St. Mary's Cemetery, founded in 1858, was the pioneer Roman Catholic cemetery in Portland, Oregon. It was located on S.E. Stark Street, between 24th and 26th Avenues.

Seventy-one years after the first burial, the cemetery was closed. The Archdiocese published invitations to family members to transfer the remains of their family members to Mt. Calvary Cemetery in Portland's west hills. Eventually, the "left-over" remains were transferred to the St. Mary's section of Mt. Calvary cemetery.

The residents of St. Mary's Cemetery were some of Portland's early pioneers. There were Indian War veterans, saloon keepers, riverboat captains, laborers, capitalists, etc. These people helped build Portland.

If there were sexton records of the interments, they have not been located. Searches have been conducted in the usual and unusal repositories, and nothing has been found. There is something tragic about that loss of history, and the St. Mary's Cemetery book is intended to rectify that.

Church registers, vital records, history books, wills, obituaries, and oral traditions were some of the sources used to identify the people who were laid to rest in St. Mary's Cemetery. Over 2,000 interments were located by Connie Lenzen and published in the book, St Mary's Cemetery; Portland's Pioneer Catholic Cemetery.

The book contains the names of the people who were buried in the cemetery. In addition, it includes names of parents when they were listed in the church books. It contains the name of a spouse or children if they were listed in obituaries. Altogether, there are 4,327 names. The index is on the Genealogical Forum of Oregon website, www.gfo.org. You can purchase pages from the book or the book itself from the society. A few autographed copies are available from the author. Click here to send an email request.