The Gribble ancestors were original settlers of the upper Willamette Valley. The family cemetery was established in 1858, just prior to Oregon becoming a state.
Catherine Hingson of the Canby second ward of the church said the “hands in the dirt” part of the work party at the cemetery included: Improving access to the cemetery; installing a cedar split rail fence across the front of the cemetery; removing two overcrowding trees; trimming lower branches from large fir trees; cutting trees into firewood, chipping branches and spreading chips under the new fence; cleaning headstones, pressure washing the granite and hand washing the softer stone; straightening and resetting several headstones that had fallen over; building and installing two benches; spreading a truckload of wood chips around grave sites; weeding and edging the lawn; pruning bushes and small trees and removing debris.
Church genealogists used the information from the Gribble family research and history.
There are currently 115 grave sites in the cemetery. With that information, more than 900 people and 200 families were identified.
At a barbeque following the work party, a book of genealogy was presented to the Gribble family.
John G. Gribble was born in 1799. The cabin in which his family lived sat on the boundary between North and South Carolina.
A farmer and a wagon maker, he moved West, first to Missouri and then to Oregon in 1846 with his wife, Elizabeth Ensley Gribble, and his eight children.
They came in company with fellow Missourians, a caravan of 49 wagons from Independence, Mo.
At the Barlow Tollgate, they paid seven dollars and seventy cents on Sept. 28, 1846, to enter the valley.
In 1847, John paid a “squatter” either a donkey or a gun and pony in exchange for rights to 638 acres near Macksburg where they built a log house.
He was buried in Gribble Cemetery, which was founded in 1858 and named for him in honor of his pioneer services.
Over the years, the Gribbles acquired more than 2,000 acres in the area, which became known as Gribble Prairie.
They were friendly with the Molalla tribe of Indians, and a favorite friend of theirs was Indian Henry, the last chief of the Molalla tribe.
Today, evidence of the Gribble family still lingers, with the Gribble barn, Gribble Road and the old Gribble Cemetery.
