Sacramento City Cemetery

Cholera came off a steamer in October 1850 and killed something near a thousand people in under three weeks, one in seventeen of everyone living here. Thousands ran and left the sick behind. Of roughly forty doctors practising in the city, seventeen stayed and died of it, the worst mortality ever recorded among physicians treating an epidemic. Most of the dead went into mass graves. Only one of those seventeen has a marked grave in this cemetery. The plaque lists governors and railroad men.

What the plaque says

Sacramento City Cemetery Resting place of California pioneers, this cemetery was established in 1850. Many of the victims of the cholera epidemic of that year are buried here. Included among the graves of illustrious Californians are those of Governors John Bigler, Newton Booth, and William Irwin; General George Wright, hero of the Mexican War; Mark Hopkins, co-builder of the Central Pacific Railroad; General Albert M. Winn, founder of the Native Sons of the Golden West; Hardin Bigelow, first mayor of Sacramento; William S. Hamilton, son of Alexander Hamilton; E. B. Crocker, founder of the Crocker Art Gallery; and Reverend O. C. Wheeler, organizer in 1850 of the first Baptist Church. Registered Historical Landmark No. 566 Plaque placed by California State Park Commission in cooperation with Native Sons and Daughters of the Golden West, May 5, 1957

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sacramento — 1.3 mi
  The Gold Rush river port that became the state capital, and jacked itself ten feet into the air to stop drowning.

More markers nearby

• California's First Passenger Railroad — 0.8 mi
• Stanford-Lathrop Home — 0.9 mi
• California's Capitol Complex — 1.0 mi
• E. B. Crocker Art Gallery — 1.0 mi