A walk among the gravestones

By Joel Wittnebel/The Oshawa Express

Many things go unseen in a graveyard.

The ornate headstones tell nothing of the hands that created them, just like what lies beneath them tells nothing of the lives lived before this final resting place was filled.

In Oshawa, pioneer cemeteries are dotted throughout the municipality. The burial grounds of some of the city’s earliest settlers are filled with a history unknown to many, a history of the people that built this city from a small settlement to a booming metropolis.

And that is all the more reason to respect the histories of these places.

“It’s about the people, because the people came, cleared the land, built the house and now we’re taking down the house and clearing the land again,” says Diane Stephen, the chair of Heritage Oshawa.

In the same way heritage lovers much respect the driving force of development, it is important that the respect is mutual.

“The people buried here have all played a role, one way or another, in developing the Oshawa that we see today,” says Jennifer Weymark, archivist for Oshawa Museum.

Recently, the City of Oshawa recognized three of these burial sites for their historical merits. Now, The Oshawa Express has dug a little deeper to learn the histories of these notable places.

God’s Acre

The final home for some of Oshawa’s most influential residents, the Pioneer Memorial Garden Cemetery at 185-201 Bond Street West has received recognition over the years for being a place far from what one would expect of a graveyard.

Dubbed “God’s Acre,” a Heritage Oshawa report on the cemetery describes the 130-gravestone arrangement as “an oasis piece in the middle of the city.”

The land was originally owned by John Warren, owner of the Warren Mill which previously sat on the Oshawa Creek – the parking garage at the corner of King Street West and McMillan Street stands there now – who later sold it to the church.

“It is one of Oshawa’s earliest cemeteries,” says Weymark. “We see a lot of different motifs in that one than any of other cemeteries throughout the Oshawa area.”

While many of the gravestones date back to before 1850, records indicate the land was used as a burial ground prior to 1847, making it the home of some of the city’s earliest gravestones. Prior to the 19th century and the popularization of large cemeteries, loved ones were either buried on a family property or, more commonly, on church property.

In 1945, the cemetery was cleaned up and the gravestones arranged in a star-shaped cairn that can be seen there today in the center of the property.

Other notable burials also include that of John Ritson, one of Oshawa’s earliest settlers; members of the Luke family, who started what would become the MacIntosh Anderson Kellam (MAK) funeral home that still operates today, along with operating a furniture business and newspaper; and George Lovell, an early member of the family behind Oshawa’s Lovell Drugs.

Early builders of Columbus

As those building what would become the core of Oshawa were buried in town, those further north responsible for what is now the Village of Columbus were buried in two notable spots – the Methodist Cemetery and the Bible Christian Cemetery located at 65 and 39 Columbus Road East respectively.

The Bible Christian cemetery, the earlier of the two, contains approximately 91 gravestones dating between 1818 and 1920, while the graves in the Methodist Cemetery begin around 1845 and end in 1927.

Akin to God’s Acre, these sites represent the final resting places of may of the big contributors to the villages early beginnings.

The gravestones are also a testament to the local craftsmanship and artistic talent of the time, with many containing detailed motifs.

“Our early cemeteries have some amazing motifs and works of art, Weymark says.

“You can go and research and wander through and look at some really, really beautiful carvings.”

These sites are also genealogical resources for families or researchers looking to learn more about the life and death patterns of an earlier time and can also be an indicator of major health crises or epidemics that may have swept through a population, or at the other end of the spectrum, be a tracker for a population boom.

It’s for that reason the city decided to honour these places with plaques to display their historical importance and perhaps remind residents of their roots.

“I just think it’s really, really important,” says Stephen. “We remember our own families and we celebrate them and go to their graves occasionally…So why not the city and the community do that too and honour them.”