Springcreek Cemetery
Originally known as: Chambers Spring Creek Grave Ground
Location:
1390 Clarkson Road North, Mississauga, Peel Region, Ontario, Canada.
Concession 2 S.D.S., Lot 29, Toronto Township.
GPS:
Latitude: 43.52275°N
Longitude: -79.63508°W
History:
There is no written record of when or how Springcreeek Cemetery started. There is some evidence that it may be the oldest cemetery in Peel County, and it is certainly the oldest in unbroken maintenance and order. It is unique in never having had either church or local government support or connection.
It is not known exactly when burials started to take place in the burial grounds. The monuments establish clearly that it was in use at a very early date. One stone records the death of Christopher Hendershot in 1812. Since the inscription is merely “In memory of –“, it cannot be stated for certain that he was actually buried there. However, other stones use the phrase “Here lies –“, which indicates that the cemetery had been established as early as 1825.
The earliest existing written record is a minutes and accounts book, which dates back to 1848. The entry read: “Toronto (meaning the Township, as the community had no local name) April 11th, 1848. The object of this meeting is called by the Trustees, for the neighbourhood to take into consideration the management of Chambers Spring Creek Grave Ground”.
Prior to 1824, the land on which the cemetery is located was owned by absentee landlords who reside in the Town of York (present-day Toronto). The first resident owner was William Kelly, a “yeoman” or farmer from Toronto Township (present-day Mississauga), who obtained a deed for 120 acres on November 20, 1824, in lots 29 and 30. The burying grounds were located in the north east corner of Lot 29 Concession 2 S.D.S. No documentary evidence has been found that Kelly was in possession of the land prior to that date.
Kelly subsequently sold the in two portions (his wife Sarah barring her dower rights). The larger portion comprising of 200 acres was sold in 1827. The remaining 20 acres, which included the burial ground, were purchased by John Chambers of the Township of Toronto by a deed of bargain and sale, on August 27th, 1828. Stray references in the Court Records of York indicate that Chambers was living in the community as early as 1824, possibly as a tenant or incomplete purchaser of this land. Around 1834, Chambers sold the property, or it was sold by the sheriff. He did in fact sell out to a party of three men, by a deed dated September 23, 1834, with one important exception: John Chambers excluded from the sale the one-acre parcel of land containing the burial grounds. He then left the district retaining ownership of the one-acre site.
Consequently, the name “Chambers Spring Creek Grave Ground” was likely given to the cemetery during his occupancy – some time between 1824 and 1827. It would appear likely that the first appointment of trustees occurred after Chambers became the owner of the burial grounds.
The choice of this exact spot at that early time was somewhat remarkable, or so it would appear today. The Clarkson Road did not come into existence until 1850. Prior to then, there was an old unauthorized trail running south across lots from the “Middle or “Commissioners Road” (now the Queen Elizabeth Way) to the Lakeshore Road which touched or skirted the original acre, thus allowing access to the Grave Ground. This has been, in some measure, substantiated by Norman Greeniaus who had remembered that when he was a boy, now more than 100 years ago, corduroy timbers were unearthed along the bank of Spring Creek near the north east corner of the Cemetery.
The site, in the centre of the community, was undoubtedly chosen in order to afford easy access to all residents: those down by the lake front as well as those to the north near Dundas Street. It was skilfully selected having regard to the beauty of site and ease of maintenance. The original acre was a dry small rise of ground, the foot of which on the north and east was washed by the waters of Spring Creek, which as it name implies, is a creek fed by springs. The lot itself was quite clearly a park-like spot, with open spaces and scattered giants of the virgin forest – pine, elm, maple, and little underbrush. Immediately to the east, the adjoining land had been reserved for supplying master timber for the King’s ships.
The minutes of 1848, as previously mentioned, state that prior to 1837, the trustees had been John Chambers, Warren Clarkson and Nathaniel Hemphill. These men had probably served as the trustees from the beginning in the eighteen twenties. In the eleven-year interval between 1837 and 1848 apparently no public meetings were held and the two remaining trustees continued. The neighbourhood meeting re-appointed the two previous trustees, Warren Clarkson and Nathaniel Hemphill and in the place of John Chambers (who had left the district) named Jacob Gable as the third trustee.
