HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena, as catalogued
One of Montana's oldest cemeteries, established 1870, with graves predating statehood
1601 N Benton Ave, Helena, MT 59601
Research updated September 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free to visit during daylight hours. The cemetery is a working historic burial ground; visitors are asked to be respectful.
Access
Limited Access
Uneven grass and gravel paths on a sloped historic cemetery
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1870 · Established 1870 - among Montana's oldest cemeteries · Hundreds of graves predating 1889 statehood · Burial site of early Helena civic figures
Benton Avenue Cemetery was established by the Lewis and Clark County commissioners in 1870, two decades before Montana achieved statehood. The county managed it until 1922, when responsibility passed to the Benton Avenue Cemetery Association. Some of the earliest burials were graves relocated in 1875 from an older mining-camp cemetery on Warren Street.
The cemetery holds hundreds of memorials predating 1889, the year Montana became a state, and is one of the oldest burial grounds in the region. Among those interred here are early Helena figures including the city's first mayor and the builder of Reeder's Alley, a preserved nineteenth-century district downtown.
The cemetery sits across Benton Avenue from Carroll College. It is a documented part of Helena's history and has been the subject of local historic-preservation work and Montana historical-marker programs. Its age, its pre-statehood graves, and the epidemic burials of the 1880s have also made it a recurring stop in Helena's ghost-story coverage, including a 2018 local-television feature on the cemetery's reported hauntings.
Sources
Two graves anchor the cemetery's reported hauntings. Mary Dunphy was an adult who died during Helena's diphtheria epidemic of 1885, an unusual case since the disease most often took children. According to cemetery histories, she was buried alongside two children she had been caring for who also died in the epidemic. Visitors say they have seen a woman accompanied by two small children moving among the graves near her plot.
The second account centers on Fern Marie Wilson, who died in 1911 at the age of fifteen. School groups touring the cemetery have reported, on more than one occasion, seeing a teenage girl in a yellow dress looking into the distance before disappearing. These stories were the focus of a 2018 KTVH television report on the cemetery.
A frequently repeated detail involves a nighttime photograph taken near Dunphy's grave that appeared to show a faint mist. Local accounts note this could as easily be dust on the lens or condensation. The cemetery's broader reputation rests less on any single image than on the felt quiet of a burial ground that has stood since before Montana was a state.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Walk one of Montana's oldest cemeteries, with hundreds of graves predating 1889 statehood. Among those buried here are Helena's first mayor and victims of the 1885 diphtheria epidemic. Visit during daylight and treat the grounds with respect.
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