San Diego's Pioneer Park - Hidden Cemetery
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- Опубликовано: 1 окт 2024
- Pioneer Park in San Diego, otherwise known as Mission Hills Park, may seem like any other city park at first glance, but it has a secret. The park used to be Calvary Cemetery, the 2nd designated cemetery in San Diego. Now days the park is filled with kids playing, joggers, people walking their dogs, and sunbathers, but underneath them are thousands of bodies. In this video we explore the park and talk about its history and the history of the former cemetery.
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I've got some ancestors buried in this park, and at this point I think the City of San Diego should/could at least provide a kiosk in the park whereby relatives (using GPS systems on their cellphones with an accuracy enhancement app) could at least get "near" the gravesite of a loved one. Considering that there are hand-drawn plot maps, with the names of the deceased, of the gravesites and there are X, Y coordinates from the old adobe walls, this seems doable if there is any sincere will to do so.
It probably wouldn't even be that hard to implement.
I agree
Thank you for putting together this short video together.
I am from Ventura. We also have a 3,000 desecrated grave pioneer cemetery, begun in 1862 by Bishop Amat, who built the first cathedral in Califlornia. Our desecrated cemetery is also full of American history, now lost.
The anti Christian, Masonic City Council did this, beginning in 1954.
The City of San Diego asked City of Ventura for help in desecrating their Catholic cemetery. This cemetery was desecrated under the supervision of the City of Ventura.
A documentary about the desecrated St. Mary Cemetery in Ventura won the 2019 Santa Barbara Int'l Film Festival.
We are related through desecrated graves of our ancestors. If we all join together, we can restore our ancestral burial grounds. These politicians work for us. They have destroyed our heritage. Please contact me if you are interested. 805-644-4449
m.ruclips.net/video/6zmzuB9WdXg/видео.html
That's a great idea being used in placard at the beginning of the park with QR codes.
I live near here, it’s a bit creepy. It’s a shame though that snotty neighbors wanted all of the gravestones removed, feels very disrespectful to the people buried there. Some of the gravestones are beautiful.
I just did a tour of Pioneer Park yesterday, a beautiful area up on Mission Hills. Unfortunately it was the night tour, the architecture in this area is unbelievable
In typical government fashion, they will spend the money to remove headstones (not their property), pay to convert it to a park, purchase playground equipment, pay for maintenance and upkeep, lay concrete pathways, and assume the personal liability associated with it, but can't mow the lawn once a week for a few months out of the year to show a little respect for our departed fellow human beings? Real smart!
My great great grandfather and great uncle, both named Peter Schaniel, are buried here. I remember going as a child to place flowers on their graves. There was no grass and no one was taking care of the grounds. There was a lot of vandalism. The decision was made to close the cemetery and make it a park. We were given the opportunity to move their bodies to another spot, but the decision was made to leave them, that neither man minded children's laughter, and loved family gatherings in a local park, most often Pepper Grove in Balboa Park. We still put flowers near the plaque on remembrance days.
Thanks for sharing your story.
This sad.
Declared abandoned because no more burials were permitted. Pathetic of San Diego.
Honestly, as someone who has a great great grandfather and great uncle buried there, I am a lot happier with the well kept lawn and the use of the land as a park than I was with the bare dirt, weeds and rocks with vandalized grave stones that was there by the 1960's. Do you know where your great great grandfather is buried? Do you or your family members still bring flowers to those graves regularly and trim the grass and weeds? Mine was born in 1825 and died in 1903 in downtown San Diego after being hit by a street car. Neither I nor my parents knew him. I go to the park with my children and grandchildren and tell the stories passed down about him and his son, who is also buried there. We can still remember the person, even though the exact gravesite is not known. And he would not have minded children dancing and laughing on the earth his bones lie underneath. He was a family man, after all, and had 7 children himself. The park is a much better remembrance than a decrepit cemetery that had too many graves that no one took care of.
pretty disrespectful to throw someones tombstone into the ditch and build a park over them, disgusting.
