Ceremony Will Pay Tribute to Hundreds of Civil War Veterans Buried at Altadena Cemetery

The Pasadena Civil War Round Table will hold its annual Memorial Day ceremony today at 2:00 p.m. at Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena, honoring more than 600 Civil War veterans buried on the historic grounds.

The ceremony takes place at the cemetery located at 2400 North Fair Oaks Avenue, where both Union and Confederate soldiers are buried alongside notable figures, including Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman and Superman actor George Reeves.

“For many years, the Pasadena Civil War Round Table has held a Memorial Day Ceremony to commemorate the lives of the over 600 Civil War veterans, blue and gray, who are buried at Mountain View Cemetery,” the group said in its website announcement.

Civil War Round Table President Nick Smith will lead walking tours during the ceremony, while local historian and Civil War Round Table member Michele Zack will speak about the Brown Family graves.

The event continues a tradition that has drawn participation from the Sons of Union Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy in previous years.

The 60-acre cemetery, established in 1882, is home to the remains of hundreds of Union soldiers and 70 Confederate veterans, according to 2023 cemetery records.

Among them are two Medal of Honor recipients: Thomas F. Ellsworth (1840—1911) and Milton Lorenzo Haney (1825—1922).

“You have to remember that Southern California was settled by the direct veterans of the War,” Smith told Altadena Now in 2019. “Pasadena was founded nine years after the end of the Civil War and out of that first group of settlers, some of them were Civil War veterans.”

The cemetery contains graves from every American military conflict since the Mexican War.

Mountain View’s Memorial Day tradition echoes Pasadena’s historical Decoration Day observances. From the 1890s to the 1940s, residents would attend downtown memorial services before riding the trolley up Fair Oaks Avenue to reach the cemetery at approximately 2 p.m., mirroring today’s ceremony timing.

“It’s part of the history of our Altadena and Pasadena community, and we like to honor all the veterans that are here,” Denny Dormody, funeral director of Mountain View Mortuary and Cemetery, told Pasadena Now in 2023.

The ceremony provides residents an opportunity to pay respects to veterans whose service shaped the region’s early development. In past years, cemetery officials have made flags available for visitors who want to honor veterans throughout Memorial Day weekend.

The Pasadena Civil War Round Table has maintained this annual commemoration for multiple years, drawing community members to recognize the military service that preceded Southern California’s settlement and growth into today’s metropolitan area.