The Benton Avenue Cemetery has been in Helena since 1870.
The original Helena city cemetery was on Warren Street, where today’s Central School is. It came about in 1865 but the growth of the city required its removal by 1870. They didn’t get all the bodies, however. In fact, bodies were still being pulled out from under the school in 1893 when floods occurred or the ground shifted.
The bodies that had originally been buried in the Warren Street cemetery had been dug up in 1870 and moved to the Benton Avenue Cemetery. It’s a nice place, one that has tombstones you can walk around and get stories from. Some of those stories are below.
The original Helena city cemetery was on Warren Street, where today’s Central School is. It came about in 1865 but the growth of the city required its removal by 1870. They didn’t get all the bodies, however. In fact, bodies were still being pulled out from under the school in 1893 when floods occurred or the ground shifted.
The bodies that had originally been buried in the Warren Street cemetery had been dug up in 1870 and moved to the Benton Avenue Cemetery. It’s a nice place, one that has tombstones you can walk around and get stories from. Some of those stories are below.
You can get a good perspective on the cemetery when you walk down Benton Avenue, right across from Carroll College. This is what it looks like:
Some wooden boards for headstones. The one in the upper left is of a 5-week-old boy
The view gets a little clearer the closer you get, and if you do some research or have the right books, you can get great stories.
Kemp family plot in the Benton Avenue Cemetery, Helena
One of those stories involves the Kemp family, all four members. It’s a tragic story, perhaps one of the most tragic in the whole place.
Cyrus Kemp had been born in Pennsylvania in 1831. In 1868 he moved to Helena and became an assayer and “conscientious, unassuming businessman.” He was about 37 years old at the time, and was likely already married. His wife was named Mollie and she’d been born in 1840 in Missouri. Two years after the pair arrived in Helena they had a daughter, named Annie. She died four years later, just a few weeks into January, 1875. She’d been fighting cerebro spinal meningitis, a battle she waged for twenty hours before she could fight no more. The death must have been a blow to the family, especially the mother. It was January 23 that Cyrus bought the plot in the Benton Avenue Cemetery for his daughter. The ground must have been tough.
Life went on for the Kemps, until 1884 when another tragedy struck. This time the circumstances are a bit unclear, but what is known is that Cyrus and Mollie’s second daughter died. Her name was Ella and she’d been trying to prevent her mother from killing herself.
It happened on June 30 when Mollie had been “laboring under a fit of temporary insanity,” according to the coroner’s jury. Cyrus was in another room of their Edwards Street home. He heard a gunshot in the bedroom, and rushed in to see Ella with “blood oozing from a bullet hole in her left temple.” She was lying on the floor by the bed, and he looked over to see his wife holding his Smith & Wesson pistol.
“Oh, have I shot Ella?” Mollie called out as he entered the room.
“Yes,” Cyrus said. “How – why did you do it?”
“I wanted to shoot myself, and Ella was trying to prevent me from doing it. It can’t be that she is much hurt. She will surely be better after awhile?”
At that point “the poor woman wrung her hands in anguish,” according to the reports. Cyrus called for help and by the time doctors came Mollie was “wild with grief” and they gave her an opiate. Ella died two hours later, never regaining consciousness. When Mollie later woke up from her drug-induced sleep, she was told Ella had died from falling out of a carriage. She refused to believe that Ella could be dead, though on July 1 Ella was buried.
The family continued on, this time until 1889 when tragedy struck again. Mollie kept it together for more than five years before August 24 of that year. Cyrus had made sure his wife had been kept on medicine, which was likely laudanum or some other form of opium. It seemed on that August day she argued with him over it and never took it. After a time she settled down, or so Cyrus thought. When he went to the other room he saw she wasn’t there, and that the kitchen door had been left open. He went out, and realized his wife had gone. Search parties were organized, and eventually Mollie’s body was found in the Chessman ditch, “a stream of about twelve inches deep.” It was clear it was suicide, for on her body was found a note that read: “My body and mind are giving away; don’t leave me alone for a moment.”
Cyrus kept on for two more years, until he married one Anna Wood. It was 1891 and he was 60 years old. The pair had a son the next year, which no doubt joy to the remaining years of Cyrus’s life. He died in 1896 at the age of 65.
Cyrus Kemp had been born in Pennsylvania in 1831. In 1868 he moved to Helena and became an assayer and “conscientious, unassuming businessman.” He was about 37 years old at the time, and was likely already married. His wife was named Mollie and she’d been born in 1840 in Missouri. Two years after the pair arrived in Helena they had a daughter, named Annie. She died four years later, just a few weeks into January, 1875. She’d been fighting cerebro spinal meningitis, a battle she waged for twenty hours before she could fight no more. The death must have been a blow to the family, especially the mother. It was January 23 that Cyrus bought the plot in the Benton Avenue Cemetery for his daughter. The ground must have been tough.
Life went on for the Kemps, until 1884 when another tragedy struck. This time the circumstances are a bit unclear, but what is known is that Cyrus and Mollie’s second daughter died. Her name was Ella and she’d been trying to prevent her mother from killing herself.
