The Centerville Pioneer Cemetery, also known as the Centerville Presbyterian Cemetery or Alameda Presbyterian Cemetery, is located at the corner of Post Street and Bonde Way in Fremont, California. It was officially designated as a state cemetery in 1858 or 1859, depending upon the source, [1] and was listed in the California Register of Historic Resources in 1976.
At the time the cemetery was established, the location of the cemetery was known as Washington Township, Alameda County, California, which was then made up of the villages of Mission San Jose, Irvington, Warm Springs, Centerville, Niles, Newark, Alvarado and Decoto. In time all eight villages became towns of the same names, and both the church and cemetery were renamed to reflect their location in the town of Centerville. [2]
A century later in 1956, the five towns of Centerville, Niles, Irvington, Mission San Jose, and Warm Springs came together to form the incorporated City of Fremont, which is the current designation of the location of the Cemetery.
The first burials occurred sometime after 1855 when the Alameda Presbyterian Church, first organized in 1853, [3] : 90 acquired the property in the summer of 1855 under the direction of the Rev. William Wallace Brier and nine other founding members. [4]
Several of Fremont’s notable founding pioneers are buried in the cemetery, many of whom have streets named after them. Among these are the Decoto family; Captain Caleb Cook Scott, a native of Nova Scotia, who sailed his way around the Horn of Magellan in South America in order to eventually settle in what later became Centerville; and Herman Eggers and sheep-raiser Robert Blacow, [3] : 166 who were the early settlers with large farms in the current Glenmoor area of Fremont. Near the front of the cemetery lie the Brier family, including the Rev. William Wallace Brier, the Presbyterian minister who founded the cemetery and was Alameda County's first superintendent of schools. [3] : 72 He also founded more than 27 churches, many of them in the Bay Area, including Centerville Presbyterian in Fremont, which manages the cemetery. Records indicate that a total of 368 persons are buried in this historic cemetery. [5]
Fremont is a city in Alameda County, California, United States. Located in the East Bay region of the Bay Area, Fremont has a population of 230,504 as of 2020, making it the fourth most populous city in the Bay Area, behind San Jose, San Francisco, and Oakland. It is the closest East Bay city to the high-tech Silicon Valley network of businesses, and has a strong tech industry presence.
Union City is a city in Alameda County, California, United States in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is located approximately 19 miles (31 km) south of Oakland, 30 miles (48 km) from San Francisco, and 20 miles (32 km) north of San Jose. It was incorporated in 1959, combining the communities of Alvarado and Decoto. The city has 72,000 residents across a diverse population. Alvarado is a California Historical Landmark (#503). The city celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2009.
Alvarado is a former settlement in and former county seat of Alameda County, California, now part of Union City. It was located 5 miles (8 km) north-northwest of downtown Newark.
Decoto is a neighborhood of Union City, California originally established as a separate community. It is located 5 miles (8 km) north-northwest of downtown Newark, along California State Route 238.
Alameda Terminal was a railroad station and ferry wharf at the foot and west of present-day Pacific Avenue and Main Street in Alameda, California, on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay with ferry service to San Francisco. It was built in 1864 and operated by the San Francisco and Alameda Railroad. In 1869, it served as the original west coast terminus of the U.S. First transcontinental railroad, until the opening of Oakland Pier two months later. The western terminus was inaugurated September 6, 1869, when the first Western Pacific through train from Sacramento reached the shores of San Francisco Bay at Alameda Terminal, — thus completing the first transcontinental railroad "from the Missouri river to the Pacific ocean" in accordance with the Pacific Railroad Acts.
The Niles Canyon Railway (NCRy) is a heritage railway running on the first transcontinental railroad alignment through Niles Canyon, between Sunol and the Niles district of Fremont in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area, in California, United States. The railway is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Niles Canyon Transcontinental Railroad Historic District. The railroad is operated and maintained by the Pacific Locomotive Association which preserves, restores and operates historic railroad equipment. The NCRy features public excursions with both steam and diesel locomotives along a well-preserved portion of the first transcontinental railroad.
William Dutton Hayward was the founder and namesake of the city of Hayward, California.
Fremont Unified School District (FUSD) is a primary and secondary education school district located in Fremont, California, United States.
