DATE VISITED: 03/08/2015
HISTORICAL SITE: Chung Wah Cemetery
LOCATION: 1221 Mormon St., Folsom, Sacramento Co., CA
DEDICATED: August 21, 1995
**closer look below
PERSONAL REFLECTIONS:
Well, now I know why Dana and I couldn't find the cemetery. It's located at the
back of the current cemetery behind gates and signs that say "do not trespass".
I'm totally confused over the Chinese cemeteries in Folsom.
Everything I read says there were 3 of them. The federal application for
historical designation says any remnants of the Young Wo Cemetery no longer exists
yet I visited it...I think. And when you google "Chung Wah Cemetery",
you often see a picture of the Young Wo Cemetery. I also have seen reference to
the Chung Wah Cemetery being on private lands and so not accessible to the
public. While I am unable to confirm, I'm going with the inaccessible story as
I found a sign leading back to where the maps said the cemetery is and the sign
has "Chung Wah" on it.
When I told Dirk what I had found, he said...so there is
a national landmark on private property that we're paying for that we can't get to? Yep,
and I'm sure this isn't the only one I will find like this.
One of the reasons it is not longer open to the public is
that the graves were desecrated in 1967. Vandals dug up graves and
destroyed the shrine. Jewelry and artifacts stolen were traced to pawn shops in San Francisco.
A little history...Chinese did not
"mix" with other Chinese from different provinces in China, mainly because
of the differences in dialects. Basically, they weren't speaking the same
language. The competition between these factions was fierce and so Associations
were started up in America that could help the newly arriving Chinese from particular provinces. While these Associations assisted newly arriving Chinese that were here mainly because of the discovery of gold, they also were a source of support and news from home. The reason there
were 3 Chinese cemeteries is simple...they were overseen by the different
Associations.
The graves were never set in any order
and the deceased were buried haphazardly. I think it was done because the
Associations that oversaw the various cemeteries would disinterred the deceased
and send the bones back to China. It looks like this was done, more or less,
once a year, so there were never really any headstones as is pretty standard in
any other cemetery.
Because there were no headstones and records
weren't kept, the exact number of Chinese buried remains unknown but all 3
cemeteries saw a large number of burials in 1893 from some epidemic as noted in
the Folsom Telegraph on November 4, 1893..."Chinatown is full of sick
heathens . . . and the number of deaths is greater than ever before known in
history".
HISTORICAL SITE: Young Wo Cemetery
LOCATION: Forrest St., Folsom, Sacramento Co., CA
DEDICATED: 1994
"This sacred grounds is one of three revered cemeteries *Young Wo, Sam Yup-Sze Yup, and Hakka * that served the Chinese community once located just north of here. One cemetery vanished during the gold dredging activities; only the Young Wo and Sam Yup-Sze Yup remain. The Young Wo Cemetery provided burial primarily for people from the Chung Shan District of China. Buried here are Chinese pioneers who struggled for economic survival and human dignity and in so doing helped build Folsom and the West"
**closer look below
PERSONAL REFLECTIONS:
Became a California state historical point of interest but couldn't be
designated as a state landmark because major modification had already taken
place.
While I was taking a picture of the front gate, a family
came and went in. I could hear one parent telling the kids that this is an old
Chinese cemetery while the other said the land should be used for the
neighborhood. They then proceeded to throw Frisbee's and playing around. I
honestly don't know if the Chinese community would consider this in bad taste,
but somehow it seemed wrong to me.
I was
reminded of the time my youngest, Daniel, was visiting a cemetery with his
grandfather and us. We were in an older part of the cemetery, and he was
running around, singing, touching every headstone and jumping around. Both his father and I
tried to rein him in when finally his grandfather said "leave him
alone...this is more attention than these people have gotten in a very long
time".
In 1873, many of the small mines in the area were combined
to become Plymouth Consolidated, and this building became the company's office.
The company was in business from 1873 to 1947 and took in $13.5 million from gold.
