Public Works and City Engineer
The modern history of the Sonoma Valley is summarized in a greatly abbreviated form by the grave markers found in the City's cemeteries.
These old, beautiful remnants of past lives and their influence on the current character of the City, and even the entire Northern California region, should not be forgotten.
The City of Sonoma owns, maintains, and operates three cemetery properties that actively provide the service of final disposition of it's citizens' remains.
The City was incorporated in 1841, but was originally established by General Mariano Vallejo starting as far back as 1835. General Vallejo originally deeded the land for Valley Cemetery in 1835 with the entire city land tract map that established the original land uses. Mountain Cemetery was founded in 1841 when the city formally incorporated.
Most of the City's civic, economic and cultural leaders are buried in the cemeteries, most notably, General Vallejo and his wife, Francisco Carrillo Vallejo. A brief tour of the cemetery will prove many well-known wine making, farming, and long-time valley resident families, such as Sebastiani, McTaggart, Riboni, Ruggles, Docini, Bundschu, and Mulas that built beautiful family mausoleum buildings to memorialize their families' prominence in the community.
Captain H.E. Boyes, George Fetters, Franklin Sears and two Donner Party survivors, are interned in the cemeteries. The Sons of the American Revolutionary War claim that a veteran from that era, Captain William Smith of Flowerdew Hundred, VA is buried in an unmarked grave, making the cemetery one of the oldest continually operated cemeteries in the western United States, and perhaps also one of the most beautiful.