St Matthew’s Anglican Church Cemetery
Location:
126 Plains Road East, Burlington, Halton Region, Ontario, Canada.
Concession 1, lot 6, Nelson Township.
GPS:
Latitude: 43.30969°N
Longitude: -79.84838°W
History:
The property on which St. Matthew’s Church was built is part of the land granted to the Hon Peter Russell by King George the Third, the date of registration being June 22, 1796, and consisted of 200 acres on Lots 4 and 5 broken Front Concession and 400 acres on Lots 4 and 5 Concession 1 in East Flamborough. The Honourable Peter Russell was a member of the first Legislative Council, and in 1796, he succeeded Governor John Graves Simcoe as Governor of Upper Canada. This grant extended from the Bay to the top of the ridge (Waterdown). It’s limits on the west running from just west of the first church building and extending east to the location of the East Plains United Church.
Portions of the property were sold over the years to John Fonger (1804); Lewis L Dennis (1806); who later deeded it to his son Denis L Denis (1843); then to Henry Wyatt (1845). It was during Henry Wyatt’s tenure that the first church was built on property given by him and his wife with the stipulation that the land was to be used for a church building only.
The land on which the cemetery is located was part of another block of land given by Crown Grant to William Applegarth who came from Standorp, Durham County, England in 1791. The date of the registration for his 100 acres on Lot 6 broken Front Concession 1 was Dec 2, 1833. A section of the land was given to Miss Sarah Applegarth who married Alexander Brown, son of a pioneer family who settled in Waterdown on which the first school was built and is now the cemetery.
The first church was built in 1861 and opening services were held on September 22, 1861. The name St. Matthew’s may have come from two sources; firstly, the church was opened and dedicated the day following St. Matthew’s Day; secondly the name of Mr Clark, a generous donor who contributed most of the money for the church, was Matthew who was brother-in-law to Mrs Henry Wyatt. Shade trees were brought in 1863 and some of these still add the beauty to the church of today and to the well-kept cemetery.
Many of the early pioneers are buried in the cemetery – the Fonger, Wyatt, Raspberry, Gallager and Read families. The first burial was of Jane Hill in 1866, but no monument attests to her passing.
The original church building was demolished in 1966 and a building was erected in the same year. The old stained-glass windows were incorporated into the new structure after being redesigned in Toronto to their current rectangular share. A gift of land from William Burrows and Jack Read in 1951 made possible the construction of the new church.
Sources:
(1) Rev T. M. Appleton, Rector of St Matthew’s Church
(2) Wentworth Bygones, No. 9, 1971
(3) The Burlington Post – September 1989
Transcription purchase:
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