The International Rabbit 8/26/2010

People's Cemetery
by Janet Iles

Four days before Christmas 1883, Robert Lethbridge purchased a plot at People’s Cemetery, Owen Sound. Who had died? The certificate of sale and purchase, no. 740 does not answer the question.

To answer the question, you need to know first that People’s Cemetery no longer goes by that name. In 1858, the town of Owen Sound moved the community cemetery from Union Street east of the Garafraxa Road (now known as 8th Street east of 9th Avenue East). The new site was on the edge of town at the Fourth Division of Lot no. 14 in Concession 1 of Derby Township. It was named People’s Cemetery because the Town had to borrow funds from the people to make the purchase. William Wye Smith in the Gazetteer and Directory of the County of Grey for 1865-66 described it as follows:

It is well fenced; and, being naturally a very fine piece of round, is becoming an attractive spot for the visits of the living, as well as a beautiful and quiet resting-place for the dead.

Before I headed to the cemetery, I checked the cemetery plan http://www.owensound.ca/cemetery/internments.php to find the section where Robert Lethbridge, Jr. had purchased the plot. The information on finding a lot said that the ranges are counted in an easterly direction. Armed with this information I went to the cemetery to answer the question triggered by the lot purchase papers.

At the cemetery, I located question Q of the North East Extension. I counted the rows. I soon discovered that the lots were counted from south to north.

I found Roberts’ stone. Robert had died in 1907 and his wife Agnes McAllister in 1911. The rest of the names on the monument were later deaths. None of these were from 1883.

To the north, there was a small white stone. Named on it was Elizabeth, beloved wife of Donald McAllister, who had died December 20, 1883. I had found the answer to my question who had died.

At home, I did a search of the Greenwood Cemetery on-line database http://www.owensound.ca/cemetery/internments.pdf for Robert Lethbridge to see who else was buried in lot number 4, range 3 in Block Q in the North East Section of the People’s Cemetery. There are 12 burials in the database for this lot. Because of privacy laws burials that are from less than 30 years ago are not included. Therefore Herbert is not listed in the database. Some are shown as east and some as west. Several graves spots are double burials. Robert and Agnes are shown as east. Elizabeth is shown as west. If you look at the photo of the monument, you soon realize that not all the burials are accounted for on the stones. There is nothing on the backside of either Robert Lethbridge’s stone or that of Elizabeth McAllister. There are only two Lethbridges. The rest are McAllisters. Did the $8.00 that Robert paid in 1883, provide for all these spaces?

Using census records and marriage and death records on Ancestry.ca , I decided that Elizabeth McAllister was the sister-in-law of Agnes McAllister, wife of Robert Lethbridge, Jr.

The Bruce-Grey Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society has prepared a transcription of the monuments at Greenwood Cemetery. The city has also had the records to about 1990, microfilmed. The microfilm is available for viewing at the Owen Sound & North Grey Union Public Library. The Robert Lethbridge, Jr. documents shown above are also at the library. This is the only one of that nature there.

Although no longer called the People’s Cemetery, Greenwood Cemetery strives to be a welcoming place for the living. You will see people out for a walk, riding their bicycles and visiting the various memorials. Three self-guided tours are available with information about some of those who are remembered at the “People’s Cemetery”.