Mountain View Cemetery (Oakland, California)

The Mountain View Cemetery is a large 226-acre (91 ha) cemetery in Oakland, Alameda County, California. It was established in 1863 by a group of East Bay pioneers under the California Rural Cemetery Act of 1859. The association they formed still operates the cemetery today. Mountain View was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape architect who also designed New York City's Central Park and much of UC Berkeley and Stanford University.

Many of California's important historical figures, drawn by Olmsted's reputation, are buried here and there are many grandiose crypts in tribute to the wealthy who are buried there, so many that one section is known as "Millionaires' Row." Because of this, and its beautiful setting, the cemetery is a tourist draw and docents lead semi-monthly tours.

Design

Panoramic view from the rear of the cemetery, looking out across the San Francisco Bay

Olmsted's intent was to create a space that would express a harmony between humankind and the natural setting. In the view of 19th century English and American romantics, park-like cemeteries, such as Mountain View, represented the peace of nature, to which humanity's soul returns. Olmsted, drawing upon the concepts of American Transcendentalism, integrated Parisian grand monuments and broad avenues.

Adjoining Mountain View Cemetery is Saint Mary Cemetery and the Chapel of the Chimes mausoleum and columbarium.

Notable burials

View of the cemetery from Charles Crocker's Tomb

There are many notable people interred in Mountain View, many are local figures in California History, but others have achieved wider fame.^[1]

Politicians and government officials

• Washington Bartlett, Mayor of San Francisco 1882–1884, Governor of California 1887
• Coles Bashford, Governor of Wisconsin and Arizona Territory politician
• Warren B. English, US Congressman
• John B. Felton, Mayor of Oakland (1869–1870)
• William M. Gwin, one of California's first Senators
• Henry H. Haight (1825–1878), Governor of California 1867–1871
• William Knowland, U.S. Senator, Publisher - Oakland Tribune
• Adolphus Frederic St. Sure, Federal Judge
• Samuel Merritt, early Mayor of Oakland
• Romualdo Pacheco, Governor of California 1875
• George Pardee, Governor of California 1903–1907
• George C. Perkins, Governor of California 1880–1883; U.S. Senator, 1893–1915.

Industrialists and business people

The statue above Domingo Ghirardelli's mausoleum.

• Warren A. Bechtel, industrialist, founder of the Bechtel company
• Anthony Chabot, father of hydraulic mining and benefactor of Chabot Space & Science Center
• Charles Crocker, railroad magnate, banker
• William E. Dargie, Owner - Oakland Tribune
• Frederick Delger, German shoemaker and multimillionaire
• Freda Ehrmann, mother of the California ripe olive industry
• J. A. Folger, founder of Folgers Coffee
• Peter Folger, American coffee heir, socialite
• Domingo Ghirardelli, namesake of the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company
• A.K.P. Harmon, lumber and shipping magnate Secretary Oakland Tribune Publishing Company
• Henry J. Kaiser, father of modern American shipbuilding
• C.O.G. Miller, head of Pacific Gas Lighting Corporation
• Isaac Requa, made fortune in the Comstock Lode and railroads
• Joe Shoong, Chinese immigrant and founder of the National Dollar Stores chain
• Francis Marion Smith, the "Borax King"

Military

• Brigadier General Henry Brevard Davidson of the Confederate States Army
• John Coffee Hays, Texas Ranger and first sheriff of San Francisco
• Eli L. Huggins, Indian Wars soldier and Medal of Honor recipient
• Henry T. Johns, American Civil War soldier and Medal of Honor recipient
• Ralph Wilson Kirkham, Union Army general
• Oscar Fitzalan Long, Indian Wars soldier and Medal of Honor recipient
• Rossell O'Brien, American Civil War veteran who started the custom of standing and removing one's hat during the national anthem
• Jeremiah C. Sullivan, Union Army general and staff member of Ulysses S. Grant
• Adam Weissel, United States Navy sailor and Medal of Honor recipient

Thomas Hill's grave marker

The Miller Crypt pyramid.

Arts and Culture

• Leandro Campanari, Italian-American violinist, conductor, composer and music teacher.
• Herbert A. Collins, landscape and portrait artist
• Ina Coolbrith, California's first poet laureate
• Andre Hicks (aka Mac Dre), Northern California Rapper
• Thomas Hill, artist
• William Keith, California landscape artist
• Bernard Maybeck, architect
• Julia Morgan, architect
• Frank Norris, author
• Douglas Tilden, sculptor
• Malonga Casquelord, Congolese dancer, drummer, choreographer and founder of Fua Dia Congo. The former Alice Arts Center in Oakland bears his name as the Malonga Casquelord Center for the Arts. http://mccatheater.com/

Local History

• Edson Adams, laid out the city of Oakland
• Rev. Benjamin Akerly, pioneer Episcopalian cleric of the Bay Area, performed the dedication of Mountain View Cemetery and officiated hundreds of its burials
• Moses Chase, believed to be the first American to settle in the East Bay area
• David D. Colton, namesake of the city of Colton, California
• Alexander Dunsmuir, builder of the Dunsmuir House
• Rev. Henry Durant, first president of the University of California, Berkeley
• Joseph Stickney Emery, founder of Emeryville, California
• Anna Head, founder of the Head-Royce School
• Jane K. Sather, donor of Sather Gate and Sather Tower to the University of California, Berkeley
• Francis K. Shattuck, prominent in the politics and early development of Alameda County, Oakland and Berkeley.
• John Swett, Founder of the California Public School System.
• Charles Lee Tilden, namesake of Tilden Regional Park

Other notables

David Hewes burial vault

• Volney V. Ashford, exiled revolutionary
• Cloe Annette Buckel, one of the first female doctors in California
• Henry D. Cogswell, dentist and temperance movement crusader
• Marcus Foster, first Black Superintendent of the Oakland Unified School District in Oakland, California, first victim of the Symbionese Liberation Army
• David Hewes, who provided the "Golden Spike"
• Bobby Hutton, first treasurer of the Black Panther Party
• Fred Korematsu, challenged Executive Order 9066 in the landmark Supreme Court case Korematsu v. United States
• Joseph LeConte, co-founder of the Sierra Club
• John Marsh, first American doctor in California, also helped spur transcontinental wagon travel
• John Norton Pomeroy, law professor at Hastings College of the Law
• William T. Shorey, the only African-American whaling captain on the Pacific coast
• Elizabeth Short, unsolved Hollywood murder victim known as the Black Dahlia
• Josiah Stanford, older brother of Leland Stanford and ran Stanford Winery
• Mac Dre, famous California rap artist^[2]
• There is one British Commonwealth war grave, of Pilot Officer James Raymond Lippi, an American born member of the Royal Canadian Air Force, who died in 1942.^[3] Lippi was born in Santa Cruz, California and went to Canada to enlist for World War II.

References

1. ↑ Famous People at Mountain View Cemetery - Comprehensive List
2. ↑ Mac Dre
3. ↑ CWGC Casualty Record.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mountain View Cemetery (Oakland, California).

• Mountain View Cemetery web site
• Cohn, Abby, "They're 6 Feet Under, But Pioneers Draw Crowds to Oakland", San Francisco Chronicle, January 5, 2001
• Chapel of the Chimes
• Biographies of people buried at Mountain View Cemetery by Michael Colbruno
• U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Mountain View Cemetery