Aerial survey · USDA NAIP · public domainEugene's first chartered cemetery, established 1859 and NRHP-listed, where the Egyptian Revival Hope Abbey Mausoleum draws the cemetery's strongest haunting reports.
E 25th Ave & University St, Eugene, OR 97403
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free public access during daylight hours; guided walking tours offered on some holiday weekends.
Access
Limited Access
Historic hillside cemetery on roughly 10 acres with mature trees, uneven turf, and the Hope Abbey Mausoleum in the southwest corner.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1859 · National Register of Historic Places · Eugene's first chartered cemetery (1859) · Burial place of city founder Eugene Skinner and artist Maude Kerns · Egyptian Revival Hope Abbey Mausoleum (Ellis F. Lawrence, 1914)
Eugene Masonic Cemetery was established in 1859, making it Eugene's first chartered cemetery. The land, roughly ten acres, was purchased by city founder Eugene Skinner, who is himself buried there along with other early Eugene figures. Among the notable interments is Maude Kerns, the artist and educator who became the first head of the art education department at the University of Oregon in 1921 and whose name lives on at the Maude Kerns Art Center.
The cemetery's most distinctive structure is the Hope Abbey Mausoleum, set in the southwest corner of the grounds. It was designed in the Egyptian Revival style by Eugene architect Ellis F. Lawrence and dedicated in 1914, with a massive entrance archway, papyrus-bundle relief, and lotus-leaf urns flanking copper-clad doors. Since the mid-1990s, Hope Abbey has been substantially rehabilitated, gaining a new roof, drainage, an accessible front porch, and electrical service.
The Eugene Masonic Cemetery and Hope Abbey are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the site remains an active, operating cemetery. A nonprofit organization stewards the grounds, restoring and interpreting them as a cultural and natural resource and offering occasional public walking tours.
Sources
The Eugene Masonic Cemetery's haunted reputation centers on the Hope Abbey Mausoleum, which regional roundups of the area's haunted places name as the cemetery's most active location. The reports are the kind a quiet old hillside cemetery tends to accumulate: visitors who come to pay respects describing fleeting figures that appear and disappear among the markers, and a general sense of being watched near the mausoleum's Egyptian Revival doors.
Paranormal hobbyist accounts add claims of photographic anomalies, recorded voice phenomena, and unexplained temperature shifts logged around the grounds. These are enthusiast reports rather than documented investigations, and no specific identifiable person is named as the source of the activity.
The verifiable strength of the site is its history: the 1859 founding, the prominent pioneers buried there, and the architecturally significant mausoleum. The haunting is the lore that history attracts, and the cemetery is best approached as the active, stewarded burial ground it remains, with respect for the families whose relatives rest there.
Walk Eugene's 1859 Masonic Cemetery, the city's first chartered burial ground, which holds city founder Eugene Skinner and artist Maude Kerns. The Egyptian Revival Hope Abbey Mausoleum in the southwest corner is the cemetery's most-cited haunted spot. The nonprofit that stewards the grounds also offers occasional holiday-weekend walking tours.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Eugene, OR
Eugene Pioneer Cemetery was established in 1872 by the Spencer Butte Lodge No. 9 of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows on a 16-acre site beside what is now the University of Oregon. With roughly 5,000 burials, it is the largest cemetery in Eugene by acreage and interments. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 1, 1997, and honors 145 Civil War veterans among others.
Aerial survey · USDA NAIPSalem, OR
Salem Pioneer Cemetery was established in 1853 by Chemeketa Lodge No. 1 of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows on a 16-acre site at the intersection of South Commercial Street and Hoyt Street. Earliest burials center on Methodist missionary David Leslie, whose Methodist Mission predated permanent Oregon settlement, and the grounds include Oregon's first congressional delegate Samuel R. Thurston, pioneer Tabitha Moffatt Brown, Governor John P. Gaines, and approximately 8,000 burials in total. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 11, 2013 under its historic name 'Odd Fellows Rural Cemetery' (reference #13000707). The City of Salem Parks Division has held title since 1985.
Aerial survey · USDA NAIPLafayette, OR
Lafayette, Oregon was an early Yamhill County seat whose pioneer cemetery dates to the mid-1800s. The town's 'curse' legend traces to a documented event: the November 1, 1886 ax murder of storekeeper David Corker and the November 11, 1887 hanging of convicted killer Richard Marple, during which his mother Anna reportedly cursed the town. Lafayette subsequently lost the county seat to McMinnville and suffered repeated fires.