- Mount Royal Cemetery
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Mount Royal Cemetery 
Mount Royal Cemetery Gate in 1895
Details Year established 1852 Country Canada Location Outremont, Montreal Type Protestant cemetery, now non-denominational Size 165 acres (67 ha) Number of graves 162,000 Website Official website National Historic Site of CanadaDesignated: 1999 Opened in 1852, Mount Royal Cemetery is a 165-acre (668 000 m²) terraced cemetery on the north slope of Mount Royal in the borough of Outremont, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The burial ground shares the mountain with the much larger adjacent Roman Catholic cemetery -- Cimetière Notre-Dame-des-Neiges. Mount Royal Cemetery is now bordered on the southeast by Mount Royal Park, on the west by Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery and on the north by two Jewish cemeteries.
Mount Royal Cemetery is in operation and even the old portion of the cemetery still has some burial sites available.[1]
Contents
History and description
In the middle of the 1800's, the cemeteries located downtown needed space desperately. Concerned with epidemics and public health issues, these cemeteries had to be developed elsewhere.The Protestant community of Montreal purchased, in 1851, a section of Mount Royal that belonged to Dr. Michael McCulloch.
The Mount Royal Cemetery, one of the first rural cemeteries in North America, was incorporated in 1847 under an Act of the Provincial Parliament of Canada. Following the trend of the American rural cemetery movement, the purpose of choosing land on the mountain was to use the natural surroundings to combine horticulture and commemoration in perpetuity. The original landscaping plan laid out the site in a series of terraces which followed the natural curves of the mountain. It was consecrated June 8, 1854 by the Anglican Bishop Francis Fulford, after the first burial of Reverend William Squire, a Methodist Minister, on October 19th, 1852.
Administered by 21 Trustees elected as representatives of the six founding denominations, it is open to persons of all faiths and races. There are areas for war veterans, sailors, and various benevolent organizations that purchased lots subsidized by The Mount Royal Cemetery Company. The St. Andrew's Society, one such organization, buried 15 Scottish casualties who were aboard the steamboat "Montreal" when she caught fire and sank near Quebec City in 1857.[2]
In 1862, ten years after the opening of Mount Royal Cemetery, the entrance gates were built in the early English Gothic style of architecture.
Mount Royal Cemetery contains more than 162,000 interments and is the final resting place for a number of notable Canadians. It includes a veterans section with several soldiers who were awarded the British Empire's highest military honour, the Victoria Cross. In 1901 the Mount Royal Cemetery Company established the first crematorium in Canada.
Historically used by members of the English-speaking community and those of Protestant faiths, the cemetery is now non-sectarian and open to all. Several small Jewish cemeteries are also located in or nearby Mount Royal Cemetery: Congregation Shaar Hashomayim Cemetery, Spanish and Portuguese-Shearith Israel and Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom (Westmount, Quebec) [1].
The cemetery was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1999 as an example of "Exceptional 19th-century cemetery design and aesthetics." A plaque indicating the cemetery's historic status was erected in 2002.[3][4]
Mount Royal Crematory
The first crematory in Canada was built by Sir Andrew Taylor (Architect) in 1901 on the eastern side of the Mount Royal Cemetery property with funds donated by Sir William Christopher Macdonald, a well-known tobacco tycoon and great philanthropist. This building is the oldest of its kind in the country and it remained the only crematorium in Quebec until 1975. The first cremation took place on April 18, 1902. Built with Montreal limestone, the original building had a chapel, a room for the cremation chambers, a large winter storage vault and a conservatory filled with exotic plants. In the 1950’s, for maintenance reasons, the conservatory was demolished but the original chapel, on the left of the building, is still intact with a beautiful hand made mosaic floor.[5]
Notable interments
A few of the prominent people interred in the cemetery are:
- Sir John Abbott (1821-1893), Prime Minister of Canada
- Hugh Allan (1810-1882), financier and shipping magnate
- H. Montagu Allan (1860-1951), businessman, Hockey Hall of Fame member
- Richard Bladworth Angus (1831-1922), banker
- Robert Mitchell Ballantyne (1859-1929), businessman
- William Thomas Benson (1824-1885), businessman, politician
- Frank Calder (1877-1943), National Hockey League executive
- George Caverhill (1858-1937), businessman
- Sir Arthur Currie (1875-1933), First World War military commander, educator
- J. William Dawson (1820-1899), scientist, educator
- George Mercer Dawson (1849-1901), scientist
- Joseph Doutre (1825-1886), lawyer, writer, major adversary of Quebec Catholicism
