The Wellington County Museum and Archives is breathing new life into a pauper’s cemetery that has long been hidden away, but not forgotten.
On June 27, the museum will host an official opening ceremony of the graveyard located on the northside of Wellington County Road 18 between here and Elora and just east of the museum near the trestle bridge. The ceremony will take place at 3pm.
The cemetery, nestled in a grove of spruce trees, is the final resting place of 271 people who died while working at, what was then known as, the House of Industry or Poor House between its opening in 1877 and closure in 1946. Gone are the wooden crosses that once marked the graves and metal markers that replaced the crosses. The trees were planted as more natural markers along the three rows of graves where men, women and children are buried.
“It is a cemetery like no other,” the ceremony invitation issued by the museum states.
That sentiment is shared by exhibit curator Susan Dunlop interviewed by the Advertiser at the site late last week. Dunlop and other museum staff have sifted through the records of those who lived, worked and died at the house of industry and have uncovered some telling details about the hardships faced.
The house was operated by the county during the time period and offered shelter to some 1,500 people considered “destitute” by society standards, Dunlop said.
“Some stayed for a short time and some their whole lives,” she said. “Some were old and infirm, suffered from mental challenges, tuberculosis, lung disease, heart conditions.”
“If you didn’t have family to care for you, you became one of the destitute,” Dunlop said of the people who came to the house and those who would eventually die there.
Six hundred died while at the house with 271 buried on site because they had no family members to claim them or money for a proper burial.
“These people were the unclaimed. They had nobody or their family was too poor,” she said of the people buried there.
Two thirds of those buried were men and one third women with about 10 children buried there. The numbers represent the population of the residents who inhabited the house of industry. Many of the men were farm labourers “who moved from job to job” before ending up at the house because of personal circumstances, according to the curator.
The house operated as a working farm to supply food to residents who planted and harvested the crops and lived within its massive stone walls.
“It was a self sufficient farm,” Dunlop said
The exhibit will include the names of those buried at the cemetery and some brief histories about them derived from records. Among the exhibits is one about “the notorious Jane Lewis,” she said.
Lewis ended up at the house having been part of a Toronto-based gang. Her story unfolds after another woman, 26-year-old Elizabeth Robertson, came to the house.
“She was destitute and pregnant and entered the house in 1878,” records, compiled by Dr. Abraham Groves who was the doctor who served residents, stated.
“She gave birth to the first baby born at the house, Wellington Robertson. The mother died shortly after giving birth from congestion of the lungs. Wellington was very frail and died 11 months after his birth from convulsions. They exhumed his mother’s grave and buried him with her.”
Lewis, according to Dunlop, cared for the child until his death.
The first baby to be buried at cemetery was six weeks’ premature, according to Groves record entry April 25, 1884.
“The infant, Martha Gabe, was born prematurely, and being unable to assimilate sufficient nourishment, gradually sank in spite of the motherly care and attention…of the matron. Its own mother being weak minded was not fit to be trusted with its management,” Groves noted.
In another entry Groves noted, “Hugh McDermott (died 17 June 1885, age 74 –accident) – he had been discharged and was on his way to the railway station when he was struck by a train, and sustained such injuries that he died in a few hours…he was brought to the house after the accident.”
Another story from Groves’ records is about 45-year-old Janet Wells who suffered from paralysis and died on December 24, 1892.
“Janet Wells when admitted was quite helpless, being unable to feed herself or even speak, but with (great) care she improved until a second attack of paralysis came on, when she quietly passed away.”
“Dunlop noted that references by the doctor referred to many of the patients as “physical wrecks.”
Dunlop said museum staff hope the exhibit, based on information that has been gathered over the past 10 years, will open up a part of history that has not received the recognition it deserves.
