Historical finding of grave importance

The belief that a graveyard sits adjacent to the Mission San Francisco Solano de Sonoma has been around since the days of Gen. Vallejo himself.

But one local historian has some advice about what to do with that idea: Bury it.

Peter Meyerhof, historian at the Sonoma League for Historic Preservation, on Saturday suggested that the location of the Mission graveyard could in fact be about 500 yards away from the church, east of Second Street East, on what is now private property.

In the 1990s, says Meyerhof, the city erected a plaque with the names of the American Indians baptized at the church, who Mission leaders refered to as “neophytes.”

“Unfortunately, there was no idea where these neophytes were actually buried,” says Meyerhof. “The church’s supposed graveyard, situated next to the church, has no archaeological evidence of burial. So the question remains: where are the bodies?”

Meyerhof presented his gravesite theory to members of the Sonoma Valley Historical Society during the group’s June 13 meeting at the Sonoma Community Center.

Meyerhof says the longheld idea of a church-side graveyard is based on two pieces of rather flimsy historical evidence. The first is merely that that type of church/graveyard layout is what was common at other California missions of the day - Mission Santa Cruz, Mission San Miguel and Mission San Gabriel, for instance. The other supporting “evidence” is a series of paintings and sketches of Mission San Francisco Solano de Sonoma by 19th century artists Edward Vischer and Oriana Day – renderings that aren’t known for their historical accuracy.

Meyerhof says the questionable accuracy of the paintings raise “issues” about whether the graveyard is indeed next to the church.

“Records show that Gen. Mariano Vallejo personally communicated with Vischer, who painted the first landscape of the Mission in 1874. This painting included a graveyard directly next to the church, but with reference to the actual building we find Vischer romanticized many features of the building,” Meyerhof says. “Some of the windows are the wrong shape, the doorways are missing and the church’s outside wall was extended. They are minor changes, but it is important to note this painting is not historically accurate with the building it was modeled after.”

Meyerhof says the Day painting, made in 1879, is even more suspect because it is completely identical to other mission paintings she did around the state.

But Meyerhof says he had no suspicions that the graveyard was in a different location until recently, when he came across a map dated 1848, drafted by William Boggs, a permits draftsman for the town and longtime secretary to Gen. Vallejo.

“This map was drafted with landmarks, and while it is not entirely to scale it is a good representation of the buildings around Sonoma at the time,” Meyerhof says. “On it, there were three graveyards: one was an old Catholic graveyard where Mexican soldiers were laid to rest. The second is the graveyard we now know is the Sonoma Mountain Cemetery. But there is a third graveyard, known as ‘Del Padre,’ located just northwest of Boggs’ house, that doesn’t show up in any other records. And that’s where we began our search.”

Meyerhof believes this is the location, about 500 yards away from the Mission, where the neophytes are buried.

“There is a lot of historical precedence to support this location,” Meyerhof says.

In ruling out that the graveyard was directly behind the church, Meyerhof points to a letter dated 1848 from a woman named Margritte Ruiz-Nevada requesting permission to build a cabin “directly behind the church, where the graveyard was purported to be.”

“There was no mention of a graveyard in the letters from her to the mission, and she built her cabin there,” says Meyerhof.

And what about Meyerhof’s prefered location? He believes the burial grounds are situated on private property East of 2nd Street East and southwest of Brazil Street – on a hill, which he says would be historically in tune with many other missions. “Mission San Diego, Mission San Antonia De Prada and Mission La Purisima all have graveyards dedicated to neophyte Native Americans between 200 and 300 yards away,” says Meyerhof, “and all the missions we mentioned today have graveyards on hills.”

Walking from the Mission San Francisco Solano De Sonoma to this proposed area would take about five minutes on foot, he adds.

If the League for Historic preservation gets approval from the private landowners, the next step, Meyerhof says, would be to initiate a ground-penetrating radar survey to detect object densities in the ground. If bodies are found, Meyerhof says the site could be of sacred significance to the local American Indian tribes, but recognition of the land and its future would be up to the city and the private owners.

“There could be close to 1,000 buried people on that site,” Meyerhof says. “Maybe even more. In 1838 the worst smallpox epidemic in California history killed a large population of the town. They could be buried there as well.”