The Pascual Marquez Family Cemetery, located in

Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California Pacific Palisades is a neighborhood in the Westside Los Angeles, Westside region of Los Angeles, California, situated about west of Downtown Los Angeles. Pacific Palisades was formally founded in 1921 by a Chautauqua, Methodist organization, an ...

, is the family burial ground of one of the original grantees of the

Rancho Boca de Santa Monica Rancho or Ranchos may refer to: Settlements and communities *Rancho, Aruba, former fishing village and neighbourhood of Oranjestad *Ranchos of California, 19th century land grants in Alta California **List of California Ranchos *Ranchos, Buenos Ai ...

. “This is not only one of the original pioneer settlements, but one of the last which survives in the midst of modern developments”. “The cemetery grounds consist of a rectangular lot surrounded by a masonry and stucco wall built in 1926 by architect John Byers. Belonging to the Marquez family, this private family cemetery dates to the 1840s and formed part of the

, a Mexican land grant given to Francisco Marquez in 1839. The cemetery is…the oldest private family cemetery in Los Angeles”. Located in Santa Monica Canyon, the cemetery and a separate piece of property owned by descendant Rosemary Marquez Romero Miano are the last remnants of the original ranch to be still owned by the Marquez family. The rancho originally extended along the beach from Topanga Road to Montana Avenue and then east. “The Marquez and Reyes families lived…in the Canyon, under the flags of three countries: Spain, Mexico, and the United States, without ever leaving their Rancho homes.” The first burials in the cemetery were infants of rancho grantee Francisco Marquez and his wife Roque Valenzuela; Marquez buried the babies just outside his home in the canyon. The couple had 11 children altogether but only five survived to adulthood. In 1916, the final burial on the land was Pascual Marquez, Francisco’s youngest son. Burials are now marked with contemporary crosses in various artistic styles made by Pascual Marquez’s grandson Ernest Marquez. A photo from the 1890s shows a few wooden crosses placed on graves, “all of them owlong gone.”Groves, Martha. "A Tribute to History, and a Family; Ernest Marquez is Making Crosses to Mark Graves in His Ancestors' Cemetery." ''Los Angeles Times'', Dec 26, 2014''.''

Ground-penetrating radar Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) is a geophysical method that uses radar pulses to image the subsurface. It is a non-intrusive method of surveying the sub-surface to investigate underground utilities such as concrete, asphalt, metals, pipes, cables o ...

provided by UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology and search dogs trained in “historical human remains detection” were used to find the lost locations of the graves. Dorothy Gillis Loomis, daughter of the owner of Santa Monica Land & Water Company, which bought most of the rancho land in the early 20th century, was the first protector of the cemetery from outside of the family. She convinced her father not to develop the cemetery land, provided for the construction of the adobe wall, and donated the statue of San Lorenzo, which is from Mexico and carved out of a whole tree trunk. The cemetery was photographed by the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

on July 21, 1937. The landscaping of the

San Lorenzo San Lorenzo is the Italian and Spanish name for Lawrence of Rome, Saint Lawrence, the 3rd-century Christian martyr, and may refer to: Places Argentina * San Lorenzo, Santa Fe * San Lorenzo Department, Chaco * Monte San Lorenzo, a mountain on t ...

shrine at that time was

opuntia ''Opuntia'', commonly called prickly pear or pear cactus, is a genus of flowering plants in the cactus family Cactaceae. Prickly pears are also known as ''tuna'' (fruit), ''sabra'', ''nopal'' (paddle, plural ''nopales'') from the Nahuatl word f ...

and cholla. The original wooden crosses are already gone from the burial ground. One grave marker or footstone is visible in the center. The San Lorenzo Garden, or ''Santuario San Lorenzo'', in front of the burial ground was a subject of legal disputes over historic easements. In 2011, the owners of the “garden” property, Fred Marcus and

Davida Rochlin Davida Rochlin (born October 1951) is an American architect, active primarily in Los Angeles and Southern California. Her work includes residential and commercial buildings and is notable for its emphasis on green and passive design concepts. ...

, sold the land (then said to be valued at $127,500) for $35,000, so that the cemetery would always be accessible to descendants and students of history. The sanctuary garden and burial ground are closed to the public but the descendants occasionally offer guided tours, including to students from the local Canyon Elementary School.

References

External links

LANow on YouTube: Pascual Marquez Family Cemetery

MarquezCemetery.org

Santa Monica Conservancy: Pascual Marquez Family Cemetery

Pacific Palisades Historical Society: Pasqual Marquez Family Cemetery
{{Commons category, Pascual Marquez Family Cemetery Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles Cemeteries in Los Angeles 1840s establishments in Alta California Cemeteries established in the 1840s

See also

References

Further reading

External links