Millionaires, Mausoleums, and Milestones: A Historic Walk to Mark 7 Years Together

Last Wednesday was the 7th anniversary of our Piedmont Recreation Department’s Walking on Wednesdays group walking together. There was a record turnout of 70 walkers and six K-9 best friends at the Mountain View Cemetery to celebrate and have a special walk.

We met in front of the cemetery’s main mausoleum for a tour that was to be conducted by author, newspaper man, and historian Dennis Evanosky. He has literally written the book on the cemetery, actually two books on it, as well as books about Alameda and Oakland’s Laurel District. His knowledge of the Mountain View Cemetery is encyclopedic.

First, Dennis pointed out his “three girlfriends” right above them in mausoleum’s façade. They are statues of ancient Greek women that represent life, and how well and long it is lived. Dennis noted the last one is holding a scissors. This “main mausoleum” was built in 1928 in a neo-classical design. Five buildings were added to this central section of the cemetery through 1933, but the cemetery’s history goes much further back.

In the early 1860s a group of twelve, leading, local businessman led by Samuel Merritt, a San Francisco physician and the 13th mayor of Oakland from 1867 to 1869, decided the area needed a private cemetery. Two public cemeteries existed, but they were not well maintained, and the group wanted something better for their final resting places. They bought 200 acres of fields “well out of town,” far from the center of Oakland, at a cost of $13,000, and the Mountain View Cemetery was established in 1863. Twenty-six acres were added later, so the cemetery has a total of 226 acres.

Dennis told the story of renowned landscape architect Fredrick Law Olmsted, who designed the cemetery in 1863. Olmsted planned New York's Central Park, as well as much of the UC Berkeley and Stanford University campuses. Olmsted was managing gold mines in Bear Valley, California, when he was asked to design the cemetery. Actually, two Fredrick Olmsteds designed the cemetery. Olmsted created the original portion and his son, “Rick,” designed a second portion further up the hill in the 1940s.

This was to be a cemetery of plots and lots, and not a park. There are three types of cemeteries within Mountain View. There’s the grand, old mausoleums of early times, the monuments and headstones for more common folk, and the later in-ground plaques that make cutting the grass easier, which happens every Tuesday and Wednesday.

The number of people buried in the cemetery is unknown. In the early days, poor people were buried, sometimes in “unendowed areas" and a Strangers' Plot, and not recorded. The cemetery is non-denominational, so they are not referred to as “potter’s fields.” People of every race are buried at Mountain View. Plots initially ranged in price from $2 to $10, and for Jane Waer, who in 1865 was Mountain View’s first burial, it was $8 for three spots. It is estimated there are about 180,000 graves in the cemetery with room for about that many more.

Dennis led us up the main road and hill with our ultimate destination “Millionaires' Row,” which was not part of Olmsted’s plan. Dennis pointed out a dawn redwood that was brought here from China in the early 1900s. It is deciduous and people sometimes think it is dying during the winter. We stopped at the large mausoleum of Edson Adams, for whom Adams Point near Lake Merritt is named. Then it was up the hill to the humble grave of Julia Morgan, the architect of the Hearst Castle, the Chapel of the Chimes up the street, the Berkeley City Club, and many Piedmont homes. She lived from 1872 to 1957, never married, and was buried with nine others in a family plot. Her name is just one of the ten on the marker. She wanted to be “quietly tucked away with my own.” Dennis also said the young Julia’s family was on their way to Hawaii when they stopped in Oakland, found they liked it, and decided to stay.

Further up the hill was the cemetery’s main attraction, “Millionaires’ Row.” It is a section of the grandest, elaborate crypts that house some of the cemetery’s most famous and wealthy residents. These were very successful businessmen, just about all of whom came to California around 1850. They did not use picks and shovels during California’s gold rush to make their fortunes but rather sold the miners the things they needed. Dennis guided us down the row and told the histories of Charles (“Charlie”) Crocker, Domingo Ghirardelli, and others. We stopped in front of Francis Marion “Borax” Smith’s mausoleum which also houses his wife, Mary, and her friend Jane Sather, who had Sather Gate built in her husband’s memory as the entrance to the UC Berkeley campus. Smith’s steps provided tiers for a photo of our large group.

We made our way back down the hill to our cars where we expressed our thanks to Dennis Evanosky for a most enjoyable, information-packed tour of a beautiful place on a special day with a wonderful storyteller.