Salem, Oregon
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The original five-acres of the historic community cemetery founded as Odd Fellows Rural Cemetery in 1854 was acquired by Chemeketa Lodge No. 1 of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) from the Reverend David Leslie, former Methodist missionary. The land claim extended south along the Territorial Road to encompass the area surrounding the location that is now the intersection of South Commercial and Hoyt streets.
The Methodist Mission in Oregon was founded by the Reverend Jason Lee in 1834 on the bank of the Willamette River 10 miles north of present-day Salem. It was the first mission to Native Americans to be established in the Pacific Northwest.
After the mission headquarters was moved to Chemeketa (Salem) in 1841, the mission was reorganized and subsequently disbanded. Rev. Leslie claimed land at the south edge of the Salem townsite developed by former missionaries and settled there with his second wife, the former missionary Adelia Judson Olley.
The Leslies and their two young daughters are buried in the original Odd Fellows plat on the claim, and Rev. Leslie's first wife, the former Mary A. Kinney, who had died at the mission, was re-interred in the Leslie family plot. The year of Mary's death (1841), thought to be the earliest date of death seen in grave-marker epitaphs in the cemetery, led to a briefly-held misconception, that the cemetery was founded as early as 1841.
Salem's Odd Fellows Rural Cemetery is among the oldest fraternal-society-sponsored burial grounds in Oregon. Such cemeteries usually were organized in fulfillment of the order's charter obligation to provide for last needs of the members.