Grave Misgivings: Smartsville Cemetery, Smartsville, California

Continuing my gold rush theme, I visited Smartsville Cemetery in Yuba County, California. This town was once called Smartville, but it is now Smartsville. It was named after Jim Smart, a local hotelier. The U.S. Post Office eliminated the “s” in 1909. The town regained its “s” in August 2008 and it’s been Smartsville ever since. My town is just too boring.

Smartsville loaned its name to the “Smartville Complex” (note the lack of “s”), which is a geologic feature of the Sierra Nevada area. Its eastern boundary marks the easternmost end of the Mother Lode, the gold-bearing rocks without which California might not be a state. (We all know the only reason California was allowed to join the union was because of the gold in them thar hills.) It is also known as the “Smartville Block” or the “Smartville Intrusive Complex”. This means that the chunk of rock constituting the Smartville Complex got in the way of the collision between the Pacific and North American tectonic plates. As a result of being subjected to enormous amounts of heat and pressure, hot mineral-bearing water was driven through fissures in the rock. When the water cooled, the minerals therein precipitated out and were deposited in veins running through the granite bedrock which became the Sierra Nevada Mountains. One of these minerals was gold. And the rest, as they say, is history. Geology lesson in a nutshell. (I can never, ever, just walk past a rock without checking it out and big holes in the ground are endlessly fascinating.)

In addition to its peek-a-boo “s”, Smartsville possesses a very cool historic cemetery.

Spread out under the oaks, the cemetery attracts all sorts of visitors. Even Omar likes tombstones. Omar likes a lot of things.

There are familiar symbols here: the draped urn

The broken column

Here's a nice example of joined hands.

This usually indicated matrimony. If you look closely at the cuffs on the sleeves, you can see that one appears masculine and the other feminine. The letters "FLT" stand for Friendship, Love and Truth. It is the motto of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows . They are also known as the "Three-Link Fraternity" because of thier symbol of three links of chain. Perhaps they were considred odd because of their love of cemeteries? When a new Odd Fellows lodge was established, the first order of business was often to buy cemetery plots or even create a new cemetery where their members could be buried. Odd, indeed.

This tombstone features a willow tree. Weeping willows were often associated with mourning and in several cultures are also considered the tree of immortality.

Here's the grave of a military man.

That is most likely his infantry division.

This man belonged to the Loyal Order of the Moose, whimsical fraternal organization founded in 1888 well, just because. Later, a man by the name of James L. Davis got himself elected Supreme Organizer. He thought of the idea of giving "protection" to the family of every man who joined. This simply meant that if the gentleman became ill or disabled or died, his family would be provided for in perpetuity. His sales pitch worked, for by 1928 there were over 650,000 active members. Compare that to the mere 247 when Davis himself joined. Today, there are over 1.8 million.

Here's an impressive one and the first I have seen. The letters stand for "Hiram The Widow's Son Sent To King Solomon". They are enclosed within a keystone. This man is buried under the Masonic Mark of an Ancient Grand Master.

In contrast with this, some tombstones are very simple.