Description of Historic Place

St. Luke’s Cemetery is an old burial site associated with St. Luke’s Presbyterian Church. It is located on a hill on St. Luke Court in the western part of the city of Bathurst.

Heritage Value

St. Luke’s Cemetery is designated a Local Historic Place for attesting to the Scottish origin of many of the region's founding families and for the Dunn family.

St. Luke's Cemetery contains dozens of tombstones dating from the mid-19th century that mark the resting place of many founding families of Scottish origin bearing such names as Wills, Dunn, Rankin, Brown, McDouglas, Molloy, Armstrong, Ferguson, Munro, and Napier. The year 2000 saw the inauguration of a monument commemorating the Scottish presence in Bathurst since the early 19th century and the presence on the site of a Presbyterian church from 1827 to 1915.

St. Luke’s Cemetery is recognized as well for highlighting the presence of the Dunn family in this part of the city. The parents of Sir James Dunn (1874-1956), an important Canadian financier and industrialist in the first half of the 20th century, are buried in this cemetery. The cemetry forms part of a larger section of the city that is closely associated with the Dunn family. James Dunn owned a house nearby and had a house built for his mother in the same area. This section of the city was also the location of the James Hamet Dunn Hospital.

Source: Bathurst Heritage Trust Commission Inc., "St. Luke's Cemetery File"

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements that describe St. Luke’s Cemetery include:
- location on a hill at the end of St. Luke Court in the western part of the city;
- location on the site of the first St. Luke's Presbyterian Church;
- boundaries of the lot as defined by a fence;
- cairn commemorating the Scottish presence in Bathurst;
- the composition of the older tombstones in limestone and sandstone;
- the composition of the newer tombstones being mostly of granite;
- all of the landscaping including trees.