Your Number's Up! Resurrected Traditional Cache

This is an original Arse & Hemi cache hidden April 29, 2006. As brand new geocachers in 2011, we loved the intrigue of finding this cache. After several adoptions, this geocache finally died.

We are very pleased to resurrect and revive this fun geocache near the palatial vineyards of the Napa Valley.

Pioneer Cemetery was permanently established as a cemetery in 1885. It is set among Valley Oaks and wild vinca vines. We wanted to highlight a few residents that are buried here.

A woman by the name of Susan A. Reid is buried here. She was born in Mason County, Kentucky in 1815 to a well-to-do farmer and his wife. Her father, Lewis, had befriended a young man with whom he felt a political kinship. At 21, Susan would experience her first serious courtship. According to Susan, “They often talked politics by the hour.” She did not love this young man and eventually turned down his proposal of marriage. That young man’s name was Abraham Lincoln. She did later marry a William Putnam Boyce, with whom she had three children. She was buried here in 1907.

One of the more famous names associated with historic Calistoga is that of the Cyrus family.  In 1846, the Cyrus and Graves families headed west from Illinois with John, then 15, known to have already taken a liking to Lovina, 12. Each traveled with their respective families, though due to the slow-moving nature of wagon train travel of the day, crossing rivers and mountains, they were not always in close proximity. They were able to see each other from time to time, and when Lovina’s family were among those trapped in the Sierra Nevadas during a harsh winter storm, John volunteered in the first relief party. He would find Lovina alive and they would marry in June of 1856. Lovina was one of 48 persons to survive the ill-fated Donner-Reed Party. She lived to be 72 and was buried here just 3 months after the iconic San Francisco earthquake of 1906.

By Anne Ward Ernst editor of WeeklyCalistogan