When it came to choosing a Day of Service project, Charlotte Parkhurst Chapter, Folsom, CA, didn’t have to look far when they selected the storied Mormon Island Relocation Cemetery with its unique tie to some of the mining camps from the Gold Rush.

Mormon Island is a relocation cemetery created by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1954 as a replacement for several cemeteries which would have been submerged below Folsom Lake when the Folsom Dam was built in 1955. In addition to five individual graves, the cemetery also holds remains from some of the earliest mining camps established after the 1848 discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma, including those from Mormon Island, Salmon Falls, Negro Hill, Condemned Bar, Carrollton Bar, McDowell’s Hill, Natural Dam and Dalton’s Bar cemeteries. There are 474 occupied plots. 16 of those plots are known to be United States veterans from the Mexican American War, the Civil War, WWI, and WWII.

Chapter members picked up trash, swept and raked leaves throughout the cemetery, trimmed foliage away from markers, and cleaned authorized markers and family plot borders according to a specific cleaning method approved by county officials. Each grave marker that was cleaned has been documented for future reference by the county. An additional cleanup day at the cemetery is planned for November 6.

The Mormon Island Relocation Cemetery will also be one of our two participating cemeteries in Wreaths Across America Day on December 17th.