Steppingstones to the past
Sutter’s ‘city of the dead’ rises again at East Lawn cemetery
By Dixie Reid
6/27/2008
The simple grave markers attest to lives lived long ago, when Sacramento was young.
Jaunita Pacheco. Died Sept. 26 1851. Aged 23 yrs
Madaline M. Coursen. Died May 27 1863. Age 7 m 17 d
Erastus E. Wilson. Died Sept. 26 1908. Aged 57 yrs 2 mo 2 da
For decades, though, their mission of remembrance was forgotten. These and 72 other
grave markers ended up as garden steppingstones and driveway paths at two east
Sacramento homes.
This is but one twist in the odd saga of New Helvetia Cemetery -- Sacramento's first
graveyard, a plot of land John Sutter set aside near his fort in 1841. It later became a city
cemetery, then a public park and, ultimately, Sutter Middle School.
To make way for the school, the deceased -- and their number was far greater than
anyone suspected at the time -- were reinterred elsewhere. Some 500 whose identities
were known from burial records went to Sacramento City Cemetery or smaller cemeteries
in the area, and 4,691 "unknowns" were reburied in a single gravesite at East Lawn
Memorial Park.
On Sunday, a horse-drawn wagon will carry a load of rescued grave markers from Sutter
Middle School to East Lawn, where they will be placed along the perimeter of the New
Helvetia plot. A public ceremony and dedication will follow the wagon's arrival.
"I thought the horse and wagon would add something of the era and a little interest. If we
just drove them over, nobody would know," says historian Bob LaPerriere, who helped
organize the event, "Memories of New Helvetia Cemetery."
Homeowners who inherited their "steppingstones" from previous generations willingly
gave them up in exchange for new brick and concrete work, says LaPerriere, a retired
Sacramento dermatologist with an interest in local history, particularly cemeteries. He
discovered the grave markers while a guest at one of the east Sacramento homes and
noticed more in the yard next door.
"People need to be reminded, I think, of our heritage, because so much of it disappears. I
lecture in Gold Rush medicine, so I have an insight into what these people went through
and how they suffered to get Sacramento started," says LaPerriere, who serves on the
Sacramento County Cemetery Advisory Commission. "They went through hell, with the
cholera epidemics, the floods and the fires. We need to respect them."
In 1839, Sutter, a Swiss immigrant, established the settlement he called New Helvetia
about a mile from the American River. (It's now Sutter's Fort State Historic Park, at 28th
and L streets.) Sacramento would not become a city, nor California a state, for another 11
years.
He set aside a piece of land east of the fort for a "burying ground," at what is now
Alhambra Boulevard, between I and J streets. The first documented burial was a U.S.
Army paymaster named Cloud, who died in 1847 after being thrown from his horse.
Earlier burials were likely men who worked for Sutter, with wooden "tombstones," if
anything, marking the spots.
By 1850, Sutter sold the graveyard to a land speculator, Dr. R.H. McDonald. An item in
the Placerville Herald in 1853 raised concerns about its future: "Enclosed now into a
neighboring farm, the ploughshare will soon destroy every vestige of the sacred spot."
Four years later, McDonald sold the property to undertaker John Wesley Reeves, who
called it New Helvetia Cemetery. The Sacramento Union noted in January 1872: "This
city of the dead is laid out with avenues and walks and handsomely decorated with trees,
shrubs, evergreens and flowers now in full bloom and beauty."
Reeves died in 1867 and was buried in the lavish underground marble tomb he built for
his family at New Helvetia Cemetery. (His body later was moved to Sacramento City
Cemetery.) His widow and her father ran the cemetery until 1875, when she sold it to the
city of Sacramento with the stipulation that it must always remain a cemetery.
The property declined over the next 35 years until, in 1911, city fathers decided to make
it into a public park and prohibited further burials.
Sutter's burying ground operated as Helvetia Park from 1916 until 1953, when the city
offered it to the school district as the site of Sutter Junior High.
Public outcry and years of legal wrangling did nothing to change the politicians' minds.
Adolph Teichert Jr., a prominent Sacramento businessman with relatives buried in the
cemetery, told the City Council in 1952: " As I remember it, when we made an agreement
with the city of Sacramento to give up our plots and allow the old brick walls to be
leveled and tombstones removed, it was with the expressed stipulation that the city would
make a park out of it and keep it inviolate in perpetuity."
"It doesn't say a lot about our society," says Fair Oaks Cemetery District manager Ray
Young, who provided a crew to remove grave markers from the two east Sacramento
homes. "I take issue that nobody stepped up and said, 'This should be done the right way.'
"
"Sometimes people will key in to memorials and tributes, and sometimes they take a back
seat to progress. We haven't been as careful to honor our past as we should have been
sometimes," says Alan Fisher, president of East Lawn Memorial Park.
Cemetery excavations have occurred in other places, says LaPerriere, "but the size of this
one, with more than 5,000 removals, is probably unusual."
As the workers dug up New Helvetia Cemetery, they stacked the grave markers in the
street.
"That is apparently how they ended up in neighborhood homes," LaPerriere says. "... My
assumption is that once they did that, of course, they wouldn't know who was buried
there, so they could bury them as unknowns."
The newly found grave markers will be laid alongside others that have turned up over the
years and line the edges of East Lawn's New Helvetia plot. A tombstone set in the grassy
expanse reads: "In memory of those removed from New Helvetia Cemetery and
reinterred here in 1956. May they at last find eternal peace."
And it turns out that some prominent Sacramentans were among the so-called
"unknowns" laid to rest there.
Joseph McKinney, saloon owner and the city's first elected sheriff, was shot while trying
to make an arrest during the 1850 Squatters Riot. Daniel Blue in 1850 hosted the first
African American congregation on the Pacific Coast in his Sacramento home. Helen
Beulah Mrose may have been a prostitute, but her claim to fame was that she was the
girlfriend of legendary gunfighter John Wesley Hardin.
Also buried here are 600 Japanese immigrants, their presence memorialized with a stately
carved stone. And among the concrete grave markers "coming home" is one bearing the
name of James Bithell, owner of Sacramento's first bookstore.
"People who've lived here their whole lives don't know about New Helvetia Cemetery,"
says LaPerriere. "It's upsetting to most people in the historic community that it's been
forgotten. Those early Sacramentans sacrificed a lot, died young. Because of what they
did brought us to where we are in Sacramento. Because of what they went through, we
should not forget them."
MEMORIES OF NEW HELVETIA CEMETERY
WHAT: Horse-drawn wagon "parade" to East Lawn Memorial Park and dedication of
historic grave markers
WHEN: Wagon leaves Sutter Middle School, 3150 I St., at 9:30 a.m. Sunday. It is
scheduled to arrive at East Lawn Memorial Park, 4300 Folsom Blvd., at 10:15 a.m.
Ceremony begins at 10:45 a.m. in the New Helvetia section. A tour of East Lawn's
restored Art Deco mausoleum is at 11:30 a.m., with refreshments served at noon.
Call The Bee's Dixie Reid, (916) 321-1134.