If you’ve ever taken the time to explore Tom Sawyer Island, you know there are tons of trails, caves, and swinging bridges to discover. But did you know that the island had its own hidden gem, buried amid the pirate’s treasure and shipwrecks?
Past Pirate’s Lair and Fort Wilderness, up on the hill, visitors stumbled across find rows of tombstones and grave markers. This fenced off area was Tom Sawyer Island’s Pioneer Cemetery!
The Pioneer Cemetery was the last surviving feature of Fort Wilderness, and marked the final resting place of the brave explorers who first discovered Frontierland and its mysterious island. The cemetery disappeared during Star Wars Land construction in 2016-2017, replaced by an expansion to the backstage area for Fantasmic!. But they say the spirits of the graveyard still haunt the island to this day…
I have had a photo (originally from a slide) of my younger brother and I (ages 7 & 10) kind of hanging on a fence rail beside a cemetery at Disneyland during a cross-country family trip in July 1971. Memory of 50+ years old being what it is, I had long assumed our photo must have been from the queue for the Haunted Mansion (which we also definitely visited, but at night according to the trip journal my Mom kept). Only upon starting to look online for other images of the “cemetery” in question did I come across this website, and was able to match at least one stone (“Eliza Hodgkins”) to our family photo!
That’s so awesome!!! Glad I was able to help 🙂
This is awesome!
How have I never noticed this before!!!