Salem Memorial Park and Garden was founded in 1891, originally as the New Salem Cemetery, and is located at 1711
El Camino Real in
Colma, California.
History
Congregation Beth Israel had consecrated a portion of
City Cemetery in
San Francisco as Sholom or Salem Cemetery on December 2, 1877.
City Cemetery was mainly used to bury immigrants and the indigent, with the vast majority of those interred being Chinese immigrants to California; the site is now occupied by the golf course in
Lincoln Park
Lincoln Park is a park along Lake Michigan on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. Named after US President Abraham Lincoln, it is the city's largest public park and stretches for seven miles (11 km) from Grand Avenue (500 N), on the south, ...
and the
Legion of Honor museum
The Legion of Honor, formally known as the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, is an art museum in San Francisco, California. Located in Lincoln Park, the Legion of Honor is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which ...
. Public sentiment against burials in San Francisco began in the early 1890s, culminating in a ban on new burials by 1902.
Congregation Beth Israel proactively purchased in Colma for the New Salem Cemetery from the
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco in October 1891, and a ceremony was held on December 20, 1891, to lay the cornerstone for the new cemetery.
William Curlett
William F. Curlett (County Down, Ireland, March 3, 1846 – January 21, 1914, San Francisco) and Alexander Edward Curlett (called Aleck) (San Francisco, February 6, 1881 – September 5, 1942) were a father-and-son pair of architects. They w ...
, were completed and consecrated by May 1892, and a vintage photograph of the chapel exists,[ although the structures no longer stand at the site; it is not known if they were damaged and demolished following the ]1906 San Francisco earthquake
At 05:12 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (''Extreme''). High-intensity sha ...
.[ Remains from the original Salem Cemetery were exhumed and moved to Colma between 1901 and 1907.][
Since the original establishment, approximately half the site has been sold, leaving it at its present size of . The site's outdoor Garden Mausoleum was completed in 1950, and a Holocaust memorial was completed and dedicated in 1974.][ Congregation Beth Israel-Judea sold the cemetery to Congregations Emanu-El and Sherith Israel in July 2004, merging it with the neighboring Hills of Eternity and Home of Peace cemeteries.]
Notable burials
* Edward S. Salomon
Edward Selig Salomon (December 25, 1836 – July 18, 1913) was a German Jew who immigrated to the United States and served as a lieutenant colonel in Union in the American Civil War. After nomination for appointment to the grade of brevet ...
(1836–1913), Civil War military officer and governor of Washington Territory
See also
* List of cemeteries in California
References
{{Authority control
1891 establishments in California
Cemeteries established in the 1890s
Cemeteries in San Mateo County, California
Colma, California
History of San Mateo County, California
Jewish cemeteries in California
Protected areas of San Mateo County, California