September 2024
Cemeteries are like a window to the past and a reflection on the temporary nature of life. From peaceful gardens to majestic sculptures, cemeteries are only the final resting places for the deceased, but also sites of great architectural beauty and cultural significance.
Walking through the rows of gravestones, you can see the names, and sometime photos, of people who once lived in the area, or at least had a connection to the area. They lived and they died, some long lives and some short. You can sometimes find generations of a family, all buried near each other.
Older cemeteries will contain the mortal remains of some of the earliest settlers of an area, with some of gravestones featuring the names of prominent families that helped make the community what they are today.
Modern cemeteries are often well cared for, with cemetery corporations or municipalities actively maintaining the grounds. Older pioneer cemeteries, ones that have long since been closed to burials, can often fall into neglect and ruination. Cemeteries that were associated with a church that has long-since disappeared, especially in rural areas, are often left to the farces of nature and vandals. The wind erases the names of older sandstone gravestones that haven’t been knocked over by vandals; the vegetation grows higher and higher around the stones, sometimes completely covering the one that have fallen off their mounts.
Wilson’s Hill Cemetery, found in a rural part of the southern Ontario Town of Bradford West Gwillimbury, is one such pioneer cemetery that has been restored to a presentable state after years of abandonment and neglect.
This cemetery, located on a hilltop, is the final resting place of 300 to 500 people, including some notable pioneer families from the early days of Simcoe County. The land was deeded in 1858 as a cemetery by the United Presbyterian Church, although the first recorded burial was in 1839.
The markers at Wilson’s Hill also provide a visual representation of the harshness of pioneer life, when lives were generally much shorter than today, especially for children, with at least 58 children under five years of age buried in the cemetery.
Many of the burial records have been lost in the two centuries since the cemetery’s founding, so uncovering the markers that were removed and buried is vital to honoring those who would otherwise be forgotten. Without a stone, even a faded one, nobody remembers their lives or even names.
Headed up by local residents Tracey Melidy, Vaughan Harris and Louis Theriault, the restoration of Wilson’s Hill Cemetery has been an ongoing project since 2017, continuing the work of Neil McBride, who headed up efforts to rehabilitate the cemetery until his death in 1984.
Some of the earliest settlers in the the Bradford West Gwillimbury area can be found buried in Wilson’s Hill Cemetery, including Dinwoody, McBride, Kirk, Harper and Duff families. Just two notable internments are:
Marguerite McBride Kirk was buried in the cemetery in 1882, having drowned when the steamship Asia sank in a storm on Georgian Bay.
Bert Harper, a journalist and politician and son of Cookstown merchant Henry Harper, died in 1901 while skating on the Ottawa River. Harper drowned trying to rescue a girl who had fallen through thin ice.
Harper’s close friend, future prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, arranged for the erection of a memorial to his friend, the Harper Memorial, in the form of a statue of Sir Galahad, the chivalrous medieval knight. The Harper Memorial can be found along Wellington Street, in front of Parliament Hill.
Sources: History buffs solve the puzzles of Wilson’s Hill pioneer cemetery – Barrie News (barrietoday.com), Project looks to uncover buried history (simcoe.com), Harper Memorial (Sir Galahad) – Canada.ca.
