St George’s Anglican Church Cemetery (Lowville)
Location:
7051 Guelph Line (Lowville), Burlington, Halton Region, Ontario, Canada.
Concession 4, lot 11, Nelson Township.
GPS:
Latitude: 43.449215°N
Longitude: –79.928°W
History:
According to an early church history, a nondenominational Sunday school was held in the Lowville area as early as 1836. Among the early ministers who held services were Rev. Green of Burlington [possibly the Rev. Thomas Greene of Wellington Square] and Rev. Graham of St. Stephen’s Hornby. Rev. Graham became the first minister of St. John’s Nassagaweya and St. George’s Lowville.
Trudy Mann reports that the congregation moved to the DeForest Line Schoolhouse at Lot 11 Concession 4 and it was here in 1856, under the ministry of Rev. Tremaine of Milton that the first vestry meeting was held, and the parish named St. George. On Deed #835B dated June 16, 1857, Mr. and Mrs. George Agnew gave the present site to the church trustees for a church and adjoining cemetery. A frame church was erected with opening services taking place in October of 1857.
In 1895, the old wooden church was replaced by a new stone building including a basement. Archdeacon Houston laid the cornerstone on June 18, 1896. On Good Friday, March 21, 1913, a hurricane removed the roof from St. George’s. Some of the churches in the Niagara Diocese gave special contributions to help with the cost of repair. In 1914 a bell tower was completed, and a bell installed in memory of the late Henry Richardson, a member of St. George’s and the father of Mrs. W. D. Platt of Port Nelson. In 1915, the Women’s Auxiliary established a fund for the perpetual care and maintenance of the cemetery.
St. George’s Anglican Cemetery is laid out beside the church. Earlier burials may have been at St. John’s Nassagaweya Cemetery. The Cemetery Board was formed in 1940, and in 1976, a cairn was built to preserve the old tombstones. In 1978 Mr. Erland Jay and family donated land to enlarge the cemetery. According to a former rector of St. George’s, although the cemetery is now open to members of other denominations, the majority of those buried there were Anglicans. Well-known
names of those buried in the cemetery include Coulson, Dice, Harris, Richardson and Twiss.
Dorothy Kew
Sources:
Peggy Armstrong, from notes copied from a Scrapbook of the St. George’s Women’s Auxiliary.
Trudy Mann, Early Churches of Nassagaweya and Nelson Townships, 2006
St. George’s Anglican Church website http://www.stgeorgeslowville.com/
Transcription purchase:
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