Kearn’s Anglican Church Cemetery
Also known as: Kearns, Church of England
Also known as: Patterson’s Cemetery
Also known as: Milburn Cemetery
Location:
16952 Centreville Creek Road, Caledon, Peel Region, Ontario, Canada.
Concession: 2, lot 25 E 1/2, Albion Township.
GPS:
Latitude: 43.89645°N
Longitude: -79.85587°W
History:
The following note is from Trudy Mann’s Early Churches of Albion and Caledon Townships, Peel County:
A Church of England 1851 Synod Report states that Thomas Milburn and his wife Jane gave the southeast angle of Lot 24 Con 2 Albion for a church and burying ground. Memorial #13829 is dated January 18, 1851 and registered July 1865. Perkins Bull’s Anglican history notes that the church never materialized as re-organization of parishes took place. “Rev. Osler replaced Pine Grove (Vaughan) with Caledon East, St. James, which Rev. Hill had begun from Tullamore. It would appear the Milburn lot was too close to St. James so a church was not built on this site.” In regard to a cemetery he states no cemetery is on Lot 24 but there is a small one on Lot 25. The cemetery transcription by the Halton/Peel Branch OGS gives location of cemetery as 25th Sideroad and 3rd Line – “north side of barn – southwest corners of intersection.”
William Perkins Bull described this cemetery, which was most likely a family cemetery, as “a very small burial ground on top of a rise in the corner of a large field, with the barns of the farm in the background. No fencing or anything that would show that it was a cemetery at one time. A few stones, leaning over at all angles. If it were not for these stones no one would realize that this place was a cemetery at all.” The earliest burial is that of Matthew Kearns in 1829 and the last burial, of Thomas Kearns, is 1857.
Curiously, the property on which the cemetery is located is shown in both the Peel County Tremaine Map and the 1877 Peel Atlas as belonging to Henry McCartney. Lynch’s 1873-4 Directory lists Matthew Kerns [sic], George Kerns and James Kearn [sic] as original patentees on the 2nd Concession Lot 27, Albion Township.
Dorothy Kew
Transcription purchase:
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