Atop a hill overlooking Whidbey Island’s heartland lies pioneering history.

It is there, above the rolling farmland of Central Whidbey, glorious views of Admiralty Inlet and distant mountains where Whidbey’s first families rest.

There lies Sunnyside Cemetery, one of the few largely intact Victorian-era cemeteries still in existence and one of the oldest territorial cemeteries in Washington.

This weekend, the residents of Sunnyside will give guests a personal tour of their eternal resting place. They will be brought to life by Coupeville High School drama and History Day students during four tours that will be held Sunday, May 27, sponsored by the Daughters of the Pioneers and the Island County Historical Society.

The cemetery began in 1865 when Winfield Ebey was buried on the northeastern corner of Sunnyside Farm, owned by his parents Jacob and Sarah Ebey. In 1869, his sister, Mary Ebey Bozarth, sold the one and-a-quarter acre lot where he was buried to the county for $1.

There are headstones in the cemetery with dates preceding Winfield’s death, but they accompany bodies of people who were exhumed and brought to Sunnyside, according to historians.

Buried at Sunnyside are pioneeer families, prominent Native Americans, and seafaring captains who all called Whidbey home. They were all neighbors, all relatives, and most have links to descendents currently living on the island.

The tours Sunday are a once in a lifetime opportunity to walk side-by-side with the people who shaped Central Whidbey. It is a chance to meet the people who now live on as the names of roads, lakes and towns — Ebey, Crockett, Smith, Power, Coupe, and more.

“I never thought of Coupeville to be that exciting of a place until I started to learn about its history,” said Katie Hall, a Coupeville High School junior.

Hall will bring to life Fidelia Power who, as young Fidelia Newberry, followed her brother, minister of the Congregational Church, to Whidbey Island. Newberry became a teacher at the San de Fuca Church and became enamered with a gentleman named Power. Fidelia Newberry married Henry C. Power on April 3, 1889, and 10 months later died while giving birth to twins, Margaret and Marion.

As the tale goes, Henry C. Power never married again. He and his mother, also a Margaret, raised the twins on Margaret Power’s farm. History reports Henry carried a letter written by Fidelia throughout his life.

The students participating are a mix of drama kids and history buffs. Some have participated in past History Day competitions, some plan to compete in the future, but all have an admiration for the history they are gaining.

“The tours are going to be really cool because we’re really getting into it with period clothes and everything,” said junior Rosa Felici. “Everyone, even little kids, will like it.”

The students have received their education in Coupeville Pioneer history from local history buffs like Roger Sherman and Joanne Engle Brown who have volunteered their time and knowledge to the tours.

Sherman knows the history of Sunnyside well. Sherman’s grandfather, William Sherman, was hired in 1921 as the cemetery’s first caretaker for a salary of $25.

Sherman grew up right next door to the cemetery and as a boy would often play cowboys and Indians in the once overgrown graveyard. He remembers his grandfather enlisting the men of the family to help dig graves.

“That’s how my uncles earned their spending money,” he said.

In 1960, Sherman’s father, Clark Sherman, began working with service organizations to revitalize Sunnyside Cemetery.

Following a land sale to the county, an official cemetery district — Cemetery District 2 — was created in 1965, which continues today in overseeing the grounds.

On the tours Sunday, Sherman and other guides will share little-known facts about the burial ground, such as how everyone in the cemetery is buried so they lie facing the rising sun — all but one.

“Not Frank Pratt,” Sherman said. “He’s off facing the other way.”

Sherman loves to tell the tales of the people who are now below ground.

The most famous of which is Col. Isaac Ebey who was beheaded by Kake Indians on Aug. 11, 1857, at the age of 39. The grave marker of Sam Hancock, the explorer who was the first white man to see Snoqualmie Falls, is the tallest in the graveyard. Dr. John Kellogg, known as the “canoe doctor” for his mode of transportation to visit patients, even owned part of the cemetery and sold plots.

The students are learning that it was the foresight, vision, hopes and dreams of these pioneers that shape Coupeville into the town it is today.

“It was a dream of Rebecca’s to get a church and cemetery in Coupeville,” Felici said of her pioneer, Rebecca Ebey.

Joanne Engle Brown — a descendant of Capt. William Ballinger Engle — said she’s enjoyed helping the students delve into island history and can’t wait for that history can be shared.

“This is what this community is all about,” she said.