102 Church Street Post Office Box 1219 Weaverville CA 96093 The first St. Patrick Church and current cemetery were blessed on June 10, 1855 by Father Florian.  The earliest interment is John Florian Todd, who died April 8, 1856; he was the 12 day old son of W. (William) & E. (Eliza) Todd. Approximately 362 of the faithful are buried in our cemetery.   There are many elaborately carved stones of marble or granite, and some graves are also surrounded by iron fences, but many of the graves in our cemetery are unmarked. Some of the larger family plots contain beautiful headstones and footstones and are surrounded by granite copings.  A number of the older gravestones have sustained fire damage from one or more of the fires that have destroyed the church dating back to the first fire in 1859.  Most of the wooden markers were burned in the fire of July 15, 1923, but one or two still remain and some graves are marked with single stones. James Cochran, a pioneer of Trinity County, had been naturalized here in 1855 and had been a miner at Democrat Gulch and then at Weaverville prior to being elected Sheriff of Trinity County in 1866.  He was a native of Ballindrait, County Donegal, Ireland.  While transporting an insane prisoner from Trinity County to Stockton, he was stabbed and killed by that prisoner in Red Bluff while waiting for a steamboat to complete their journey.  Sheriff Cochrane died on March 17, 1868.  He was 33 years old.  He left a widow and 3 children.  Margaret Caton, aged 14 years, was suddenly taken ill and died February 9, 1890.  According to her obituary in the Trinity Journal of February 15, 1890, her funeral was to have taken place on Tuesday, “but owing to a doubt arising in the minds of some of the child’s relatives and friends that life was not really extinct the burial services were postponed to Thursday.”  Ellen Clifford, a survivor of the Bridge Gulch Massacre in 1852, was taken in by the Clifford family and became a nanny for the Clifford, Hocker, and Meckel families of Junction City and Weaverville.  She was very much loved by the children she cared for, and helped care for other children in Weaverville and Junction City after the Meckel children were grown.  She died in 1927. Father Thomas V. Burke was pastor of St. Patrick’s from October 18, 1966 until his death on July 3, 1984.  He was a native of Ballyglass, County Mayo, Ireland.  He is buried close beside the church. A walk through our cemetery will take you back to the early days of Trinity County.  From the inscriptions on the headstones, you will see that many of our pioneer families travelled across oceans to settle here in our beautiful Trinity mountains, to seek their fortunes and raise their families. Thank you Deanna DeAntoni for the many hours of research you put into the history of St. Patrick Cemetery. For a complete list of the approximate 362 faithful buried in our cemetery click here. Office 530-623-4383