Boulder Creek IOOF Cemetery

by Lisa Robinson

In the Boulder Creek IOOF Cemetery there stands a headstone dated 1862. Although it appears to be the oldest headstone in the cemetery it is in fact not.

In 1899, when Joseph Peery traveled back to Nevada to his wife Martha’s grave, he wrote: “I had come all this distance for the purpose of removing the remains to my home cemetery.”

Martha had died of consumption in 1862 as they were traveling to California. Joseph had promised that one day he would return for her. Thirty-seven years later he did return to find the cottonwood headboard that he had carved with a jack knife marking her grave. On opening the cottonwood box that contained her remains he found her bones in “perfect preservation. Also a tuft of hair …”

Joseph brought her back to Boulder Creek and reinterred her on July 25, 1899. He wrote: “On that day in a lot in our cemetery prepared years ago we deposited the remains for which I had so long awaited an opportunity of doing.”

The land on which the Boulder Creek Cemetery was founded spans two 160 acre homesteads at the east end of Harmon Street. The north half is on land granted to John Alcorn. Ownership of this land passed to the Crediford family, then in 1874, to John S. Carter who was at the time the vice-president of the Flume and Transportation Company. Carter later sold the land to the railroad. It was this land on which the town of Boulder Creek would be laid out by the railroad company in 1885. The south half is on land granted to Joseph Wilburn Peery, who established the town of Lorenzo around 1875. 

In 1903, Peery placed an advertisement in the Mountain Echo newspaper stating that Louis F. Frenette was the only authorized sexton of the Boulder Creek Cemetery.

In 1909, the Mountain Echo reported:

Our local cemetery has been offered as a free gift to Boulder Creek lodge of Odd Fellows. Other necessary lands adjoining have also been offered as a gift by J. W. Peery and Isaiah Hartman, if the Odd Fellows will accept same and maintain the place as an up-to-date cemetery…. This is good news for our town, as our cemetery has always been neglected for want of an authoritive [sic] head to same.

In early 1910, with the cemetery survey complete, the ownership of the land was transferred to the trustees of the Boulder Creek Lodge No. 152 IOOF. Malcolm McLeod, who owned adjacent land, also granted the right of way to the cemetery to the Boulder Creek Lodge. Joseph Peery’s son William filed the survey with the County Recorder. There were 64 [new] lots identified.

In April 1910, the Odd Fellows organized a clean up day. The Mountain Echo reported:

The good people of Boulder Creek turned out well and much good work was accomplished. Nearly eighty persons were served lunch by the ladies in charge. Many school children were present and deserve credit for the work they accomplished.

Some of the earliest burials at the cemetery include:

1882: Albert Allen. A man with a problem. He was shot to death in self defense by Winfield Scott Taylor, superintendant of the Flume Company. The story of “the first man to meet a violent death within the site of the town of Boulder Creek” was told by Winfield Scott Rodgers, editor of the Mountain Echo newspaper in 1939 in the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Allen was buried not in the cemetery but “just outside the fence that defines the easterly boundary” in an unmarked grave.

1885: Orrin (Orren) Gibbs. Orrin, a native of Maine, died at age 73 of heart disease. He had made three trips from the east to the west coast and had settled in Santa Cruz County just two years prior.

1886: Daniel D. Tompkins. When Daniel died, at just 53 years old, he left behind a wife and ten children. In 1889, his widow, Alvira, also buried in the cemetery, would become Joseph Peery’s third wife.

1887: Louis Le Sor. Louis was a native of Canada. He died at the home of Louis Frenette who would later become the cemetery sexton.

1887: Constance Luella Austin. Connie died at age two years and nine months after an illness of just a week of suspected cholera infantum.

1887: Mildred Peery. Second wife of Joseph Peery. She died in Oakland where she had gone for medical assistance. 

1887: Mary Peery. Mary was the adopted daughter of Joseph and Mildred. Mary, a native Californian of Californian native parents, was 14 years old. She died just one month after her mother Mildred.

Lisa Robinson is the Collections and Exhibitions Curator at the San Lorenzo Valley Museum.