Willie Keil’s grave sits on a hilltop in the Willapa Valley. The marker is a bit hard to read — the weathered stone shows a date of death as May 19, 1855.
What’s unusual about Willie’s case isn’t when he died, but where: Willie succumbed to disease in Bethel, Missouri, 2,000 miles away, days before his family hit the road west, along the Oregon Trail.
So how did this 19-year-old wind up buried not in Missouri, but in Southwestern Washington?
“The story goes that Willie …. was extremely excited to go on the Oregon Trail. He wanted to be in the leading wagon train, and his father promised him that he would,” says Sam Wotipka, exhibit development coordinator with the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission.
“Some versions of the story would say, Dr. Keil felt he had to honor his promise to his son. So rather than bury him there and leave him behind in Missouri, they brought him with them.”
The question then becomes: How exactly does one transport a dead body by covered wagon on a monthslong journey in the 1850s? Wotipka’s answer: They worked with what they had.
“The colony tinsmith worked to fashion him a kind of metal coffin, which was itself put inside of a barrel, and filled with whiskey,” Wotipka says.
And that’s how Willie wound up in a tiny graveyard in Menlo, Washington, and how he got his nickname: the Pickled Pioneer.
Listen above to hear the full story, including why Willie’s father’s reaction to Washington Territory was disgust, causing him to turn south instead to found Aurora, Oregon.
