Resting in peace, and obscurity

James Madison McReynolds' young wife, Elizabeth, fell ill on the wagon train journey from Missouri to California in 1852.

She never recovered, and she died in March the next year, at age 22. McReynolds buried her on a corner of the 160-acre farm he had established in Green Valley, west of Sebastopol.

There, under a green canopy of eucalyptus, oak and bay trees, her remains still lie, along with James and 14 other members of the pioneer McReynolds family, interred on an acre of untended, vinca-covered land just off Bodega Highway.

There are no signs marking Spring Hill Cemetery, the final resting place of more than 100 people in a place that was unknown or forgotten for decades, even by some of the deceaseds' descendants.

"It's a nice, quiet little spot," said George Lancina of Santa Rosa, a distant relative of James McReynolds. "It's almost like going into a church."

Now, thanks to collaboration between county officials and the descendants, the rural cemetery will be preserved and somewhat enhanced, with efforts made to maintain its charm.

Dirt pathways wind through the overgrown site, littered with fallen trees, to clusters of moss-stained gravestones, some standing, and others fallen and broken.

Among the members of other pioneer families there are John and Keziah Finley, who also arrived in Sonoma County in 1852, and seven of their children.

"This is my great-uncle Henry," Carmen Finley said, pointing to a tall stone monument in the family plot.

Henry Finley, one of five sons of John and Keziah, became the family patriarch after his parents died, Carmen Finley said.

The elder Finleys first grew potatoes in Bloomfield, then bought land for a dairy ranch at the end of Salmon Creek Road in Bodega.

Carmen Finley, a Santa Rosa native and retired educator, didn't know about Spring Hill Cemetery until she undertook genealogical research on her family in the early 1980s, an effort that also revealed she is the fifth cousin once removed of former Press Democrat Publisher Ernest L. Finley.

The cemetery is "not much different" today than it was when she found it more than 20 years ago, Carmen Finley said.

But the living relatives of Spring Hill's inhabitants were concerned about the cemetery's future, especially since unpaid tax bills had been piling up and the unofficial caretaker died about 15 years ago.

By chance, an El Cerrito woman, Sue Zeni, came across the cemetery on a trip with her husband to a nearby winery in 2004.

A McReynolds family member, Zeni had researched her lineage on paper but never before found the proof on the ground.

"I just kind of stumbled upon it," Zeni said.

Poring over archives and walking the land, Zeni uncovered the cemetery's history and mapped the location of about 50 graves, half of the total believed to be at Spring Hill.

Zeni also spearheaded formation of a group called Friends of Spring Hill, now determined to restore some dignity to the rural plot.

Their efforts were rewarded by the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors, which adopted a measure last month confirming county ownership of Spring Hill.

The board also agreed to send county parks workers to the cemetery twice a year for maintenance work at a cost of about $1,300.

The Friends group is now planning the next steps, including volunteer work details and the possibility of future burials at Spring Hill.

Lancina's uncle, Kennon R. Gilbert Jr., was the last person buried there, in 1996, 143 years after Elizabeth McReynolds was laid to rest.

Spring Hill is typical of Sonoma County's 116 cemeteries, mostly small, out-of-the-way burial sites started in the county's early days, said Jeremy Nichols, a Santa Rosa retiree who documented them all in a book called "Cemeteries of Sonoma County, California:

A History and Guide."

With no way to preserve or readily transport bodies, hard-working ranchers tended to bury their relatives at home, Nichols said.

For more than 50 years, the corner of James McReynolds' farm accommodated many of the folks west of Sebastopol, he said.

McReynolds, who married his first wife's sister and then his housekeeper, farmed Spring Hill for 17 years and then moved to Santa Rosa. He once owned the Hoag House, Santa Rosa's oldest standing wood-frame home. Now he and his first two wives are at Spring Hill.

Nichols, who is working on restoration of Chanate Historic Cemetery in Santa Rosa, said he was thrilled to see Spring Hill's future secured.

So are the family members -- to a point.

Lancina, a computer technician at Santa Rosa Junior College, said the place should be tidied up and a sign posted out front. But he doesn't want a transformation to a neat lawn below an open sky.

"My hope is we do as little as possible," Lancina said. "I really would like to keep it quiet and overgrown as it is now."

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 521-5457 or gkovner@pressdemocrat.com.