Old Scotch Church Cemetery Tour, Hillsboro: This Saturday, September 9
The Old Scotch Church, also known as the Tualatin Plains Presbyterian Church is celebrating 150 years. It is located:
30685 N.W. Scotch Church Road, Hillsboro, Oregon (Ckick For Map)
97124 ~ 503-648-9573.
The local Boy Scouts will lead the guided tours, which begin every half hour between 12 pm to 3 pm. This free public event will feature live actors portraying noteworthy personalities in the Old Scotch Church Cemetery. One of those historical features is Joseph L. Meek, a mountain man, storyteller, and public nature who played a significant role in bringing Oregon into the United States in 1846–1848.
A politician and a legislator in territorial Oregon, he helped ensure that Oregon became a free state in 1859, on the eve of the Civil War. His wife, Virginia, is buried at the old church as well as many of their children. She was a Nez Perce woman of great acclaim and the daughter of Chief Kowesota. She helped Joe and other early settlers establish their families and farms here in Washington County. Colonel Meeks’s home county in Virginia (which Virginia’s American name derived from) was Washington County; thus our County was given its name.
Since the first burial in 1876, the Old Scotch Church Cemetery has provided a resting place for the remains of both church members and residents of the community. Near towering trees, rolling farmland, and a historic country church, rows of notable markers and dignified graves — including those of an Oregon founder, Joseph L. Meek, and seven Civil War veterans — grace a park-like setting.