- William Dow (1800-1868), brewer and businessman
- George Alexander Drummond (1829-1910), entrepreneur
- Edith Maude Eaton (1865-1914), author, a.k.a. "Sui Sin Far"
- Charles Edward Frosst (1867-1948), pharmaceuticals manufacturer
- Sir Alexander Galt (1817-1893), businessman, statesman, Father Of Confederation
- Horatio Gates (1777-1834), businessman, statesman
- Andrew Frederick Gault (1833-1903), merchant, industrialist, and philanthropist
- Samuel Gerrard (1767-1857), businessman
- Hugh Graham, 1st Baron Atholstan (1848-1938), newspaper publisher
- Charles Melville Hays (1856-1912), Grand Trunk Railway executive and Titanic victim
- Charles Heavysege (1816-1876), author, poet
- Alexander Henderson (1831-1913), merchant and photographer
- Herbert Samuel Holt (1856-1941), financier
- Charles Rudolph Hosmer (1851-1927), miller
- C. D. Howe (1886-1960), American-born politician and engineer
- Anna Leonowens (1834-1915), Governess at the Court of Siam, founder of Nova Scotia College of Art and Design
- William C. Macdonald (1831-1917), tobacco manufacturer, philanthropist
- Dugald Lorn MacDougall (1811-1885), stockbroker, investor
- Allan McCarthy (1957-1995), musician, Men Without Hats
- John Wilson McConnell (1877-1963), publisher, philanthropist
- David Ross McCord (1844-1930), lawyer, philanthropic founder of the McCord Museum
- William King McCord (1803-1858), jurist, philanthropist
- Peter McGill (1789-1860), businessman, municipal politician
- Duncan McIntyre (1834-1894), businessman
- Hugh Mackay (1832-1890), businessman
- Robert Mackay (1840-1916), businessman, statesman
- Robert Meighen (1837-1911), businessman
- Charles Meredith (1854-1928), President of the Montreal Stock Exchange
- Frederick Edmund Meredith (1862-1941), Chancellor of Bishop's University
- Sir Vincent Meredith (1850-1929), 1st Baronet of Montreal, President of the Bank of Montreal
- William Campbell James Meredith (1904-1960), Dean of Law at McGill University
- Shadrach Minkins (1815?-1875), American-born fugitive slave rescued from federal custody in Boston in 1851.
- Hartland Molson (1907-2002), brewing magnate, World War II fighter pilot, statesman
- John Molson (1763-1836), brewing tycoon
- Howie Morenz (1902-1937), Hall of Fame ice hockey player
- Henry Morgan (1819-1893), opened first department store in Canada
- Arthur Deane Nesbitt (1910-1978), decorated soldier of World War II, stockbroker
- Arthur J. Nesbitt (1880-1954), cofounder of Nesbitt Thomson & Co. and Power Corporation of Canada
- J. Aird Nesbitt (1907-1985), owner/operator of Ogilvy's department store in Montreal
- Alexander Walker Ogilvie (1829-1902), miller, statesman
- William Watson Ogilvie (1835-1900) miller
- Frank L. Packard (1877-1942), mystery writer
- Ward Chipman Pitfield 1892-1939 World War I officer, Founder: Pitfield, McKay & Ross Investment Dealers
- John Redpath (1796-1869), contractor, built the first sugar refinery in Canada
- Robert Reford (1831-1913), entrepreneur and philanthropist
- Robert Wilson Reford (1867-1951), shipping executive, artist, photographer
- Mordecai Richler (1931-2001), author
- James Ross (1848-1913), railway engineer, businessman, philanthropist
- Philip Simpson Ross (1827-1907), founder of the Order of Chartered Accountants of Quebec
- Anne Savage (1896-1971), painter and art teacher
- F. R. Scott (1899-1985), scholar
- Denis Stairs (1889-1980), Chairman, Montreal Engineering Co.
- George Washington Stephens (1832-1904), businessman, lawyer, politician, philanthropist
- Harrison Stephens (1801-1881), American-born merchant
- David Thompson (1770-1857), surveyor and explorer
- David Torrance (1805-1876), merchant, banker
- John Torrance (1786-1870), merchant, shipper
- Jocelyn Gordon Whitehead(Unknown-1954), the man who sucker punched Harry Houdini who died of the injury.
- William Watson (c.1795-1867), miller, businessman, politician
- Thomas Workman (1813-1889), businessman, politician, philanthropist
- William Workman (1807-1878), businessman and municipal politician
- John Young, (1811-1878), entrepreneur, statesman
- Walter P. Zeller (1890-1957), founder of Zellers.
References
- ^ http://www.mountroyalcem.com/index.php/en/about-us/history.html
- ^ http://www.mountroyalcem.com/index.php/en/about-us/history.html
- ^ "Mount Royal Cemetery". Directory of Designations of National Historic Significance of Canada. Parks Canada. http://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/lhn-nhs/det_E.asp?oqSID=1884&oqeName=Mount+Royal+Cemetery&oqfName=Cimeti%E8re+Mont%2DRoyal. Retrieved August 15, 2011.
- ^ Mount Royal Cemetery. Canadian Register of Historic Places. Retrieved August 15, 2011.
- ^ http://www.mountroyalcem.com/index.php/en/about-us/history.html
External links
See also
- Mount Royal Park
National Historic Sites of Canada by locationProvinces Territories Northwest Territories · Nunavut · YukonOther countries FranceCategories:- Cemeteries in Montreal
- 1852 establishments in Canada
- Anglican cemeteries
- Lutheran cemeteries
- Protestant Reformed cemeteries
- Jewish cemeteries
- Mount Royal
- National Historic Sites in Quebec
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