The first Christian cemetery in the Santa Clara Valley was founded by the same Franciscan Padres who founded Mission Santa Clara de Asis in 1777. As the population of the valley grew, the tiny cemetery filled.

Within the space of fifty years the church of Mission Santa Clara changed locations 4 times. With each church there came a new cemetery, ending with the cemetery at the fourth site on today's campus of Santa Clara University.

By 1851, when Santa Clara College was founded, the Jesuit Fathers realized that the old cemetery near the Mission was filled. The new site they selected was within a few minutes walk from the Mission and was located near the small Adobe home of Don Fernando Berryessa. This is the current location of Santa Clara Mission Cemetery-at the corner of Winchester Boulevard and Bellomy Street.

To walk through the older areas of the cemetery is to travel through nearly 150 years of history. Many early Santa Clara Valley pioneers, of rich and varied cultural backgrounds, are buried in the cemetery. Included are Pedro de Saisset (French Vice-Consul, businessman and philanthropist),Triburcio Vasquez(known as the "Robin Hood Bandit"), Antonio Maria Pico (three times Alcalde of San Jose), Myles Poore O'Connor (lawyer, judge and philanthropist) and Peter Burnett (the first Governor of California).

Inside the gates one finds beautiful examples of Cemetery art-including marble and bronze statues, obelisks and elaborately carved headstones. Family mausoleums are made of both imported and local stone with iron gates and doors, marble shutters and stained glass windows.