YORBA CEMETERY
The history of the Yorba Cemetery dates back to 1834. Don Bernardo Yorba petitioned Mexican Governor Figueroa for 13,000 acres of land on the northern side of the banks of the Santa Ana River. He was granted the land and named it Rancho Canon de Santa Ana, the Canyon of Saint Anne.
In 1858 Bernardo deeded to the Bishop of
the Catholic Church a plot of land 1/4 miles west of his adobe ranch house. The
land, the La Mesita, was a gently sloping hill with some corrals located on it.
It would become the oldest private cemetery in Orange County predated only by
the Mission Cemetery in Capistrano.
The cemetery closed in 1939. It fell victim to vandals who defaced and stole many of the rustic markers and marble headstones. As part of their dedication to the preservation of Orange County's cultural history, the Board of Supervisors in 1967 accepted the deed of the cemetery from the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Ranger staff and volunteers are currently trying to restore the damage caused by these vandals and years of neglect prior to the county's acquisition.
The history of the Yorba Cemetery is the history of California. The dosons provide a living story of the family that owned land from the ocean to the Riverside County line.
Yet, Yorba is a reminder of the vandalism that plaques our burial sites and the loss we all share with the theft of tombstones.
Walk the grounds and one may well feel the sense of disappointment, that Don Bernardo Yorba and his vision are gone.
Lamp post bases, used as grave markers. Turn of the century recycling.
Yorba is a place that should be remembered, protected and supported. To fail, is to lose our past.
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