Long before Santa Monica Canyon became prime real estate for successful Angelenos, it served as a serene resting place for some of the area's early and prominent landowners.
In the late 1840s, Francisco Marquez, the Mexican co-holder of the Rancho Boca de Santa Monica land grant given by his government, established a burial ground on the canyon's wide-open upper mesa. The cemetery contains the remains of Pascual, his youngest son, and perhaps 30 other family members, American Indian servants and friends -- including 13 guests who died of botulism after eating home-canned peaches at a New Year's Eve gathering in 1909.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday, January 24, 2009 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 2 inches; 61 words Type of Material: Correction
Marquez cemetery: An article in Monday's California section about the Marquez Family Cemetery in Santa Monica Canyon said the cemetery, owned by Ernest Marquez, is the only portion of an original Mexican land grant that remains in the Marquez family's hands. Rosemary Marquez Romero Miano, another descendant of Francisco Marquez, also owns a piece of property from the original land grant.
Last week, the usually tranquil Marquez Family Cemetery -- which was deemed by the city of Los Angeles in 2000 an "extremely historic" landmark for representing the region's ranch families -- buzzed with activity. Scientists armed with ground-penetrating radar imaging equipment traipsed back and forth to find precisely where the bodies are buried. The equipment enables scientists to "see" below ground without disturbing the site.
They were joined by students from UCLA's Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, who took part in a workshop. Come Jan. 31, specially trained dogs from the Institute for Canine Forensics, a Northern California nonprofit group, will put their noses to the ground to see whether they can sniff out any historic remains.
The aim is to learn the cemetery's true boundaries and the burial locations so that preservationists, including Pascual's grandson Ernest, can develop a restoration plan and eventually open it to the public. La Senora Research Institute de Rancho Boca de Santa Monica, a nonprofit group based in the canyon, is covering some of the costs. Foundations and neighbors are also contributing.
"I want to keep it in its natural state and not modernize it in any way," said Ernest Marquez, 84, a local historian who grew up in Santa Monica Canyon and lives in the San Fernando Valley. "When you come here, you are transported back to rancho days. There's an aura here that you don't get anywhere else."
Today the burial ground, overgrown with weeds and missing all but two of its grave markers, sits tucked away behind a rustic wooden fence on San Lorenzo Street. Few people know it's there.
With its haphazard handful of citrus and other trees, the cemetery indeed seems to have been transplanted from a simpler time and place into a populated residential neighborhood. In fact, it's the other way around. The canyon's many houses -- some grand, some modest -- grew up around the burial ground.