Quarry Lakes Regional Recreation Area is a regional park located in Fremont, California that is part of the East Bay Regional Parks system. Before being converted into a park, the site was used as a gravel quarry. When water purchased by the public for groundwater recharge of the Niles Cone flooded the gravel pits, the gravel harvesters began to daily pump the seeping water down Alameda Creek into San Francisco Bay. The Alameda County Water District acquired the quarry after the pumping was declared to be an illegal waste in 1976.
The Alameda County Library, in Alameda County, California, is a public library system that provides services from eleven branch libraries in the cities of Albany, Dublin, Fremont, Newark and Union City and the unincorporated communities of Castro Valley, Cherryland and San Lorenzo. According to 2005/2006 statistics, the total service area represents a population of about 522,000, and annual circulation is reported to be around 5.5 million. Its headquarters are located in Fremont.
James Logan (1864–1931) was an education official in Centerville, California, which is today a district of Fremont, California. The James Logan High School built in Union City in 1959 is named after him.
Rancho Agua Caliente was a 9,564-acre (38.70 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Alameda County, California granted in 1836 by Governor Nicolás Gutiérrez to Antonio Suñol and confirmed in 1839 by Governor Juan Alvarado to Fulgencio Higuera. The name means "warm water" and refers to the warm springs located in the foothills a short distance south of Mission San José. The grant is just south of present-day Fremont.
Rancho Ex-Mission San José was a 30,000-acre (120 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Alameda County, California given in 1846 by Governor Pio Pico to Andrés Pico and Juan B. Alvarado. The grant derives its name from the secularized Mission San José, and was called ex-Mission because of a division made of the lands held in the name of the Mission—the church retaining the grounds immediately around, and all of the lands outside of this are called ex-Mission lands. The grant extended to the lands of present-day Fremont including the former towns, now districts of Centerville, Irvington and Mission San Jose.
Hayward Area Historical Society (HAHS) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to documenting the history of the city of Hayward, California and adjacent communities. These areas include San Lorenzo, Ashland, Cherryland, Castro Valley, Fairview, the former communities of Russell City, Mount Eden, Schafer Park, and other parts of unincorporated Alameda County. The society was founded in 1956. Their museum in Downtown Hayward closed in 2012. Their new facility opened nearby in 2014.
Memorial Park, in Hayward, California, is a public park managed by the Hayward Area Recreation and Park District. The park contains an indoor swim center, the Hayward Plunge, which opened in 1936. The park is the access point to the Greenbelt Trails, which follow Ward Creek Canyon adjacent to California State University, East Bay. The park has a small bandstand with musical events offered on major holidays. It borders on Mount Saint Joseph Cemetery which was first established in 1875. It is operated by the All Saints Catholic Church in Hayward. Many of the historic gravestone inscriptions are in Portuguese.
Washington College, also called Washington College of Science and Industry, was a private coeducational secondary school established 1871 in the village of Washington Corners, which later (1884) became the town of Irvington, now part of the City of Fremont, California. Washington College opened in 1872 and was one of the first coeducational technical schools in California. In 1883 the college transitioned to a sectarian coeducational institution of higher education, under the auspices of the Disciples of Christ, and offered both preparatory and college-level courses until it closed in 1894. Washington College was succeeded in 1896 by a girls' school, the Curtner Seminary. After a fire in 1899, this was in turn succeeded in 1900 by a military school for boys, Anderson Academy, which operated until the outbreak of World War I.
Washington Township Museum of Local History is a historical museum located in Fremont, California. The two historical organizations, the Mission Peak Heritage Foundation (MPHF) and Washington Township Historical Society (WTHS), formed the Museum of Local History Guild to focus on education, archival research and preservation of the historical resources of Washington Township. The Washington Township was created in 1853 from the southwestern part of Alameda County. For many decades, Washington Township consisted of agricultural fields dotted with eight towns, many now part of Fremont and some with local historians publishing their stories. The eight towns were the town of Newark, the two towns that became Union City, viz., Alvarado and Decoto, and the five towns that became Fremont, viz., Centerville, Niles, Mission San Jose, Irvington, and Warm Springs.
The Laguna Creek watershed consists of 25.1 square miles (100 km2) of land within northern California's Alameda County. The watershed drains the foothills of the Diablo Range south of Niles Canyon. To the southeast, the area of Mission Peak Regional Preserve around Mission Peak is included. Agua Caliente, Canada del Aliso, Mission, Morrison, Sabercat, Vargas, and Washington creeks drain the area of the watershed. They drain into Laguna Creek and eventually Mud Slough.
