Union Cemetery is a historic

cemetery A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite, graveyard, or a green space called a memorial park or memorial garden, is a place where the remains of many death, dead people are burial, buried or otherwise entombed. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek ...

on Woodside Road ( CA 84) near El Camino Real in

Redwood City Redwood City is a city on the San Francisco Peninsula in the Bay Area of Northern California, approximately south of San Francisco and northwest of San Jose. The city's population was 84,292 according to the 2020 census. The Port of Redwo ...

San Mateo County, California San Mateo County ( ), officially the County of San Mateo, is a county (United States), county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 764,442. Redwood City, California, Redwood City is th ...

. The cemetery was named a

California Historical Landmark A California Historical Landmark (CHL) is a building, structure, site, or place in the U.S. state of California that has been determined to have statewide historical landmark significance. Criteria Historical significance is determined by meetin ...

#816 in 1967, then added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1983.

History

Founded in 1859, this is the site of the first American burial ground in San Mateo County, and was originally located just outside the town limits of Redwood City. The cemetery officially closed in 1918, but it was used for many years after that for burial of the poor. There are special cemetery plots for the

Masonic Order Freemasonry (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to the medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organizati ...

, members of the

International Order of Odd Fellows The Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) is a non-political, non-sectarian international fraternal order of Odd Fellowship. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Wildey in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Evolving from the Odd Fellows, Order ...

and the California volunteers who fought during the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

Soldier statue

The life-sized metal sculpture of a civil war veteran was erected during 1889 for a Memorial Day celebration, the earliest such celebration on the Peninsula. The statue was paid for by Jane Lathrop Stanford. It was vandalized in 1958, 1959 and 1969, but was subsequently repaired, and in 1999 it was replaced with a replica constructed of more durable material.

Notable graves

* Lester Phillip Cooley (1837–1882) was an early pioneer of

East Palo Alto East Palo Alto ( ; abbreviated E.P.A.) is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of East Palo Alto was 30,034. It is situated on the San Francisco Peninsula, roughly halfway between the cit ...

and Cooley Landing. * John Howell Sears (1823–1907) was an early pioneer of Searsville and La Honda. * Sarah Wallis (1825–1905) was an early

Anglophone The English-speaking world comprises the 88 countries and territories in which English is an official, administrative, or cultural language. In the early 2000s, between one and two billion people spoke English, making it the largest language ...

settler in California and first President of the California Woman Suffrage Educational Association.

Gallery

References

External links