Description of Historic Place

The Old Methodist Cemetery is located in a clearing at the area known as Hannam’s Garden, in a wooded area, alongside a footpath to Rowsell’s Island, in the Town of Leading Tickles. It is a small, fenced cemetery and includes three individually fenced grave plots and less than ten extant headstones. The Municipal Heritage Land designation includes all the area of the cemetery land fenced in at the time of designation.

Heritage Value

The Old Methodist Cemetery is significant for its historic and aesthetic values.

The Old Methodist Cemetery has historic value as the second oldest cemetery in the Town of Leading Tickles, and because of its connection with the Methodist/United Church congregation in the community. The cemetery appears to have been in use as a burial ground through the mid 1900s.

The cemetery’s headstones’ inscriptions have value as historic records. Five of the remaining legible stones commemorate members of the Chippett family while the others commemorate two women named Rowsell, another family long associated with the area. Both are surnames long connected with the Leading Tickles area.

The Old Methodist Cemetery has aesthetic value because its location along an historically used footpath towards Rowsell’s Island and its traditional appearance evoke the early twentieth century. Its surviving white marble headstones are typical of the period in their style and material. Three instances of traditional type grave plot fencing consisting of low, wooden, white-painted pickets also remain. In typical fashion, the cemetery is grassy and entirely surrounded by wooden fencing. These elements combine to make the cemetery a distinctive cultural landscape feature.

Source: Source: Motion #07-66, Town Council Meeting Minutes, Town of Leading Tickles, 2007/07/20

Character-Defining Elements

Physical elements connected to the historic value of the site including:

-location along old path;
-type (tablet), materials (marble) and placement of extant headstones;
-type (picket), materials (wood) and placement of extant grave plot boundary fencing;
-natural, grassy topography;
-and wooden fencing surrounding cemetery.