Wikipedia

Oak Hill Memorial Park

Oak Hill Memorial Park is a cemetery in San Jose, California, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest secular cemetery in California.[1] Oak Hill is the northernmost hill in the San Juan Bautista Hills of South San Jose.[2]

Oak Hill Memorial Park
The Great Mausoleum on top of Oak Hill
Map
Details
Established1847
Location
San Jose, California
CountryUnited States
Coordinates37°17′56″N 121°51′37″W / 37.29889°N 121.86028°W / 37.29889; -121.86028
Owned byDignity Memorial
Size300 acres
No. of interments>40,000
WebsiteOfficial website
Find a GraveOak Hill Memorial Park

History

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Rotunda of the Great Mausoleum.
 
Fountain of the Apostles.

The cemetery's origins date back to 1839, during the Mexican period of California, when city officials of the Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe began to bury the dead on the northern side of the San Juan Bautista Hills, in modern-day South San Jose.[3][4][5] It was known simply as the Pueblo Graveyard.[5]

In 1847, following the American Conquest of California, surveyor Chester Lyman, along with William Fisher of Rancho Laguna Seca, laid out an official city cemetery on a nearby tract, which was simply known as the Pueblo Cemetery, until 1858, when it was renamed to Oak Hill Cemetery (Oak Hill being the northernmost hill of the San Juan Bautista Hills where the cemetery is laid out).[3][5]

When the city sold the cemetery to A.J. Hocking in 1933, its name was changed for the final time to Oak Hill Memorial Park.[3][5] The Hocking family's tenure of ownership of the cemetery was marked by the construction of new mausoleums, notably the Azalea and Parkview Terraces, as well as the construction of the Fountain of the Apostles and the Chapel of the Oaks.[3] In 1986, Oak Hill was finally sold to Dignity Memorial.

Landmarks

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The Community Mausoleum.
 
Chapel of Roses.

The Great Mausoleum is the most notable landmark at Oak Hill. It built in a historic Romanesque Spanish Revival architecture.

The Sunrise Hill Cross is located atop of Sunrise Hill, the small summit just next to Oak Hill.

The Fountain of the Apostles features twelve marble statues of the Apostles of Christ surrounding the inner font.

The cemetery has an Overland Pioneers Memorial to early American settlers of the Santa Clara Valley.

There is a plot dedicated to members of the Grand Army of the Republic.[6]

Notable interments

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The Japanese Columbarium.
 
Fountain of the Apostles.
 
Gardens of the Great Mausoleum.
 
Private mausoleums with the Sunrise Hill Cross in the background.

Numerous notable persons are interred at Oak Hill:

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ Santa Clara County Parks – Oak Hill Memorial Park
  2. ^ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Oak Hill Memorial Park
  3. ^ a b c d Cemetery Travel – Cemetery of the Week: Oak Hill Memorial Park
  4. ^ San Jose Mercury News – San Jose's Most Eclectic Street Gets Its Day in the Spotlight
  5. ^ a b c d Dignity Memorial – Oak Hill Memorial Park
  6. ^ "Events". United Veterans Council of Santa Clara County. Retrieved 2011-06-01.
  7. ^ Binheim, Max; Elvin, Charles A (1928). Women of the West; a series of biographical sketches of living eminent women in the eleven western states of the United States of America. p. 38. Retrieved 8 August 2017.  This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  8. ^ Lake County Publishing Co. (1893). Portrait and biographical record of Macon County, Illinois, pp. 195–198
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