CA -- San Diego -- El Campo Santo Cemetery:
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- Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
- CAMPO_070724_01.JPG: Remembering the more than 20 men, women, and children who lie buried beneath San Diego Ave. Only assemblyman Edward L. Greene was exhumed and placed within the new boundary of El Campo Santo Cemetery.
These graves were discovered with the use of ground penetrating radar in 1993.
Rest in Peace.
This plaque was placed by the Historical Shrine Foundation with funds from the San Diego Community Development Block Grant in 1993.
- CAMPO_070724_03.JPG: El Campo Santo (The Holy Field):
El Campo Santo once included the adobe chapel on Conde Street, in which was buried Jose Antonio Aquirre and where funeral services were held for Maria Victoria Dominguez Estudillo, Cave Johnson Couts, and many distinguished early San Diegans. Between 1849 and 1897, 477 persons were buried in these grounds. Antonio Garra was the most eminent of many Native Americans interred here. A number of graves were relocated after 1874. A street railway bisected the cemetery in 1894. The wall around this portion was built in 1933. Restoration has continued to the present.
California Registered Historical Landmark No. 68.
First registered December 6, 1932. Plaque placed by the State Department of Recreation in cooperation with the San Diego City Department of Parks and Recreation and Squibob Chapter, E Clampus Vitus, August 6, 1994.
- CAMPO_070724_09.JPG: El Campo Santo Catholic Cemetery (The Holy Field): [Lots of grammatical errors were fixed when transcribing this sign]
One of San Diego's oldest cemeteries, outside the Presidio according to the William E. Smythe's book on the "History of San Diego." The last recorded burial on the Presidio Hill was that of Captain Henry Delano Fitch in 1849. In that same year, the founding of "El Campo Santo" was to meet the needs of the ever-growing Roman Catholic population in Old Town. The land for the cemetery is believed to have been given by Don Miguel Telesforo Pedrorena.
The first burial in this new cemetery was that of Juan Adams in 1849. There are well over 450 men, women, and children of various nationalities buried within and outside the adobe walls; Spanish, Mexican, United States, European, as well as many Native Americans.
The cemetery itself appears smaller today. It originally extended lengthwise to almost mid-street on San Diego Avenue and about 15 feet on Linwood Street behind the cemetery.
Many of San Diego's pioneer families are buried here. To mention a few: Pedrorena, Estudillo, Osuna, Lopez, Machado, Aguirre, Arguello, Lyons, Marron, Cassidy, Wrightington.
Public executions were held here. A Native American tribal leader named Antonio Garra was executed for his involvement in trying to help his people from being taxed by the U.S. ("no taxation without representation"). An uprising came to be, and a number of lives were lost.
The day of his execution, on January 10th 1852, at 4:30 in the afternoon, Antonio stood at the end of his open grave in the cemetery. In the presence of more than 400 people, faced the firing said, and said, "Gentlemen, I ask your pardon for all of my offenses and give mine in return." He kissed his crucifix, and met his fate, falling into his grave.
Also buried here is "James Yankee Jim Robinson," who was hanged on the public gallows located on the Whaley House property. After being convicted for taking a row boat in San Diego Bay, with the intent to steal the schooner "Pluth," he was convicted of stealing a horse, due to technicalities.
Mrs. Anna Whaley, wife of Thomas Whaley, describes a funeral in Old Town:
"The body was carried on a bier and not placed in the coffin until the cemetery was reached. A priest walked before the body saying prayers, and there were musicians walking on both sides of the bier playing violins, guitars and other instruments. At the rear followed a man with firecrackers, which he was setting off as they moved. Such as a funeral in those days."
Most of the people buried here are in lost graves. It is felt that a few should be honored in different areas of the cemetery with markers. All those who lie here are a part of San Diego's early history.
The white marble grave stones and wrought iron fences are all that is left of the original funeral decorations. Wooden paling fences, a project of the San Diego Parks and Recreation Department, wooden headboards and crosses and interpretive signs, are an on-going educational and partial restoration project of the "Historical Shrine Foundation" (the Thomas Whaley House).
Good friends and visitors, please remember that this place is "holy" ground to many people. Please respect these gravesites and the memory of those here. We thank you, and those who sleep here thank you.
Information placed here by the Historical Shrine Foundation of San Diego County, the Thomas Whaley House, 1991, updated 1994 Rev. Fr. I. Riveroll (Carrillo).