There is much circumstantial evidence to indicate that Warren Clarkson, one of the early trustees, was the moving spirit in selecting the site and in maintaining and preserving, in beauty and orderliness, the community burying grounds. There is evidence that in 1848 he was disturbed over the lack of legal title to the burying grounds. Chambers was now living in the Township of Townsend and the new owners had taken over.
Soon after the neighbourhood meeting, he obtained from John Chambers a deed to the acre dated March 19 1849 for the sum of £3 for the Trustees. In strict legality, this conveyance was somewhat belated, but it did strengthen the title and possession and regularized as far as he could, the defective legal position regarding the site. In 1849 the name was changed to the Spring Creek Grave Grounds.
The minutes of 1848, and the succeeding minutes for many years, furnish evidence of his wise guiding hand as well as an outlook that is almost startling in its nearness to modern ideas about burying grounds.
One regulation which he persuaded the neighbourhood meeting to pass in 1848 was “that there shall not be any paling (fencing) put around any plot in the Grave Ground”. The motion was moved by Warren Clarkson and seconded by Solomon Savage. A second regulation provided for flat corner stones, with name inscribed, at each lot.
At the neighbourhood meeting in 1851 Warren Clarkson moved that the price of burial lots be 10 shillings each.
In 1854, while he was still Chairman of the Board of Trustees, it was moved by Joshua Pollard Jr., (Secretary Treasurer) and David Hammond Jr., (Trustee) both close associates, that Henry S Clarkson (Warren’s son) who had considerable training as a surveyor and draftsman, be employed to survey and draw up a proper plan of the Grave Ground. This plan has, unfortunately, been lost but the effect of this early survey remain in the cemetery.
The earliest family names, with few exceptions are to be found amongst the memorial stones: Greeniaus, Pollard, Gable, Bradley, Merigold, Hendershot, Marlatt, Shook, Oliphant, Hemphill, Savage, Oughtred, Peer, Lawrence, Munn, Kelly, Smith and Clarkson, with many others of a later date but still so far distant that little local memory remains.
Some of these memorials go a long way back in history. James Smith was born 1756, some 236 years ago. A score or more were born long before 1800. These are more than an empty record of forgotten names and dates. These stones reveal in a most vivid way how the earliest families intermarried and became bound together as a compact whole. They disclose the arrival of newcomers down the passing years, and how these new arrivals married into and merged with the solid old core of founding families. The Greeniaus family groups are the most impressive because of their unbroken continuity down through the years.
By 1859 the original acre site was becoming inadequate and the Trustees, with Warren Clarkson still Chairman, purchased an additional half acre from James Morgan, owner of the old Chambers farm. Since then, on occasion, additional land has had to be purchased.
A news clipping dated Mar 31 1921 from the Brampton Conservator, contained in the Perkins-Bull Collection housed at the Peel Archives in Brampton, states that a community effort was required to clean up the Burial Ground. It mentions that the cemetery had been in an untidy condition for a long time, but that a few days ago the Men’s Club (of Clarkson) had organized a group of 25 to 30 men who spent a good part of a day cleaning up the Cemetery. Other than this reference the cemetery has been well maintained over its period of existence.
Unfortunately the Cemetery records were destroyed in 1931. The data regarding the burials prior to their destruction has been lost with the exception of the survey map of 1932, the actual inscriptions on the memorial stones and any information that has come to the attention of the Cemetery office. A small number of memorial stones are now missing or have been buried over time.
In 1959 the Cemetery came under private management and the name was changed to “Sringcreek Cemetery Inc.”
The original one acre was incorporated into a plan of the Cemetery compiled by D D James, Ontario Land Surveyor dated January 1932.
The above history was compiled in the most part from an article in the Ontario Historical Society Papers and Records (Toronto 1945) Vol. XXXVII entitled “A Small Grave Ground One Hundred And Twenty Years Old” by Major John Barnett with contributions from articles by S A Holling BA, MD and Wm John Quinsey.
Transcription purchase:
Transcriptions of this cemetery are available for digital download from the OGS website – click here to order via credit card.