Specifically in 1578 these missionaries started their work in the area in the vicinities of Majayjay as base and spread to neighboring places, NAGCARLAN, was their next territory. The town according to a local town origin is named after a certain woman referred to by early inhabitants as Nanang Clara. She was a rich and generous benefactress and in the course of time she was known as Ana Kalang which in turn was corrupted to "Nang Clara"..

The territory is situated in irregular terrain on the north by the northwest lower side portion of Mount San Cristobal and between the rivers of Abo and San Diego.

In 1583, the town, was formalized by the Franciscan missionary Fr. Tomas de Miranda, the Spanish priest who held the distinction of having brought from Spain the first seed of wheat that ever sowed in the Philippine soil. The missionary to take of the place was Fray Diego de Aponte together with the town's first gobernadorcillo, Gaspar Cahupa, who was appointed by the Alcalde Mayor of Laguna, Don Juan Banol. Although the pueblo was already constituted, it did not have a regular parish priest.

It was only in 1752 or more than one and a half century later that a big church was constructed of stone and bricks with a cross like from under the supervision of Fr. Cristobal Torres, who was also the parish priest. In 1784, the church was burned but was immediately repaired.

In 1845, the town began to have some more improvements under the direction of Fr. Vicente Velloc, Franciscan friar (some documents and artifacts, like the inscriptions on the church, big bells, spell the name "Velloc", "Belloc"). The town then had about 1,500 houses built of wood, but mostly of bamboos by some 10,775 inhabitants who paid their tributes. The priest reconstructed and refurnished the whole church, built a large parochial convent and later, instituted two primary schools supported from coffers of the church.

Mindful of the health of the people, the decrees and cannon laws of the church, he constructed a large cemetary about two kilometers south of the poblacion. He took advantage of the uneven terrain, the area and included the building of the underground portion known as "crypt" (not catacomb ref. The Times Journal, Sept. 24, 1981, p. 5).

The cemetery facing the road that leads to the poblacion, has an arched entrance of about 18 feet high and two iron-gate grills. Opposite the gate across the width of the grassy and gravely path both side of which is lined with cypress trees. Of about six feet is the cemetery chapel topped with a tower liked structure with a niche for statue and iron cross. The chapel is like a grand niche built into the cemetery so that its facade is aligned with the cemetary walls where the above ground niches numbering 240, 120 on each side are located and its body extends towards the outer lines of the periphery of walls.

The chapel is used as the last station for the funeral rites before entombing the dead. Of Baroque style, it has windows on each side covered with wrought iron grills. The ceiling is wooden revealing singular seraphic and design characteristic of the religious order to which the builder, Father Vicente Velloc, belonged. The altar is intricately carved wood, is of the same style. The flooring is old red tiles with red and blue porcelain tiles that served as a foot high paneling around the inside lower portion of the walls. The chapel is without pews or furniture except a coffin stand. Right under the floor of the chapel is a crypt to which a passage located at, and towards the right side of its door. To this crypt, two flights of stairs, the first one of nine steps leads to a landing above which was a Spanish inscriptions now illegible, which a prominent member of the Nagcarlan Historical Commitee has previously recorded and translated. It reads:

Going down the second flight of stairs of six steps leads to the crypt proper or the underground portion of the cemetery. This is lit by there small iron grilled windows that open towards the outside ground at the ground level. These are just below the ceiling of the crypt. Arrange into rows on the four walls are 36 niches where the dead of the town's privelidge are buried.

This cemetery according to the early church historian in 1901 is the only one of its kind in the entire philippines.