(The following story by Diane Rodgers appeared on The Seattle Times website on June 13.)
SEATTLE — It took nearly 100 years, but Benjamin Jarnigan finally has a headstone on his grave site at Evergreen Cemetery in Everett.
Jarnigan was the middle child of a large Midwestern Irish family. His older brother was in line to take over the family farm, so Jarnigan headed west for work.
He found a job with Great Northern Railway. On March 1, 1910, Jarnigan was working to clear the track at Wellington near Stevens Pass when an avalanche struck and killed Jarnigan and 95 other people.
It was the deadliest avalanche in U.S. history.
Although little is known about Jarnigan, even that may have been virtually lost in history had it not been for Martin Burwash.
Burwash lives in Burlington and works at Conway Feed’s mill, but his off-time interests lie in mountain railroading. Several books have been written about the 35 passengers who died that day near Stevens Pass, but few have covered the contributions and lives of the 61 railroad workers. So Burwash started to compose a novel, “Vis Major.”
During his research, he decided to visit the graves of the men, nine of whom are buried at Evergreen Cemetery. Burwash found the grave sites of brakeman John Edward Kelly, secretary Earl R. Longcoy, engineer Francis S. Martin, rotary conductor John K. Parzybok, conductor Joseph L. Petit, brakeman William E. Raycroft, cook Lewis George Walker and fireman Sydney H. Jones.
But there was no marker for Jarnigan.
Burwash enlisted the help of a groundskeeper who poked at the ground where a marker should be, but found none. With a map and by probing, they narrowed the location of Jarnigan’s grave — but still no marker.
“It bothered me. All were there, all could be recognized for what they did, except Ben,” Burwash wrote in an e-mail to friends.
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So Burwash returned to Evergreen Cemetery and purchased a marker.
“I always felt a strong connection to these guys,” he said. “It seemed like the right thing to do.”
Burwash said the workers there seemed confused that a stranger would want to buy a marker for someone who died nearly a century ago. Moved by the story, Evergreen Cemetery waived the setting fee.
“It was a way of helping him out,” said Ignacio Delgadillo, family-service counselor at Evergreen.
Burwash’s research found that Jarnigan, also spelled Jarnagan in some references, was working Feb. 23, 1910, to clear snow off the tracks. He was assigned to engine 700, which pushed snowplow X-807.
Jarnigan, along with fireman Lou Ross, worked through the night and late into the evening the next day, when that plow was damaged. Jarnigan and Ross then helped with another plow, with engineers Bob Ford on locomotive 1154 and Pete Imberg on locomotive 1123, to try to clear the line west of Wellington.
Most likely Jarnigan was a young man.
“Railroading was a young profession,” Burwash said. Many came from the upper Midwest, some from Canada. “A lot of these guys flew under the radar at the time.”
They would stay at boarding houses in Leavenworth, Chelan County, while working, which at times required 24 to 36 hours without sleep. “They couldn’t get relief people up there,” Burwash said. Most were bachelors, he said, working long enough to take their earnings into Everett to drink, gamble and meet women.
On Feb. 24, the Seattle Express passenger train and a Fast Mail Train arrived at Wellington but became stuck behind snowplows that had run out of fuel. Also stuck at the pass, the railroad workers found space on the trains to sleep at night while they awaited help.
Jarnigan was most likely asleep on board one of the mail cars when the avalanche hit a few nights later at 1:42 a.m.