Odd Fellows Memorial Park

It is a place where both the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak, rest peacefully together while the rest of the world spins on into the future.Nestled on just three acres and tucked away alongside Highway 92, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Cemetery sits quietly near the entrance to Half Moon Bay.Established in 1875, the graveyard served as the final resting place for non-Catholics as well as suicide victims, indigents, and sailors who had washed ashore.The cemetery is also where many prominent Half Moon Bay historical figures sleep. Blacksmith and inventor of the sidehill plow Robert Israel Knapp is buried here as are James, William, John and Thomas Johnston. The brothers, whose family name is stamped across significant local historical sites, all rest in peace in several large family plots.The last burial recorded was in 1994. The decline in local burials was due to the establishment of Skylawn Memorial Park in 1959. In 1993, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Cemetery was sold to the Half Moon Bay Historical Foundation for $1 with the expectation that the foundation would maintain the cemetery as a historical site. The parcel changed hands one again in 2000 when Eddie Andreini acquired the land. Andreini agreed to record the cemetery with the California Historical Resources Information System as an archaeological site.As part of the process, Andreini hired Dr. Laura Jones who works as the university archeologist at Stanford University.“As an archeologist, I manage Stanford’s archeological sites,” said Jones. “Occasionally I take a project just to learn a little bit more about the history of the area that’s not Stanford-specific.“I was hired to record the cemetery with the state of California as a historic site, and I did that,” she continued. “I became fascinated with the process of trying to figure out who is buried there. I went through multiple archival sources, none of them complete.”As she conducted her research, Jones became enthralled by the personal stories attached to some of the cemetery’s occupants.“I was curious about diversit... (Half Moon Bay Review)