Centerville Pioneer Cemetery, Fremont, Alameda County, CA (Formerly Alameda Presbyterian Cemetery & then Centerville Presbyterian Cemetery) Submitted by Irene E-mail: {HIRENE@aol.com} 11/2001 This file is part of the California Tombstone Project http://www.usgwtombstones.org/california/californ.html ********************************************************************** USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, material may be freely used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material, AND permission is obtained from the contributor of the file. ********************************************************************* This old historic burying ground is located in what is now the city of Fremont on Bonde Way between Fremont Blvd and Post Street. At the time it was established the cemetery was in Washington Township, which was made up of the villages of Mission San Jose, Irvington, Warm Springs, Centerville, Niles, Newark, Alvarado and Decoto. Most tombstones, which give locations, reflect either those names or those that preceded them. All of the villages eventually became towns of the same names and the church and cemetery were renamed to reflect their location in Centerville. In 1956 most of the original towns voted to incorporate into the new city of Fremont. Three rejected incorporation and voted to form their own cities. Alvarado & Decoto became Union City and Newark formed its own city about the same time. To reach the cemetery take Highway 880 to the Thornton Blvd. Exit. Travel east on Thornton Ave. to Fremont Blvd, turn right for about one block to Bonde Way and turn left. Entrance to the Cemetery is immediately after the Taco Bell driveway on the left side of the street. HISTORY The church burying grounds were officially designated a cemetery in 1858 but first burials occurred there soon after the Alameda Presbyterian Church acquired the property in the summer of 1855. The congregation was two years old at the time. Rev. William Wallace Brier and nine other founding members organized the church in 1853. It was the first Presbyterian Church in Alameda County. The cemetery is the final resting place of pioneers of the area including some founding church members and/or their descendants. Also buried there are some persons who died prior to the organization of the Church and the establishment of the cemetery. They were among the thousands who came to California during the Gold Rush and decided to remain and establish homes here. Some of the families buried here were members of the church, but many were not. Included among the latter are some Mormon families who sailed around the horn from New York arriving in Yerba Buena, (later renamed San Francisco) in 1846 on the Good Ship Brooklyn. An understanding of the background and organization of the cemetery and of information found on tombstones might best understood by a brief history of the church, its founders and early members. Rev. William Wallace Brier arrived in California in 1850 from Indiana where he was ordained at the Presbytery of Logansport in 1848. He originally settled in Marysville, California and formed a congregation there. About 1852 Reverend Brier and family moved to Centerville where he began teaching local children and started working to establish a church here. It was officially organized in 1853. Church minutes show an organizational meeting was held June 4, 1853 with Rev. and Mrs. Elizabeth A. Brier, Hannah Brefogle, Chancy Cornell, Charles & Mary C. Kelsey, Eliza Beard and James M. Selfridge in attendance. Among organizational matters undertaken at that meeting was the preparation and signature by the above persons of a petition requesting that Rev. Brier organize the congregation as the Alameda Presbytery Church and place it under the care of Presbytery of San Francisco. The next day was a Sunday and the above named persons met again for prayer and to officially organize the church. After prayer, the petition was read, and the names of the persons appearing upon it were subscribed and duly and regularly organized into a Church of Jesus Christ. By unanimous vote, Charles Hilton was chosen to the office of Ruling Elder. At first services were held in the Horner meetinghouse, which also served as a schoolhouse during weekdays. Mormons used this meetinghouse for services Sunday afternoon and Mr. Horner also permitted worshipping Methodists and Presbyterian to use it for their services on alternate Sunday mornings. The first congregational sacrament took place on Sunday, July 17th. It was the baptism of Mary Brier, the seven-month-old daughter of Rev. W.W. and Elizabeth Brier. The Rev. A. F. White performed the ceremony. On November 9. 1853 the church became part of the San Francisco Presbytery with Charles Hilton delegate. J. A. Mathew, Jessie Beard, Henry Clark and Chancy Cornell were elected to the first board of Trustees in Feb. 1855. In a subsequent meeting that May, Jessie Beard was elected President, Rev. Brier, Treasurer and Chancey Cornell, Secretary. During that meeting trustees charged Reverend Brier with taking subscriptions to build a house of worship and to select and purchase a site to build it. At this time Reverend Brier was donating his services. He was not officially engaged and installed as Pastor until June 27, 1856. By the time trustees met again on July 2, 1855 Reverend Brier reported that about $1,500 dollars had been raised and that Mr. George A. Loyd had donated a two and a half acre plot to be used to build the Church. Reverend Brier also reported he had given Mr. Lloyd $1 to legalize the transfer. Trustees voted at that meeting to let a contract to build a small New England style church on the site. It was to be forty-four feet long and twenty-four feet wide. The walls were to be seventeen feet high with gothic gables and were to be made of brick. The contract called for construction to be completed in nine weeks. The church was built to those specifications. Eventual cost amounted to $3,208 without the steeple, which was added in late 1859 at an additional cost of $250. The new church was dedicated in January 1856 and a subscription