In the 1850s and 60s, Upper Placerville, or “Uppertown”, as it was known, was an entirely separate community, outside the limits of Placerville. At one point there was a bus.
Uppertown Cemetery is visible, just barely north of Highway 50, east of Mosquito Road. A staircase leads from street level into the bottom of the hillside cemetery, but the best access is from the top. To get there from Broadway, take Carson Road north across the freeway. Continue straight on Rosier St, then turn left on Pinecrest Ct. and continue to the end.
The cemetery was founded in 1850. There are roughly 200 known burials, the first of which was Rev. Amariah Kallock.
The cemetery land was donated by Uppertown’s leading family, the Crockers. Many are buried here. These Crockers are no relation to Charles or Edwin Crocker, the Central Pacific railroad men. Patriarch Benjamin Crocker was co-owner of the highly successful Crocker Brother’s Store, located on Broadway, where the Mosquito Road freeway overpass is today.
Crocker’s trip west in 1951 was noteworthy. He became stranded on Panama’s west coast with hundreds of other California bound hopefuls, many of whom carried yellow fever, malaria or cholera. They ultimately booked passage to San Francisco on an overcrowded, leaky tub that sputtered along for weeks with inadequate food and water supplies. Sickness was rampant. Many died before the derelict boat drifted into San Diego. After recuperating several weeks, Crocker headed north and found Sacramento devastated by the floods of 1851.
By the time he got to Placerville in 1852 he was penniless and desperate. Passing a boarding house on Main Street, an old friend from the Wisconsin lead mines that he’d worked so hard to escape called out to him.
The friend helped Crocker get on his feet. A stint in local mines followed, then he opened his first store. Uppertown, and Crocker, prospered in the pre-railroad era when all the supplies for the Comstock came through Placerville and Uppertown on wagons.
Among the many unmarked graves in Uppertown Cemetery is that of Henry Delauney. In 1915 the 42-year-old miner laid his head on a “stick of giant powder with suicidal intent” and lit the fuse, with predictable results. See sidebar. Suicides were far more common in an era with no social safety nets in place. Rest in peace, Henry.
For generations the Uppertown Cemetery has benefited from the stewardship of the Wigglesworth family, the last remnant of which still resides adjacent to the cemetery.
Uppertown Cemetery is owned, managed, and occasionally maintained by the City of Placerville. Plots are not sold, but burials are still sometimes conducted in old family plots.
Uppertown Cemetery was part of the 2024/2025 “Lesser Known Placerville Cemeteries” tour led by Mike Roberts, Save the Graves.
