Graveyard tales

Fallen gravestones that had at one point been littering South Bay Cemetery were gathered up in the ’60s in a cleanup effort, and laid into cement at the entrance to the graveyard. An unwise choice, according to PEHAC. Years of pooling water, weeds and lichen have worn away at the stones, and they are in far worse condition now than their contemporary stones which remain standing.

Heritage Advisory Committee seeks to designate South Bay cemetery as a cultural resource

Dead men, it seems, do tell tales. Later this month or early next year the Prince Edward Heritage Advisory Committee will be recommending the designation of South Bay Cemetery, situated a couple hundred meters south of the Mariner’s Museum, as a County heritage resource.

The South Bay Cemetery would be the fourth cemetery in the County to receive a heritage designation, after the Rose Cemetery, the Glenwood cemetery, and the cemetery on the property of White Chapel in Hallowell ward, which was designated by council in late November.

Its heritage value comes from the sailors who have been buried there and the folk tales of their lives and deaths that have survived.

Among the cemetery’s residents is Henry Selleck, who was found on the County’s shores in the mid-1800s, hands bruised and beaten. The story goes that two brothers from New York that were travelling with Selleck and another man when their ship sank. Selleck and the brothers all held on to a hatch cover, but when the brothers realized the weight of three men was too much, they beat his hands until he let go, and they made it safely to shore.

The cemetery is also the resting place of Jackson Bongard, a captain of a fishing vessel who shared responsibility for manning a lifesaving station at Point Traverse. One morning, after a lumber ship had capsized in the night, Bongard, along with a man named ‘Black’ Solomon Mouck who owned a tavern at the point, rescued all but two of the people on board. Both men earned a silver watch from the Dominion of Canada for marine bravery. Bongard is buried there along with Minerva McCrimmon, the inspiration for County artist Suzanne Pasternak’s 2000 folk opera, Minerva. McCrimmon saved her entire crew of 21 men, all of them from the County, when their boat ran aground at Four Mile Point in New York.

Pasternak has long been an advocate of the cemetery and is tickled about the recommendation.

“I think it’s fantastic. It’s a cemetery that has a very important part in our marine history, that’s for sure,” said Pasternak. “I don’t mean ‘our’ meaning the County, I mean ‘our’ meaning Ontario. Canada.”

The Cemetery Advisory Board for the County has gotten some flak for the poor maintenance at South Bay Cemetery. Stones that have cracked, fallen over or been vandalized lie where they fell. Overgrown shrubbery and fallen trees overtake graves at the back end of the cemetery. At the entrance, rows of previously fallen graves lie faceup, exposed to the elements. With each passing year the freeze and thaw erodes the etchings, and in some cases, it’s impossible to recognize a grave marker on the worn stones behind the lichen and dirt and overgrown grass and weeds.

The board will be rectifying this by creating a maintenance standard, so that the same treatment will be given to all cemeteries. Grass cutting, brush removal, and righting of stones will have a set procedure. The stones laid at the entrance to South Bay Cemetery will be righted and cleaned to protect them from further wear, though it’s not clear yet where they will stand.