After stopping at Placerville's Chamber of Commerce, we learned that this historic town has four cemeteries, each demanding an explore and a share that I will do in a series.

The gals at the Chamber were incredibly helpful arming us with a map and a tombstone directory. Our first stop was the Old City Cemetery, whose oldest dated burial is 1850.


What I love most about cemeteries is that they preserve history and, in most cases, are peaceful, park-like places.
This location, perched over-looking the City, was a lovely final resting spot.
This tombstone and its history really impressed. Buried here is Benjamin Franklin Keene (1809-1856). Quoting from the History of Eldorado County, California, p. 22.

Honorable B. F. Keene, M.D., died of paralysis in Placerville on the 5th of September, 1856. Dr. Keene came here as a pioneer, at a time when society was yet quite unsettled, and the laws very little observed; by his own example and mental influence he helped to find the way out of this sordid and selfish interest towards the wholesome state of affairs that surrounds and distinguished a well-governed State. His talents and virtues were appreciated, and in 1851 he was called away from his active professional duties and important private enterprise by the vote, of rare unanimity, to fill the Office of Senator in the State Legislature.

Perhaps his most notable achievement will live in his organization of the Medical Society of the State of California, the first such Society on the Pacific Coast. Having served many years on the State Board of Physicians in Georgia, he saw the need of such a society in California and was well qualified to perfect and preside over such an organization. What an incredible man whose history is forever here.
One inspirational tombstone was that of Lizzie Baldwin who died in 1865, at the young age of 15. The inscription reads,