December 11, 2003


A step into the past at New Almaden’s Hacienda Cemetery

By Jeanne Lewis
Staff Writer

On a serene hillside road nestled in a charming residential area of old summer cottages and new construction, a white picket fence surrounds the Hacienda Cemetery in New Almaden. Located on the east bank of the Arroyo de Los Alamitos Creek, it provides the final resting place of the New Almaden Quicksilver miners and their families who lived in the hills northeast of the cemetery in Cornish and Spanish Towns from the early 1850s to the 1920s.
Once through the picket gate, the walkways are lined with a carpet of rich green myrtle, mature laurels and oaks, which create a shadowy presence above the fenced grave cribs, some marked with rare Italian marble headstones, others with aged wood markers. Flowers adorn a number of the plots.

Some of the loving tributes to the miners and their families that lived, worked and died in New Almaden include:

Juan Nepomigino Banales, Died 1871.

Final Resting Place of the Maternal Grandparents of Lawrence Bulmore.
Jenny Danielson, December 7, 1886 – July 27, 1888, She was Blue Eyed and Very Beautiful.
Ellen Keenan, April 10, 1864, Age 24 years.

In memory of Eslinda Selaya, December 4, 1866-Died July 12, 1898.

Also in this reverent setting, one headstone produces a surprised smile to visitors;

Richard Bertram ‘Bert’ Barrett, His Arm Lies Here.

Besides being the namesake of the road and a son of a quicksilver miner, he became the Chief of Sanitation for the Santa Clara County Health Department. In 1898 at age 13, he lost his arm in a hunting accident. The law at the time stated that a limb must be given a proper burial. Bert lived a long life after the mishap and the rest of his remains are at Oak Hill Cemetery where he was interred in 1959.

The cemetery remained in use through the 1920s until Ben Black, a musician best known for writing the song, “Moonlight and Roses,” bought all of the property east of Los Alamitos Creek from the Quicksilver Mining Company and planned to subdivide it—even the old cemetery. One night in the spring of 1928, he cut a road through the center of the tract, across the cemetery and over a number of unknown graves. Outraged, the residents of New Almaden filed a lawsuit against Black who then could not sell the lots and stopped paying taxes. The property went to tax sale and was purchased by California Pioneer member Gene Vennum. On June 6, 1974 Vennum quitclaimed the cemetery to the California Pioneers of Santa Clara County.

The California Pioneers remain the custodians of the property and are responsible for the restoration and maintenance of the property. Under their guidance, an accurate survey for the County Recorder’s Office resulted in the Hacienda Cemetery designation on the National Register of Historic Places and a California Registered Point of Historical Interest. The cemetery remains divided by Bertram Road. To this day it is unknown the identities or number of graves covered.

For directions to the cemetery, visit the New Almaden Quicksilver Mining Museum, 21350 Almaden Road, San Jose, or call 408-323-1107. The museum is located inside the Casa Grande building. It is open Fridays 12 to 4 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.