It happened on June 30 when Mollie had been “laboring under a fit of temporary insanity,” according to the coroner’s jury. Cyrus was in another room of their Edwards Street home. He heard a gunshot in the bedroom, and rushed in to see Ella with “blood oozing from a bullet hole in her left temple.” She was lying on the floor by the bed, and he looked over to see his wife holding his Smith & Wesson pistol.
“Oh, have I shot Ella?” Mollie called out as he entered the room.
“Yes,” Cyrus said. “How – why did you do it?”
“I wanted to shoot myself, and Ella was trying to prevent me from doing it. It can’t be that she is much hurt. She will surely be better after awhile?”
At that point “the poor woman wrung her hands in anguish,” according to the reports. Cyrus called for help and by the time doctors came Mollie was “wild with grief” and they gave her an opiate. Ella died two hours later, never regaining consciousness. When Mollie later woke up from her drug-induced sleep, she was told Ella had died from falling out of a carriage. She refused to believe that Ella could be dead, though on July 1 Ella was buried.
The family continued on, this time until 1889 when tragedy struck again. Mollie kept it together for more than five years before August 24 of that year. Cyrus had made sure his wife had been kept on medicine, which was likely laudanum or some other form of opium. It seemed on that August day she argued with him over it and never took it. After a time she settled down, or so Cyrus thought. When he went to the other room he saw she wasn’t there, and that the kitchen door had been left open. He went out, and realized his wife had gone. Search parties were organized, and eventually Mollie’s body was found in the Chessman ditch, “a stream of about twelve inches deep.” It was clear it was suicide, for on her body was found a note that read: “My body and mind are giving away; don’t leave me alone for a moment.”
Cyrus kept on for two more years, until he married one Anna Wood. It was 1891 and he was 60 years old. The pair had a son the next year, which no doubt joy to the remaining years of Cyrus’s life. He died in 1896 at the age of 65.
Not all the tales coming from the cemetery are sad. Oh sure, everyone dies in the end, but some do so in more…entertaining ways than others. One such was Elijah Dunphy, though his life too was marked with tragedy.
The Dunphy Family Plot in the Benton Avenue Cemetery, Helena
Elijah Dunphy was born on March 25, 1833 in New Brunswick, Canada. He got married to Mary Small in 1858 and then in 1862 he moved to Grasshopper Creek in Montana, no doubt looking for gold. He was 29-years-old. The Dunphy’s were members of the Fisk Expedition that came through in that year and they moved from one mining camp to another, hitting up all the hotspots – Benton, Alder Gulch, and Bannack. Finally they came to Helena, where Elijah got involved in “the mercantile business, sawmill and lumber, hotel and stables.”
Elijah and Mary lived happily in Helena until Mary died in 1885. It was a shocking affair, coming on Christmas Eve, and as Mary was nursing the children of some friends. They’d had diphtheria, and she caught it and was buried that same day. It must have been a cold and heartless holiday that year.
Elijah kept on with his business interests, but life had no doubt become listless. Four years later, in 1889, he married Susan Barwell, who was 27 years of age to his 56 years of age. They were married in August and Elijah held out for just over a month before succumbing to a heart attack. The coroner ruled he was a victim of “constant over stimulation.”
That may have been due to his young and likely beautiful wife. Elijah had been worth quite a bit of money at the time, and didn’t have a will. His holdings were large – the Dearborn Avenue house was $10,000 alone, and besides that there was a “half interest in the Sweitzer Bank” and the entire Dunphy Block located on Main Street. All told, Dunphy’s worth was $150,000. Both the Helena Daily Herald and the Helena Independent speculated on what had killed him, from “heart disease” in the former and “a fit of epilepsy” in the latter. In the end it’s likely he went out just as he’d planned – on top.
Elijah and Mary lived happily in Helena until Mary died in 1885. It was a shocking affair, coming on Christmas Eve, and as Mary was nursing the children of some friends. They’d had diphtheria, and she caught it and was buried that same day. It must have been a cold and heartless holiday that year.
Elijah kept on with his business interests, but life had no doubt become listless. Four years later, in 1889, he married Susan Barwell, who was 27 years of age to his 56 years of age. They were married in August and Elijah held out for just over a month before succumbing to a heart attack. The coroner ruled he was a victim of “constant over stimulation.”
That may have been due to his young and likely beautiful wife. Elijah had been worth quite a bit of money at the time, and didn’t have a will. His holdings were large – the Dearborn Avenue house was $10,000 alone, and besides that there was a “half interest in the Sweitzer Bank” and the entire Dunphy Block located on Main Street. All told, Dunphy’s worth was $150,000. Both the Helena Daily Herald and the Helena Independent speculated on what had killed him, from “heart disease” in the former and “a fit of epilepsy” in the latter. In the end it’s likely he went out just as he’d planned – on top.
Notes
Spalding, Charleen. Benton Avenue Cemetery. Pioneer Tales Publishing: Helena, 2010. p 63-4, 121-2,
