By Chris Pattillo

Bones Family: Plot 267

The Bones family is one of the largest family groups buried at Bennett Valley Cemetery. Patriarch James Conner Bones (1838–1881) and his wife, Sarah Emily Kennedy Bones (1844–1916), are buried in plot 267 along with six of their ten children. James Bones arrived in the valley from Jackson, Missouri, at age four. His parents were Joseph Bones and Anne Patten. His wife, Sarah, came to the valley from Wisconsin at age ten, having crossed the plains in an ox cart.

James and Sarah were married in Sonoma on September 30, 1860. They owned a farm which, according to the 1880 Agricultural Census, was valued at $4,000, with livestock valued at $500. They had 83 acres of improved land plus 30 acres of woodland. Their closest neighbors, who appeared on the census with them, included William Campbell, William Thompson, Charles Clauson, Henry Bruning, Andrew Weaver, James McEron, Johann Scheik, and Cyrus Spencer. By 1899, the value of the 200-acre farm had increased to $5,000.

The children buried with James and Sarah include three boys—Benjamin Marcus, Joseph W., and Morley Elbert—and three girls, Margaret A., Mary A., and Sarah Eliza, who went by S. Eliza, presumably to prevent confusion with her mother. Four additional children listed on other sources are William Kennedy, Electa Zilla, Lewis Henry, and Mildred “Millie” Bones. The wife of Benjamin Bones, Nellie May Bishop Bones, a native of Quincy, Illinois, and her father, David Perry Bishop, are also buried at Bennett Valley Cemetery in plot 265. Bishop came to Sonoma in 1883 and had a ranch in Glen Ellen.

Four of these children died young and are commemorated with a single headstone. They were Margaret, who died at age three in 1864; Joseph, who was two; Mary, who was three; and S. Eliza, who was fourteen.[i]

Their eldest son, Morley E. Bones, went to the Yukon Territory before the Alaska Gold Rush. His activities there were the subject of several adventure books. According to his obituary, Dr. G. O. Young wrote Alaskan Trophies, Won and Lost about Morley’s experience as an official guide for Alaskan hunting trips. He spent more than forty years in Alaska operating a fox farm for fur. When he returned to the family home, he established a fox farm there as well.[ii]

[i] S. Eliza’s headstone shows her death date as 1888 making her 14, but a news clip in which her mother applied to administer her estate notes that S. Eliza died in 1898 – that would make er 24 when she died.

[ii] Obituary of Morley E. Bones found on the Ancestry website, September 2025.

Benjamin, who used his middle name Marcus, was born on the family farm. Since his older brother Morley was in Alaska, Benjamin inherited the 60-acre homestead and lived there until a year before his death, when he and his wife, Nellie, moved to 1175 Steele Lane in Santa Rosa. When he moved, the farm was sold to a San Francisco family. Benjamin was a 50-year member of the Sonoma Parlor of the Native Sons of the Golden West. He died in 1942 at the age of seventy-three. Marcus and Nellie’s daughter Florence served as treasurer of the Bennett Valley Cemetery Association from 1957 to 1997.[i]

The 1880 census lists James and Sarah living with five of their children: Electa, age 14; Morley, 12; Benjamin, 10; Lewis, 8; and Sarah, 6. James was identified as a farmer.

James C. Bones died on September 16, 1884, at the age of 43. In 1911, the Santa Rosa Republican wrote: “Mrs. Sarah Bones is still living on the old homestead where she commenced housekeeping at the expiration of the halcyon days of the honeymoon. She’s past the meridian of life, but enjoys good health and the surroundings of a good home.” She died five years later at the age of seventy-one. According to her obituary, she had planned to attend the Pioneers’ meeting as well as the Safety First celebration. Her cause of death was ruled heart failure.

[i] Beneath the Mountain of the Burning Bird: Bennett Valley History and Memories, Evelyn S. McClure with John P. Talbot and Raymond W. Hillman, 2012, pg. 68. You can read more about Marcus and Nellie Bones and their descendants in this book, which is out of print but available in the Sonoma County library.