Centerville Pioneer Cemetery

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The Centerville Pioneer Cemetery (originally known as the Centerville Presbyterian Cemetery) is located at the corner of Post Street and Bonde Avenue in the City of Fremont and was officially designated a state cemetery in 1858 or 1859 depending upon the source.^[1] 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. All of the villages eventually became towns of the same names and the church and cemetery were renamed to reflect their location in Centerville.^[2]

Mission San Jose, Irvington, Warm Springs, Centerville and Niles later formed the current City of Fremont where the cemetery now resides.

The first burials occurred sometime after 1855 when the Alameda Presbyterian Church, first organized in 1853, acquired the property in the summer of 1855 under the direction of the Rev. William Wallace Brier and nine other founding members.^[3]

Several of Fremont’s notable founding pioneers are buried in the cemetery, many of whom have streets named after them. Among these are, Herman Eggers, Robert Blacow and Captain Caleb Cook Scott, a native of Nova Scotia, who sailed his way around the Horn of Magellan in South America in order to eventually settle in what later became Centerville.