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Cemetery in San Jose, California, United States From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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 | |
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![]() The Great Mausoleum on top of Oak Hill | |
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Details | |
Established | 1847 |
Location | |
Country | United States |
Coordinates | 37°17′56″N 121°51′37″W |
Owned by | Dignity Memorial |
Size | 300 acres |
No. of interments | >40,000 |
Website | Official website |
Find a Grave | Oak Hill Memorial Park |
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.
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]
Numerous notable persons are interred at Oak Hill:
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