- CAMPO_070724_18.JPG: Bill Marshall and Juan Verdugo:
Hanged December 13, 1851:
Bill Marshall was an American man married to the daughter of a local Indian chieftain. He was a renegade sailor from Providence, Rhode Island, who had deserted from a whaling ship at San Diego in 1844. He had taken up habitation with the Indians. He took an active part in the Garra Indian Uprising in 1851. Bill Marshall and the Indian, Juan Verdugo were caught and brought back to San Diego to be promptly tried by court martial. Marshall was found guilty and thus sentenced to hang, as was Juan Verdugo. The Indian acknowledged his guilt, but Marshall insisted he was innocent. At two o'clock in the afternoon, a scaffold was erected near the Old Catholic Cemetery, the men placed in a wagon, the ropes adjusted about their necks, and the wagon moved on, leaving them to strangle to death.
- CAMPO_070724_33.JPG: Thomas Wrightington:
With the possible exception of Henry D. Fitch, Thomas Wrightington was the first American settler in San Diego. He came with Abel Stearns on the Ayucucho in 1833 and settled while Stearns went up the coast. Wrightington was supercargo, that is, the officer in charge of the cargo and commercial interests of the voyage aboard his vessel.
He was from Fall River, Massachusetts, a shoemaker by trade and had a good education. He applied for Mexican naturalization in 1835 and got provisional papers in 1838. He served as a volunteer in the Mexican War. He held several minor offices under both Mexican and American governments.
He married Juana Machada de Alipas, widow of Damasio Alipas and daughter of Jose Manuel Machado. He owned a grog shop and general store in San Diego and even served as suplente juez de paz (substitute justice of the peace).
Circumstances surrounding his death are sketchy at best, but according to the journal of visitor Richard Dana:
"He fell from his horse... and was found nearly eaten up by coyotes."
Allegedly, this occurred somewhere near the El Cajon Rancho.
His widow, Juana, died in 1901 and is buried in Cavalry Cemetery now know as Pioneer Park in Mission Hills.
- CAMPO_070724_71.JPG: James W. Robinson -- Santiago Robinson -- "Yankee Jim":
James W. Robinson, who was known as "Yankee Jim," suffered the extreme penalty for stealing the only rowboat in San Diego Bay. The verdict of the jury was as follows:
"Your juror in the within case of James W. Robinson have the honor to return a verdict of Guilty and do, therefore, sentence him, James Robinson, to be hanged by the neck until dead. Cave J. Couts, foreman of the jury."
The poor fellow could not believe that he was to be hanged until the very last moment. He appeared to think it all a grim joke or, at the worst, a serious effort to impress him with the enormity of his evil ways. He was still talking when the deputy sheriff gave the signal. Then the cart was driven from beneath him, and he was left dangling in the air. Surely the punishment was far more wicked than the crime, yet the example must have proved effective in discouraging theft.
Yankee Jim converted to the Roman Catholic Church prior to his death. Thus, his baptismal name of Santiago (Spanish for James). His grandfather was Philip Crosthwaite, the deputy sheriff who gave the signal for his execution.
- CAMPO_070724_73.JPG: Yankee Jim (fake) marker
- Wikipedia Description: El Campo Santo Cemetery
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
El Campo Santo is a cemetery located at the Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum, 15415 East Don Julian Road, in City of Industry, California.
As one of the oldest private cemeteries in Southern California, El Campo Santo contains the remains of the pioneering Workman-Temple family as well as Pío Pico, the last governor of Alta California, and other prominent pioneer families. Within its low brick walls, the one-half acre cemetery features a Neoclassical mausoleum and a small cemetery plot surrounded by a Gothic Revival cast-iron fence.
In the early 1850s, the family of William Workman (1799-1867) established El Campo Santo, or "the sacred ground," as a cemetery solely for the use of their family. Along with a cemetery plot enclosed by an ornate cast-iron fence, they built a Gothic Revival brick chapel dedicated to Saint Nicholas by Bishop Thaddeus Amat of Los Angeles. Among the first to be buried here was William Workman's brother David Workman (1797 - 1855), who was killed in an accident while driving cattle to the gold fields in Northern California.
At the turn of the century, the cemetery was abandoned and its brick chapel destroyed by fire. Walter P. Temple, a grandson of the Workmans, successfully filed a lawsuit preventing any further desecration of the cemetery. In 1917, he was able to purchase the cemetery and the surrounding 75 acres (300,000 m2) and began restoration. In place of the chapel, however, he built a cast stone Neoclassical mausoleum and moved the remains of his family inside. In 1921, he also transferred the remains of Pío Pico and his wife, Ygnacia Alvarado de Pico, from old Calvary Cemetery on North Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles, which was being relocated, and had them entombed in the mausoleum.
The Workman Home and Family Cemetery are designated California Historical Landmark No. 874. The cemetery was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, No. 145, on November 20, 1974.
El Campo Santo is open to visitors through a self-guided tour described in the free brochure available at the museum office.
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