Manor Wilson Bridge Cemetery
NE 144th St. & NE 72nd Ave
Vancouver, Clark County, Washington 98686
360-573-3241
Also known as Wilson Bridge Cemetery , Flatwoods Graveyard
Manor Wilson Bridge Cemetery is not to be confused with Memory Memorial Park Cemetery directly adjacent to it. They have separate driveways and are completely independent of each other.
It was established in 1872 and it did not have a numbering system for the blocks until 1961 when the Wilson Bridge Cemetery, Inc. established the system. Beginning at the Southeast corner and then proceeding North along its east boundary to the Northeast corner and then returning back to the south with next row and so forth. Seven (7) rows to the West one comes to the North/South Road. A East/West road lies between Lot 1 & 2, 27 & 28, 29 & 30, 55 & 56, 57 & 58, 83 & 84, 85 & 86 where the north/south road is joined up. There are 4 more rows lying west of the North/South Road. Each block has 5 graves and in each block the graves are numbered from North to South.
There are a total of 159 Lots.
In 1917 a Survey Plat of the 1st addition was surveyed and platted, laying out, marking each Block corner, 11 more rows to the West of original Cemetery (there was a fence at that time), adding 176 more lots. Said Plat identified that the Northwest corner of the old Cemetery as being 2,018.7 feet North and 214. 0 feet West of the SE Corner of Section 19, T.3N., R.2E., Willamette Base and Meridian.
Numbering of the Block began at the south end with lot No. 1 and continued north ending at Lot 16 and returned to the south with numbering scheme. Each lot is 24 feet long North to South and 12 feet wide. Each Lot is separated by 3.0 feet and each row by 4.0 feet. Lots at North end have the 3.0 feet and then an additional 18.1 feet to accommodate a drive. The Westerly lots have the 4.0 feet plus 10.0 feet to accommodate a drive.
There are more blocks to the West of Drive but unknown what numbering system was used and when established.
A drive was created through some of the south lots to connect with the existing drive but no record of it was found. The Wilson Bridge Cemetery, Inc. apparently was unaware of the Plat of 1917 and created new Block numbers and created the road through the platted lots.
Memory Memorial Park and Wilson Bridge Cemetery could easily be called the odd couple of Clark County graveyards.
The two, lined up beside one another at the corner of Northeast 72nd Avenue and 144th Street are about as different as the old TV show’s Felix and Oscar.
Memory, called a “freedom of choice” cemetery because it allows upright stones and a variety of burial types, was built in the 1960s and is one of the county’s newest graveyards.
Wilson Bridge, built in the 1870s, is the final resting place for pioneers and is one of the Clark County’s oldest.
Strolling across both gives an abrupt sense of each site’s personality. Modern gardens and new stones — including one that appears to be decorated with a solar-powered lamp — mark Vancouver’s present, but a quick step up a small slope and you find yourself staring at old obelisks and mossy markers erected in the early 1900s.
https://www.columbian.com/news/2012/jan/21/tale-of-two-cemeteries/