of $162.50 was taken to procure a bell, lamps, sofa, chairs and a table. Burials at the site surrounding the church began soon afterwards, although the cemetery was not officially laid out until September 1858. Soon afterward a cemetery board was elected, with Charles Hilton appointed the first Superintendent and sale of cemetery plots began. Originally they were sold to pioneer families within the community. Cost was $20 for a full plot, $12.50 half a plot and $7.50 for a quarter plot. Public plots were eventually set-aside with graves in that portion of the cemetery being sold individually. The ruling board of Elders officially registered the cemetery with the State of California in 1859. It was the first church cemetery in Alameda County and the second cemetery within Washington Township. Later original plots were subdivided and in many places, persons were buried three deep. Those were designated as level A B C and so on. Often times after a family was buried, those who inherited the plot would subdivide it and resell remaining graves to a different family. Many bodies were relocated in the cemetery years after original burial on a family farm, and so some of the bodies on the upper layers were placed above people who were much younger. In later years some family graves were moved to other cemeteries to reunite families who had moved away. Sometimes after that occurred, the family sold the plot to others. "There are other graves in the cemetery, which predate the establishment of the church. Reverend Greg Roth, current senior Church Pastor, said it is known that some families who came here in wagon trains eventually returned to places on the trail where family members had died to retrieve their bodies and to rebury them at the church cemetery. A few others, whose markers indicate death before 1853, had been moved there from the Horner cemetery where the wooden markers, were destroyed by firei. The Horner cemetery was the first in the area and is now unofficially known locally as the "lost cemetery".ii Although general location of Horner Cemetery is known, it can no longer be found. Placement of graves and names of those buried there who were not moved after the fire have been lost to record. Placement of graves and names of those buried there who were not moved after the fire have been lost to record. In the years after establishment of the Alameda Presbyterian Church, new members arrived from the east, Indiana, New York, Michigan, Texas and Wisconsin and abroad. Many of them and/or their descendants are also buried in the church cemetery. Included among those are members of the Overacker family, which originated in Ireland. Church records first mention the family on December 28, 1862 when Treasurer's book recorded a monetary donation by Howard Overacker. The family has played a substantial part in maintaining the church for over 100 years. Howard's brother, Michael J. Overacker was elected a church trustee January 20, 1868. On February 26, 1864 Mrs. Jane McKemie Ellsworth Beard was received into membership by a letter from the second Presbyterian Church of Layfette, Indiana. She was the great granddaughter of Reverend Francis McKemie, who was responsible for the organization of the first Presbytery on the Continent in Philadelphia in 1706. He had arrived there from Donegal, Ireland in 1683 and worked tirelessly to increase membership and consolidate the Presbyterian elements, which led to this accomplishment. Members of the Beard family are also buried in the cemetery. Others include Frederick H. Hilton who settled in Centerville in 1867 and who joined the church two years later by presentation of a letter from the Congregational Church of Chebague, Nova Scotia. By 1874 church minutes identify him as a Ruling Elder and church clerk. He remained in those positions until his death in 1907. Other prominent area pioneers, including the Blacow and Mowry families, also have members buried in the church graveyard. Several main roads in Fremont are named after those families. The Mowry's were among the 236 Mormon colonists who arrived on the Good Ship Brooklyn in 1846. John B. Horner was another of these passengers. These colonists were among the earliest permanent settlers of California. Instead of settling in one place together as Mormons did in other states, they broke into small groups and settled throughout the Bay area. John B. Horner & Origin Mowry came here within two years of arrival. Not long after them Barton Mowry and other Brooklyn passengers arrived. Each played a large part in development of the area. When John Horner and his bride arrived here in 1847, they reportedly were the first American residents between Mission San Jose and the Contra Costa line and among the earliest white settlers in the area. Their son William, born the following year, was the first white child born in the township. Origin Mowry arrived in 1848 and located at a place afterwards called Mowry's Landing in what was later known as Irvington. It was used as a shipping point for grain from all parts of the township. Regular trips were made to and from San Francisco from 1850 until 1870 on the Ship Neptune, owned by Origin and Barton Mowry. After completion of the railroad in 1870 the bulk of shipments were made by rail. Barton was buried in the Centerville Church Cemetery as were a few other Brooklyn passengers, including members of the Nichols and Griffin families. Years later Barton's remains were moved to the Irvington Cemetery where he rests surrounded by his son Origin and other family members. The cemetery book notes other removals but it is not always clear whether remains were completely removed from the cemetery or whether they were relocated within it during two church expansions. Most of those in plots 66, 67, & 68 were relocated within the cemetery during those expansions and stones were found for many, but not all of them. Some are probably in now unmarked graves. Some notations of removals are specific about where removal was to, but others are not . In most cases removals were not made for many years after original burial and some notations indicate that only "bones" were "removed". All notations found regarding these in the cemetery records are included in the cemetery listing that follows. Not all the names of all those who sleep within the cemetery boundaries are known at this time. Cemetery records are incomplete and many of the current graves are unmarked. In addition, during the Gold Rush Washington Township was a main stopping point for those heading for the gold fields so many strangers passed through the area. Occasionally someone would be found dead in the hills or surrounding areas and the church or community would bury them in the cemetery. In most cases names of the latter were not known and those are recorded in cemetery records as " strangers" or "unknown" In most cases there is a notation of where the body came from. The earliest recorded burial in the sexton's book the church possesses is that of James Tolin on Feb. 26, 1861-three years after official establishment of the cemetery and almost six years after establishment of the church. Perhaps some day earlier records may be found. Even after 1861 not all burials were recorded in the book, as is evidenced by the fact that not all of those with existing tombstones have entries. Some records may have been lost in damage to the church over the years. The church was significantly damaged in the earthquake of October 1868 and was rebuilt. The bricks were removed and were replaced with wood siding. Later the church burned again and only the steeple was saved. It was again rebuilt and stood at the site surrounded by the cemetery until an arson fire destroyed it again in 1993. Again only the steeple was saved. By then church membership had grown to 700 and the little church was no longer large enough to accommodate the congregation so a new larger church had been previously built in a nearby location. In 1994 the grounds, including the cemetery, was sold to the Greek Orthodox Church, which wanted to establish a congregation in town. After they acquired the property, the name of the cemetery was changed again to the Centerville Pioneer Cemetery. Many of the presently unmarked graves probably originally had wooden markers. When the pioneer cemetery first opened, they were the only kind available. These probably deteriorated over the years or burned in subsequent fires. The Greek Orthodox Church never rebuilt on the site and while it remained vacant the cemetery became overgrown and was significantly vandalized. Some tombstones were broken or knocked over and possibly others stolen. An earlier survey, undertaken by the cemetery committee in the 1950's, indicated which graves had tombstones. All but three of these were located during this latest survey undertaken by me in September and October 2001. Several stones, which no longer have legible inscriptions, could account for the discrepancy. I also found other inscriptions, which were not previously recorded, many of them on the reverse of those, which had been recorded. There may be others on the reverse of tombstones currently lying on the ground. Efforts to restore and maintain the cemetery began about 1997 and currently the grounds are in good condition. The Presbyterian Church bought the property back about a year and a half ago. The property has been fenced and has regularly scheduled cleanups. Attempts to repair broken stones are underway. Reverend Roth hopes eventually to have a marker made for each plot with the names of all those known to be buried there. It is also hoped that someday a replica of the original church will be built on the site. In surveying the cemetery every attempt to accurately record the information was made but mistakes are inevitable due to age and condition of the tombstones, difficulty reading the old handwriting in the cemetery book, and fading ink. The task was made substantially easier by existence of the 1950's survey and one done by the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers in the fall of 1993. Reverend Roth provided copies of both to me and has been very helpful and supportive of this project. In comparing both to what I had recorded, I sometimes found differences and returned to the cemetery to check stones again. I found that depending on the time of day and the way the sun was " lighting " a particular stone, I could see more information or the inscription became clearer. As a result many trips to the cemetery were made at different times of day in an attempt to most accurately record the information. My interpretation of the old handwriting differed in a few instances that that which was recorded previously. When that occurred I went to the old county histories to check spelling or for other information. Some of the information found there was added to the inventory to assist those researching family histories. Information found on stones that was included in other columns was not shown again in the comments sections. Instead this space was used to provide other information found in the record that did not fit those columns. Those included in quotations were taken directly from the record. Occasionally dates found on tombstones differed by a few days from that found in cemetery records and it is assumed that some of these entries were burial rather than death dates but were not noted as such. In this case the death date found on the tombstone is given. A few entries did indicate both death and burial dates. When this occurred burial date is included in comments sections. What results is my best effort to provide an accurate description of those buried in the Centerville Pioneer Cemetery and when possible some additional information about as many as possible. Any mistakes are entirely mine and I offer apologies in advance for those, which may have occurred. 1 History of Washington Township, third Edition 1950-1965, Washington Township Country Club, Stanford University Press, 1965. 1 Ibid. Public Plots located in #25 & #26, East & West Tiers, and some areas between plats. * from "History of Washington Township" 3rd edition 1950-1965 Standford University Press, 1965 ^ = From "History of Alameda County California", M.Wood, Publisher, Oakland, 1883