Willie Keil Grave State Park Heritage Site History

In the evening by lamp-light, Willie was buried here November 26, 1855.

Willie Keil Grave State Park Heritage Site commemorates a tale that is legendary for its strangeness, its example of devotional love for a departed son, and for its story of a father’s promise kept.

Indigenous Lands

Willie Keil Grave State Park Heritage Site lies within the traditional territories of Coast Salish Indigenous people whose present-day descendants include members of the Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe, the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation and other Chinook language speaking people. For thousands of years the lands and waters of the Willapa Valley have provided habitat for a diverse community of life that forms the basis of their cultures. Salmon species of the local rivers and shellfish of Willapa Bay are primary foundations of Indigenous lifeways in the region.

Local tribes refused to accept the conditions proposed by Governor Isaac Stevens at the Chehalis River Treaty Council in February 1855. Subsequently, title to the land was relinquished to the US federal government and the Chehalis Reservation was established by executive order of Secretary of the Interior J. P. Usher on July 8, 1864. On September 22, 1866, President Andrew Johnson established the Shoalwater Bay Reservation by executive order.

Immigration, Community and Colonization

Immigrants from the United States began to trickle, then pour, into today’s Oregon and Washington after joint claims to the region by Britain and the United States were decided in the Americans’ favor in 1846. The Donation Land Claim Act of 1850 enabled arriving immigrants to claim thousands of acres of Indigenous lands and establish their private ownership without any compensation to the Indigenous people who lived on and stewarded the land, often for generations.

The journey across half a continent on the Oregon Trail was expensive and fraught with dangers from disease, accidents, and conflicts, so it was a difficult or impossible proposition for most residents of the United States. Slavery, economic hardships and unhealthful lives led many rural farm families to dream of migration to a new and better frontier, but some chose instead to follow charismatic leaders founding intentional communities. Communitarian societies sought to establish a more perfect society, addressing some of the stresses that hampered success for so many American families.

Wilhelm Keil and the Bethel Colony

Wilhelm Keil emigrated from Germany to the United States in the 1830s, and for a while participated in a colony led by fellow German immigrant Johann Rapp. Over time, many of Rapp’s followers became disillusioned with Rapp’s insistence on many rules, including celibacy, by his adherents. Keil arose as a leader of the splintering group, distilling the rules down to shared property and a central focus on the “Golden Rule” of reciprocity found in many religious traditions.

Historian John O. Gooch summed up Keil’s appeal by saying “The very simplicity of Keil’s convictions seemed to attract men and inspire confidence.” By 1844, Keil and more than 200 followers had founded the community of Bethel, MO. Occupying more than 6,000 acres, the community became largely self-sufficient in food and building materials and became well-known for their manufacture of sturdy pioneer wagons capable of withstanding the rigors of a journey across the Oregon Trail. Bethelites also became renowned for their distillation and marketing of Golden Rule Whiskey.

By 1853, Wilhelm Keil became convinced that the community should establish a new colony in the Oregon Country, taking advantage of the opportunity to acquire more land and develop additional enterprises. A scouting party of nine people led by colony member Christian Giesy with his wife Emma made the journey that year. Continuing beyond the growing community of settlements in the Willamette River Valley, the Giesy crew eventually chose to select land in the Willapa River Valley in today’s southwest Washington. Christian Giesy also purchased adjoining claims from Americans that had already selected land in the valley, using funds entrusted to him by the Bethel colony.

Letters written back to Bethel by the scouting party encouraged Wilhelm Keil to plan a larger traverse of the Oregon Trail in 1855 with 34 wagons provisioned with sufficient flour, bacon, cornmeal, dried apples and peaches, beans, salt, pepper, rice, tea, coffee, and sugar for the months-long journey with about 250 people.

Christian Giesy’s parents and brother John and his family elected to begin their travel to Willapa by way of a sea voyage to Panama. They crossed the isthmus by rail and voyaged onward by steamship to the mouth of the Columbia River. A short sail into Willapa Bay and a muddy 5-mile trail brought the party to rejoin Christian.

Christian’s six other brothers joined the wagon train led by Wilhelm Keil.

Making the Promised Journey

Wilhelm’s 19-year-old son, Willie, was an enthusiastic proponent of the emigration plan, and his father promised him that he would drive the lead wagon on the journey. Tragically, Willie fell ill with abdominal pain, fever, chills, nausea, headache and a rapid heartbeat, diagnosed as malaria. He died just four days before the planned start of the trip. On his deathbed, Wilhelm promised him that he would make good on his promise to let him lead the wagons.

What happened next was described by Erhard Gottlieb, the Bethel blacksmith:

“A heavy zinc coffin was purchased in St. Louis and the boy’s body placed therein. The Colony cooper made a wooden vat shaped like a barrel, one end larger than the other. The zinc coffin was placed therein and securely fastened and the vat was heavily banded with iron bands placed on a wagon and bolted down—it took three barrels of alcohol to fill the vat. This wagon was drawn by four mules.”  

Not the Right Place

The Wilhelm Keil wagon train journey across the country was relatively smooth, compared to the experience of many. Keil credited their safe passage to divine intervention and a policy of generosity toward the Indigenous people they encountered. He also speculated that the Indigenous people, who resisted others who attempted the trail that year, discriminated between his German-speaking group and other English-speaking groups. Some have wondered if Indigenous warriors allowed their passage because of the presence of the whiskey-embalmed body of Willie Keil’s at the head of the line of wagons.

Whatever the reasons, the group arrived at the Willapa River Valley in late November 1855, at the height of the rainy season. Wilhelm Keil immediately took a distaste for the site, writing that “the purpose of the Bethel Society could not be accomplished here.” Despite an enthusiastic tour of the properties led by Christian Giesy that prompted Keil to admit that “the land itself cannot be excelled anywhere in the world in fertility and productivity,” the difficulties and expense of transportation made a successful colony unlikely. The weather didn’t improve Keil’s mood, as he noted that “our clothes and our shoes actually rot on our bodies because of the mud and wetness.”

Keil wrote that “on the 26th of November we buried William [Willie] on the claim where old Mr. Schwader lives. It was in the evening at candlelighting time. The little boys played the song: “Wie soll ich dich empfangen” (How shall I receive Thee).

The grave, in the grove of trees on the hill directly above today's Willie Keil Grave State Park Heritage Site, was the first in a cemetery that has been maintained by the Giesy family on property that was patented from the federal public domain by the heirs of Henry Giesy, one of Christian Giesy’s brothers. Eventually, most members of the Giesy family that moved to the Willapa River Valley would be interred in the plot.

Wilhelm Keil backtracked to the Willamette Valley and established the Aurora Colony, which readily grew into one of the most successful and enduring utopian colonies in the Pacific Northwest.

Making a State Park

On July 9, 1959, 0.4 acres of land adjacent to State Route 6 below the cemetery where Willie Keil is buried were donated to the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission by Edward and Huldamay Giesy Buell (the granddaughter of original land claimant John H. Giesy). In the early 1960s, an interpretive sign featuring a carved tableau depicting the Keil wagon train led by the whiskey-filled hearse carrying Willie Keil was created by noted woodcarver Dudley Carter and installed on the property. The deteriorated sign was replaced with updated interpretive panels in 2020, preserving the strangely wonderful story of Willie Keil.