman
reported on the 2021 statistics to
Warrenton City Commission on
Tuesday night.
The biggest jump was in what the
department calls “person crimes,”
primarily offenses in which a victim
is present, and the act is violent,
threatening or has the potential to
be physically harmful. In the past,
See ‘Crimes’ on Page 4
Photo by Bob Ellsberg
Claudia Ellsberg and Rick New-
ton hold the sign they found
near the old Paupers Cemetery.
Below, a closeup of a portion of
the sign.
bought all the land that is now
part of Ocean View Cemetery for
$800. Then they built a road for
$900 that ran from the Lexing-
ton wharf to the cemetery.
So Ellsberg decided to take a
walk through the forgotten por-
tion of cemetery land, especially
after learning that the oldest part
– at the far north end -- included
Indian burials and county resi-
dents who’d died as early as the
1860s.
Adam Van Dusen, one of Clat-
sop County’s earliest settlers,
had been buried there in 1884.
Ellsberg invited his friend
Newton to accompany him, since
Newton lives so close.
“I had seen somewhere a pic-
ture of what the entrance looked
like,” Ellsberg said. “There was
an archway, and stones mark-
ing the entrance, and so we were
walking up there so I could get an
idea of what it looked like for me
to do my article. …
“Rick remarked that when he
was a kid, he’d walked through
there and found an old wood-
See ‘Cemetery’ on Page 4