High on a hill across the freeway from historic Mission San Juan Capistrano lies a testament to the town’s history – a sacred site little known to most visitors or residents.

The Historic Old Mission Cemetery dates to the 1830s. It contains the gravestones of generations of San Juan’s longest-standing families, descended from early California settlers and from the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians, Acjachemen Nation.

Each year, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange and the Capistrano Historical Alliance Committee join hands to present an annual Mass in honor of the ancestors buried there. This year’s seventh annual Mass, celebrated by Monsignor Michael McKiernan and the Rev. Jimmy Nieblas, was held Saturday. It honored not just those interred but five members of Boy Scout Troop 724 who, through Eagle Scout projects, have been helping the diocese make the cemetery nicer since 2011.

“They and their families have embraced this site,” said Jerry Nieblas, a descendant of the Acjachemen Nation and president of the Historical Alliance Committee. “What we say to each of them when they finish their projects here, they have now become a part of our history. It’s not us and them. They have left their blood – sometimes literally – sweat and tears and many man hours and women hours with their mothers at their sides also contributing to the building up of this cemetery. Several years ago, many of us know, it was in a different state. We can all say we have achieved a lot.”

For his Eagle Scout project, Life Scout Jesse Pickartz, 16, recently stabilized and restored the cemetery’s historic landmark cross.

“Most people didn’t want to take it on because of how unstable it was at the time,” Pickartz said. “I chose to do it because I knew it would last a while and it would help the history of the city.”

He and his friend Michael Trant, 18, spent three months, working weekends, restoring the cross. “We had to take it slow because we didn’t know what would happen,” Pickartz said. “We used supports to hold it up in the event it (collapsed), but it never did.”

In 2011, Troop 724’s Justin Burger built the cemetery’s decorative altar. Burger attends UC Santa Barbara and couldn’t be present. Also recognized but not in attendance was Brendan Luke, a pre-med student in Texas, who built arches in the children’s section of the cemetery.

Andy Gunnemann built a veterans’ memorial, Patrick Mundy contributed meditation benches and Will Cou built the decorative pillars and chain around the children’s section before Pickartz contributed his work on the landmark cross, which Nieblas said dates to the early 1920s. It was erected in the cemetery in the early 1930s, he said, and is the second such cross in the history of the cemetery.

“We thought we would have to negotiate with the diocese to get a new cross,” Nieblas said. “It was eaten up inside and ready to come down. He stabilized the cross. You can’t move it. It will outlive us.”

Contact the writer: fswegles@scng.com or 949-492-5127