By Corinne P. Sze, Ph.D. for the Fairview Cemetary Preservation
Association During the Spanish Colonial and Mexican periods
(1598-1846), Roman Catholicism was the only non-Indian religion
openly practiced in New Mexico. Early religious burials were
within churches or in their immediate vicinity. Later graveyards
were established at a farther distance. After New Mexico became
part of the United States, a more diverse population began to
settle in Santa Fe, including Protestant missionaries, although
Protestant churches were not permanently established until after
the Civil War.(6) Jews had arrived early on the New Mexico
frontier but did not organize a congregation in Santa Fe until
the 1950s.(7) In the early American period and into the
twentieth century, benevolent, fraternal organizations united
people of various national, ethnic, and religious origins,
providing many of the rituals of organized religion in Santa Fe,
as elsewhere on the frontier. The Masons and the Odd Fellows
established their first New Me