Digital Bob Archive

Juneau's first formal observance of Memorial Day or Decoration Day as it was then called was in 1892, 24 years after its first widespread observance in the rest of the country. A procession formed in front of the Opera House at Second and Seward and, headed by the Juneau City brass band, marched up the hill to the Ridge Cemetery. Governor Lyman Knapp had come over from Sitka to be the Grand Marshal. There was a place in the parade for the Poet of the Day but Juneau's weekly newspaper did not state whether that position was filled. Units in the parade included Company A of the Alaska Militia, Veterans of the Mexican War, the sons of veterans, members of the Grand Army of the Republic and other veterans of the Civil War, civil authorities, and the general public. There appears to have been no thought of marching to the new Evergreen Cemetery although by then it held at least five graves. Perhaps the Cemetery Road was not yet in condition for a parade.

Advance notice of the 1893 observance spoke of \"visits to the graves\" but an incomplete newspaper file prevents a final report. In 1894 there were \"exercises\" at both cemeteries despite a downpour of rain, and that appears to have been the last time there was a formal observance of the day at the old cemetery; although, according to a later report, 21 of the graves at the Ridge Cemetery were not moved to Evergreen.

In 1895 if there was any formal observance at Evergreen Cemetery it was ignored by the Alaska Mining Record. And the next year apparently only members of Seward Post No. 36, Grand Army of the Republic, carried their flags and their fife and drum to Evergreen Cemetery. Thereafter a parade out the Cemetery Road was an annual May 30th event.

The biggest procession to Evergreen Cemetery in early years, however, was not on Memorial Day but on August 16, 1903, for the second funeral of Joe Juneau. Joe, who had participated with Richard Harris in the original gold discovery in Silver Bow Basin, had lived here until 1894 when he moved first to Circle City, then to Dawson. He ran a restaurant for a time before he went back to placer mining.

Joe Juneau, at the age of 63, died of pneumonia in March, 1899, at the little mining camp of Arctic City on the Klondike River and was buried at government expense. In 1903, through the efforts of John Olds and other oldtimers, funds were collected to send for his remains. The White Pass company contributed transportation from Dawson to Skagway and the body reached here on August 15.

The funeral at Evergreen Cemetery was on a beautiful Sunday. The First Regimental Band headed the parade and at the cemetery Father Cardon read the Catholic services. Judge Arthur K. Delaney, in a lengthy address, traced Joe's life from Quebec to Milwaukee to California and to the gold fields of Western Canada and Alaska. Four years later his former partner, Richard Harris, would join him in the peace of Evergreen Cemetery.