Calvary was actually the 3rd appointed cemetery in San Diego. Preceded by El Campo Santo used from 1849 to 1880, and Presidio Hills Cemetery being used in the 1700s up until 1849. The Archdioceses purchased 2 parcels of land 5 acres for the Catholics, and 5 for the Protestants. The Protestants never moved in - so to speak - and that land was acquired by Kate Sessions and she helped establish the school next door. She also planted all of the trees in the cemetery (and of course Balboa Park)
Plots were still sold there up until 1919 but the last burial was 1960. Due to the lack of funding there wasn't enough money to hire someone to maintain the cemetery and it fell into disrepair and succumbed to mistreatment and vandalism. The Catholic Church saw it as an embarrassment and actively sought to start a junction to change the law which allowed abandoned cemeteries (not having buried anyone for 10 years) could be turned into Pioneer Parks. So in 1970 they were finally allowed to detach their ownership of the land and say they no longer claimed responsibility for any of it leaving the mess for the city to figure out. They hired a contractor who was supposed to remove the headstones and take them to Mt. Hope. But instead of doing that he left them in piles all over the city. Down in canyons, chucked them into people's back yards, even buried some in the playground of the school next door. It really came to light in the early 80s when the Trolley Line went up and workers came across a gigantic pile of them near Little Italy.
For many, many years they kept turning up. Eventually, all that were going to be found, were. Most of them were so badly damaged there was no telling who they once belonged to. They chose the best preserved and most famous to actually build the memorial in the park that they were meant to have in the first place. 150 in Pioneer Park, and a mere 18 that sit as a marker in Mt. Hope Cemetery atop a mass grave for the remaining headstones that they buried at the bottom of a ravine that again. . . sits by the Trolley Tracks.
Thank you for putting together this short video together.
I am from Ventura. We also have a 3,000 desecrated grave pioneer cemetery, begun in 1862 by Bishop Amat, who built the first cathedral in Califlornia. Our desecrated cemetery is also full of American history, now lost.
The anti Christian, Masonic City Council did this, beginning in 1954.
The City of San Diego asked City of Ventura for help in desecrating their Catholic cemetery. This cemetery was desecrated under the supervision of the City of Ventura.
A documentary about the desecrated St. Mary Cemetery in Ventura won the 2019 Santa Barbara Int'l Film Festival.
We are related through desecrated graves of our ancestors. If we all join together, we can restore our ancestral burial grounds. These politicians work for us. They have destroyed our heritage. Please contact me if you are interested. 805-644-4449
m.ruclips.net/video/6zmzuB9WdXg/видео.html
I used to see those all the time when I rode the Orange Line to my work Downtown. I always wondered about them. So sad and disrespectful. Thank you for providing more information about this. I've visited this park a few times as well. The Mission Hills Nursery is nearby, which is also connected to Kate Sessions.
I lived a block away from here for 6 years in a studio apartment for 650 a month!!! Oh how i miss it ❤
Some of my ancestors are buried with David Crockett's family, they are our cousins. The woman they say he married, her last name is spelled wrong in the history books. She isn't a Patton or Peterson. I would be sick if the state ever did that to my relatives graves. I don't think I would mind picnics and children as long as they were respectful.
Local residents didn't want tombstones to blemish their park, but they had no problem with all the dead bodies buried below?
Out of site out of mind I guess.
Wonder how many rose from the dead and voted for Biden in 2020?
Disgraceful. They should have planted tiny plot markers with a number flush to the ground (or buried RFID) above each body and THEN built a park and provided a memorial map.
I don't think there were plot markers by the time the 1960's rolled around, and there weren't RFID markers in 1970 when the conversion from cemetery to park occurred. Finding my great uncle's and great great grandfather's graves in the 1950's and 60's meant walking up and down aisle after aisle of gravestones, a lot of which had been vandalized to the point of illegibility. We used the eucalyptus trees as markers. The records are incomplete. Only my great great grandfather is memorialized on the plaque. His son, my great uncle, had the same name (but different dates of birth and death) and is not found on any of the records. I just know he has to be there because I remember putting flowers on his grave. Whoever was in charge of recording names of people buried there on the memorial plaque that remains decided there was no difference between Peter C Schaniel born in 1825 and Peter F Schaniel born in 1855. Putting up RFID markers now would be problematic with such incomplete records.
A complete desecration. I am befuddled as to why they thought this was okay.
That's disgusting what's the San Diego has done to such a historical graveyard! I'm sure the souls that people now walk on aren't very happy about it either! I would never bring my kid to such a disgusting place, San Diego should be ashamed!!
