skibbec.html

Skibbe Grave
Located in Section 31, Township 2, Range 13

This grave is located on what is now The Dalles Mountain Ranch State Park.
The grave is on the hillside, approximately 1 mile north of the ranchhouse,
which is approximately 3.5 miles from Hwy. 14 on The Dalles Mtn. Road.

The Dalles Mountain Ranch, A Museum of Natural Heritage of the East Gorge,
by Darlene Highsmith Bleakney, 1992, pages 33 - 34.

In the summer of the early 1900s Bill Brune and his family went to Portland for an outing and his wife's brother, Ludwig Skibbe, came from The Dalles to house sit for them for a couple of days and tend to the chores. According to Malcolm Crawford's recollection, it was very hot - over 110 degrees in the shade - when they were gone. When the Brunes came home they couldn't find Skibbe. They scouted around all over. He was finally found, along with his rifle, up in the rocks near the rattlesnake den. It wasn't known if he was bitten by a snake or had a heat stroke while hunting. Fred Smith was just a boy at that time and he was the one who found the body. They got a wooden casket up there in the rocks, tipped the body into it, tied the box with a rope fastened to Fred's saddle, and he pulled the coffin down to the oaks -- where the men were able to dig a hole and bury Skibbe.
The grave has a cast metal headstone that reads "LUDWIG SKIBBE BORN DEC. 16, 1825 DIED AUG. 15, 1897"; an iron fence, about the size of the bed frame, encloses the plot.

The Oregonian, Portland, OR., August 21, 1897, page 3
"Oregon Notes"

It was decided at the inquest upon the body of L. Skibbe, the old man who was found dead near the grand dalles, that he came to his death from natural causes, probably from prostration on account of heat.