Cemetery with three names

Photo by Barry Wallace

One of the King Township cemeteries that I had never visited, until this week, is the King Christian cemetery site on the west side of Jane Street, just north of the 19th Sideroad, north of Kettleby.   This very old but attractive site was established around 1851, at the same time of the  founding of the King Christian Church, an offshoot group of the Children of Peace and the Sharon Temple in East Gwillimbury.   The original cemetery was known as the Hilborn Settlement Cemetery and was named for the Hilborn Family.   Seven members of the Hilborn Family are listed as being buried here in the mid-to-late 1800s.   The cemetery became associated with the King Christian Church and came to be known as the King Christian Church Cemetery.   Years later, in 1931, King Christian Church joined the Baptist denomination under the name of King Emmanuel Baptist Church in 1931.   Recently, the cemetery has been re-designated as the King Christian cemetery.   Years of neglect at this cemetery took their toll and several bodies were were moved to the Kettleby Cemetery.   The Ontario Genealogical Society lists 128 burials at this graveyard, including the seven Hilborn family members.

Jane Street frontage, north of Kettleby

Tombstones have been collected and preserved in a two-sided walled monument, while seven other newer monuments stand on their own nearby.   Plaques embedded in the monuments wall 

give details of the memorial's development.

This grave maker notes that Martin Bogart, who died in 1852, was born in 1766, the same year as the British Parliament repealed the notorious Stamp Act which was so unpopular in the British colonies.   His wife, Kenercha, who died in 1846 and was re-buried here, was born in 1775, the same year that Jane Austen was born, and the same year the American Revolution began.

Apart from the historical story to be found here, which will interest a few, this would make a lovely spot for a picnic.   Take a few sandwiches and a thermos of tea, spread a blanket and languish bucolically for an hour or so in this quiet, leafy glade.

Please comment if you wish.

Barry Wallace