Cemetery Watch

Thursday, July 17, 2008

There are two cemeteries on watch at the moment. The Melville Church is up for sale. There is a cemetery attached to it on the south side. Inquiries made by the Chair of the York Branch indicates that there is an application to sever the cemetery from the church. Hopefully that goes through and there is no danger of the cemetery being destroyed or harmed.
The other cemetery is actually an old burial site. The Starr Family Burying Ground. There is a townhouse complex proposed in the general area of the site. We don't know exactly where the burial is as it is very old and overgrown. With luck the development will not affect it. We only know that it is very close to the site. A little research should shed some light.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Made a trip to the Elman Campbell Museum in Newmarket and spoke with Paul, who is also with the Newmarket Historical Society and Newmarket Heritage. Seems there are actually two burial sites in the general vicinity where we have the Starr. The Starr might be an actual cemetery that was there over 100 years ago, probably serving the Bogart Town community. The other is the Gorham Family site. Will probably have to do some more research on that one, but it looks like the townhouse will be just east of one and north of the other, so they should be safe, but we will keep an eye on them.

The NHS is also trying to gather information to try to get the House of Industry Cemetery, which is currently just a cairn, designated as a protected site. There are subdivisions being built all around it and it does need to be protected.