2:42 the long white ones that look like posts are military service members I believe. This is pretty shocking. But if they couldn't protect the place. Parts of NYC is built on top of cemeteries. Tombstones are not cheap. I'm just in shock.
Desecration of graves. What about the people that paid money for these stones? So a city can come in declare it no longer of use and toss them in the garbage? If I were buried there I would haunt the hell out of that place. Also, think about genealogy etc. How much information was tossed and lost when they removed the stones.
Love this park, used to come here all the time on lunch break in high school 😻
So interesting, didn't know anything about it.
There's a park like this in Whittier too, and one in Denver.
Fortunate some of the grave stones were saved and displayed. RIP to all buried within.
This reminds me of a park in my hometown of Kingston, Ontario. The park is named McBurney Park but is locally known as Skeleton Park. It was a cemetery from around 1818 to about 1880 when the city decided to turn the site into a park. The headstones were knocked over and buried. The nickname comes from the 50s when according to folklore local boys would dig up a grave to get a skull to place on their bikes. I have a picture of a headstone of a woman that is very near the pitcher's mound in the park. It is not uncommon for a body to be discovered buried under the street during maintenance work. Some people have even found bodies buried in their backyards.
Wow. Like others who have commented, I too grew up in San Diego (Serra Mesa, '63 - '92) and never knew this story. I always thought El Campo Santo and Whaley House were creepy enough for one city. And I'm not surprised that the local (living) residents were put off by the presence of tombstones in their brand new park: after all, Mission Hills was one of those neighborhoods where "Dogs and sailors keep off the grass" signs were purported to be seen in the '30s. Least that was my dad's recollection of his tour back then at NTC. Thank you for posting this hauntingly eerie story, Sidetrack!
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This is appalling, shame on you San Diego!
Better watch out.....Those Liberals just might turn it into a homeless park next!! Lol
I appreciate your videos.I grew up in San Diego, but never visited this park.
Thank you for watching. If you ever get the chance you should check it out. The area around it is great too, lots of historic homes.
@@SidetrackAdventures Now I live in Tucson, but will definitely will check it out on my next visit.
That's a totally creepy way to acquire land for a "park."
Thanks Scott for this interesting story. I was actually in San Diego last weekend and took a "ghost and gravestone tour" of this place. I was astonished to learn the place had been magically turned into a park! I can't believe this could legally happen in this country. You often hear of construction sites and road projects being halted, rerouted or possibly cancelled because of skeletal remains being found. And you want to raze a whole cemetery because no one will mow it? And to just remove all the headstones and discard them as a pile of rubbish! The families of the deceased weren't pitching a fit? You would think with the taxes the Missions Hills residents pay, they would have found the funds somewhere.
Anyway, thanks for enlightening me with another great video.
"But residents protested..." Not much has changed in all of these years haha
Amazing they didn't remove the bodies, but you gotta love the wildlife! 😂 Great video, San Diego Steve
I find it very sad that folks are tramping on graves of loved ones. I know I would be if I had someone buried there. I won’t be visiting there any time soon
I have a great uncle and great great grandfather buried here. Trust me, the cemetery was a lot sadder before it was made into a park. No grass, bare dirt and rocks, and every time we went to place flowers, there were more and more instances of vandalism. In modern cemeteries, upkeep of the grounds is part of the cost of the plot, but this cemetery wasn't set up that way. My great great grandfather died in 1903. We are still in San Diego and could do our own upkeep, but many graves were abandoned and vandalized. It was awful. Making the area into a park was a great solution. We were given the opportunity to exhume their bodies and move them, but decided neither man minded children's laughter nor family picnics. We walk over the grounds with younger family members and tell their stories. At least now, there's grass and the grounds are maintained, making this a much better memorial now than it was. We leave flowers near the plaque of names.
I find it disrespectful.
Local wildlife. Loved it!
What kind of animal was that at 6:02? It hops like a rabbit but I don't see ears...Its hard to tell in the video.
Haha It was someone's dog that they were letting run around off leash. It was about the size of a rabbit though.
That's a French Bulldog.
Dog 🤣
@@SidetrackAdventures was that the same person hiding behind the headstone around 4:23 to 4:28?
I'm all for adding a little extra dirt on top.
Supposedly this is one of the few parks that it's legal to drink alcohol.
There's a cool trail down the canyon in front of the park too.
Robyn's egg trail.