Our Cemeteries

The modern history of the Sonoma Valley is summarized in a greatly abbreviated form by the grave markers found in the City's cemeteries - Mountain Cemetery, Valley Cemetery, and Veterans' Cemetery. 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.

Many 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 cemeteries will show many well-known winemaking, farming, and long-time valley resident families, such as Sebastiani, McTaggart, Riboni, Ruggles, Dolcini, Bundschu, and Mulas. There are many beautiful family mausoleum buildings memorializing their families' prominence in the community.

Captain H.E. Boyes, George Fetters, Franklin Sears and two Donner Party survivors are interned in Mountain Cemetery. The Sons of the American Revolutionary War claim that a veteran from that era, Captain William Smith of Flowerdew Hundred, Virginia, is buried in an unmarked grave at Mountain Cemetery, making the cemetery one of the oldest continually operated cemeteries in the western United States, and perhaps also one of the most beautiful.