Ft. Lawton Cemetery (Seattle, Washington)

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Old Fort Lawton (which is now in Discovery Park) is located in Seattle, Washington. The original buildings at Fort Lawton were constructed between 1898 and 1904. The buildings are handsome examples of Greek Revival architecture. They are constructed with Chuckanut sandstone foundations, lapped cedar siding, Philadelphia slate roofing, hardwood floors and pressed metal ceilings.

Military personnel, their families, and civilian employees of the Army lie at rest in the four-sectioned Fort Lawton Cemetery. Representatives of American military history from the Spanish-American War forward are present. The first grave was dug in 1902. The Fort Lawton Cemetery is a "federal" not a "national" cemetery. It has a planned maximum of 912 sites (some of these sites have multiple family occupants), the only sites remaining have been reserved.

In addition to the above there are 2 Prisoners of World War II buried in the 912 sites. One German and one Italian. They are in a small number 5 section. The Italian POW was killed during a riot between the Italian POW's and the Colored Service Men.

What followed was the largest and longest U.S. Army court-martial of World War II. 43 U.S. soldiers, all of them African-American, were charged with rioting; three were also charged with the lynching death of an Italian prisoner of war named Guglielmo Olivotto. A 2005 book, On American Soil, convinced the U.S. Army's highest court of appeals that prosecutor Leon Jaworski had committed "egregious error," and that all convictions should be reversed. President George W. Bush signed legislation allowing the Army to disburse back pay to the defendants or their survivors.

Brigadier General Federick D. Atkinson, Post Commander at Fort Lawton from 1 March 1949 to 7 October 1949 is one of two post commanders buried there. General Atkinson died 18 October 1971. The second is Colonel John Barber who was Post Commander in the mid sixties. Colonel Barber died 16 February 1977.

The cemetery also holds the body of W. W. Robinson, Sr., the father of the man who built Fort Lawton. As a Captain and Quartermaster Officer, W. W. Robinson, Jr., came to Seattle in 1896. When he left in 1901, Fort Lawton was well established. Upon retirement in 1911, Robinson, by then a Brigadier General, returned to Seattle with his wife. He died in 1917, in Seattle.

In addition, in Section 3 grave #133 lies an unknown. All that is known is that he perished aboard the SS Clarksdale Victory approximately November 24, 1947, when the ship wrecked on Hippo Reef Island (Graham Island), British Columbia.