Saint Thomas' Anglican Church Cemetery in Belleville, Ontario

About

Get directions 201 Church Street
Belleville, Hastings County, Ontario Canada

Coordinates: 44.16539, -77.38038
Cemetery ID:

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About these numbers These percentages indicate the number of Find a Grave memorials that have a grave photo or GPS coordinates. We don't know the total number of burials in a cemetery, so we cannot calculate a percentage of those with memorials, photos or GPS coordinates.

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For over 180 years, St. Thomas Church has existed in Belleville with its congregation forming on December 26, 1818. It has the honour of having the first public cemetery of the area containing people of the Methodist, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, and Anglican faiths. But with this honour comes a bit of a darker past.

Burials at the St. Thomas Church began in 1821, and ended in 1874 when legislation passed that stopped burials within the city of Belleville due to it being "unhealthful". After being destroyed by fire in 1876 and once again in 1975, the church was rebuilt - but had lost its burial records. In 1989, a decision was made to build a parish hall. To do this, excavation was required of approximately 80 graves. After receiving the correct permits, a group from Northeastern Archaeological Associates was contacted to disinter the remains. Much of the above evidence of previous burials was long obliterated due to the passage of time - and to make matters worse there were no burial records to refer to.

Needless to say, citizens of the area were surprised to find out that there were not 80 graves to move... 579 grave shafts were discovered containing 607 individuals. Most were buried separately, but some were stacked on top of each other. Why would this be? Many theories abound including the towns people suffering through epidemics, and not having the time to bury the dead in individual graves. What ever the reason - this discovery has made St. Thomas's Church Cemetery one of the largest historical cemeteries of its size in North America.