'1900 AND': The legend of the Walla Walla Witches at Mountain View Cemetery

“What is buried here, Max?” asks the man.

“Witches,” his young son replies.

“The tale here is that back in the 1800s there were witches here in Walla Walla ... They were killed here in Walla Walla and were buried here,” a YouTube video’s narrator explains to viewers.

The camera pans down to reveal a pair of grave markers resembling oversized parking dividers. The names PARDON DOCK BENTLEY and LIDA ANN BENTLEY are marked on their sloped sides.

For years, locals in Walla Walla have handed down the Bentley legends from generation to generation. It is generally understood that Pardon Dock and Lida Ann were put to death by townspeople in 1900 in retribution for their practice of witchcraft. 

Various elements of the family’s grave-site assemblage at Mountain View Cemetery are purported to provide evidence supporting this claim.

A smaller version of these markers lies just to the south, bearing the name of C.S. (Chester) BENTLEY, who died 130 years ago, Oct. 16, 1885, at barely the age of 4.

The dates

The incomplete state of the pair’s death dates — “1900 AND” — indicates that although their mortal bodies were slain in 1900, their souls remained in some sort of undead state. The people who exterminated the Bentleys expected them to rise again, and, hopefully, be put to death again — but permanently, this time.

The text

The headstone features cryptic wording — “PERPETUAL” on one side, “CARE” on the other. Whoever buried the Bentleys obviously was calling on a higher power to stand sentinel at the grave to ensure no malevolent spirit could emerge from within.

The hands

Hands on gravestones typically point upward, folks say, to direct the soul of the deceased heavenward. The digits on the Bentleys’ headstone aim, instead, directly toward terra firma, clearly steering the pair’s souls hellward.

The markers

These were crafted of thick concrete to prevent (or at least deter) the Satan-worshippers’ souls from exiting their temporary graves and wreaking vengeance on the local populace. 

Several prominent cracks in the surface of 4-year-old Chester’s marker (left) seem to lend credence to this claim. This is because his innocent soul split the marker as he ascended through it on his merciful journey to heaven.

His parents’ markers (right), on the other hand, remain pristine, the lack of similar surface fractures a clear indication the pair’s souls had, in fact, headed in the opposite direction.