Old Burying Ground

A landscape of graves in the Ground. allanaaa (Atlas Obscura User)

Arch at the entryway

"One remarkable box tomb, which may have been carved by [James] Hay's workshop, is the Bulkeley monument of 1796. Its two end panels depict Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and the Last Judgement Day. The Adam and Eve tableau are a common theme in Scottish grave art, but only two other examples are known to exist in North America." allanaaa (Atlas Obscura User)

Memorial to a wife and multiple young children leighbelle (Atlas Obscura User)

The grave of General John Mergerum, died April 14 1769, showing a cherub's head and wings design. allanaaa (Atlas Obscura User)

The grave of David Ridgman, boatswain, died Oct 20 1819, with interesting decorative detailing. allanaaa (Atlas Obscura User)

The grave of Abner Stowell, died June 26, 1821, with symbols from his Masonic membership: "two columns representing the two pillars of King Solomon's temple; the arch of heaven and of Royal Arch Masonry; the Bible and the square and compass of reason and faith; the keystone containing the letters H T W S S T K S in a circle, an acronym for Hiram The Widow's Son Sent To King Solomon, part of the mythology central to a Masonic degree; the eye of God; the three lesser lights of the lodge - the son, moon and worshipful Master of the Lodge; and the seven stars - the number needed to make a perfect lodge. There is also a ladder, probably representing advancement in Masonic knowledge and the three steps of life; an ark, a winged hourglass, a 'Y', a flaming lamp and an anchor." allanaaa (Atlas Obscura User)

The grave of Nathanael Peirse, died Jan 26 1755, Mary, and Abigail - exemplifying the earlier gravestone designs of skulls and bones (as well as some restorative work). allanaaa (Atlas Obscura User)

The Old Burying Ground, a National Heritage Site, is one of the older cemeteries in Canada, and the first (and for a while, only) cemetery in Halifax. First established in 1749 with the founding of the settlement, the non-denominational graveyard stopped accepting bodies in 1844—i.e. before many Canadian cities were founded.

The small lot on Barrington, on the south edge of the downtown core, holds a reported 12,000 bodies, only 1,300 of which are represented by haphazardly placed gravestones. The Old Burying Ground Foundation has been restoring the site since the 1980s.

Interpretive signage created by the Foundation explains not just the history of the site but some context for the gravestones: older and more stark designs (skulls and bones) give way to later, more metaphoric imagery such as wings, cherubs’ heads, and weeping willows (and urns, strangely). While there are no mausoleums—only box tombs, headstones, and table tombs—the masonry has “outstanding artistic merit,” according to some scholars.

Other studies detail the history of this cemetery at the edge of the original settlement, badly planned and swallowed up by urbanity. Thomas Haliburton, circa 1835, reportedly described the Old Burying Ground as ”a nasty dirty horrid lookin’ buryin’ ground there - it’s filled with large grave rats as big as kittens, and the springs of black water there, go through the chinks of the rocks and flow into all the wells and fairly pyson the folks - it’s a dismal place, I tell you.”

Perhaps the most notable interment is Major General Robert Ross, responsible for the barely-effective yet oft-cited burning of the White House in 1814. He died in Baltimore, in the Battle of North Point; his body was shipped home in a barrel of rum, and interred with great ceremony. Meanwhile, the most interesting gravestone is easily that of Abner Stowell, mason.

The cemetery was immortalized (as “Old St John’s Cemetery”) as Anne Shirley’s refuge in Anne of the Island, as she copes with city life in Kingsport (Halifax) during her university years:

“Every citizen of Kingsport feels a thrill of possessive pride in Old St. John’s, for, if he be of any pretensions at all, he has an ancestor buried there, with a queer, crooked slab at his head, or else sprawling protectively over the grave, on which all the main facts of his history are recorded. For the most part no great art or skill was lavished on those old tombstones. The larger number are of roughly chiselled brown or gray native stone, and only in a few cases is there any attempt at ornamentation. Some are adorned with skull and cross-bones, and this grizzly decoration is frequently coupled with a cherub’s head. Many are prostrate and in ruins. Into almost all Time’s tooth has been gnawing, until some inscriptions have been completely effaced, and others can only be deciphered with difficulty.”

The Foundation’s documentation of buried people, as well as notable burials, is ongoing, but you can check out their website for the database so far.

cemeteries