Restoring Old Burial Ground a 'complicated' work in progress

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Restoring a Fredericton cemetery that dates back nearly 240 years is an ongoing effort with no real end in sight, say those overseeing the work, but there’s progress being made.

A refurbishment of the Old Burial Ground on Brunswick Street has been underway since 2021.

That’s expected to continue this year, with staff requesting $50,000 for more stones to be restored or replaced. The same amount was earmarked in 2021, 2022, and 2023, and at least 20 stones have been fixed to date.

“Essentially, it takes forever because the stones will be in a level of perpetual maintenance,” said Mike Walker, the City of Fredericton’s assistant director of engineering and operations. “As they continue to degrade, we’ll do what we can to keep them in the best shape that we can, although the graveyard will likely be around forever.”

The Old Burial Ground downtown is the final resting place for many of the city’s early residents. Its first recorded burial took place in 1787, and limitations on further burials were imposed in 1886. An estimated 900 stones are there today, although many are broken or may have sunken beneath the grass after falling over.

The city embarked on a multi-year project in 2020 to improve the graveyard and make regular maintenance more feasible. A stone mason contractor was hired as part of the project, and the city engaged archaeologist Robyn Lacy from St. John’s, N.L., to help find, identify, and spruce up the stones.

“The graveyard was formed over many years, and different techniques and technologies were used at the time than the methods used to produce gravestones today,” Walker said. “We’re fixing about 10 to 12 stones a year, depending on their condition and the ability to bring them back to a good standard.

“Some of the stones are simply too far gone, which is common for a graveyard. We’ve put a lot of work into researching and ensuring we have a good plan to tackle this project where the graveyard is a big part of downtown Fredericton, and the work will be ongoing for some time.”

Lacy said she was asked by the city in 2020 to assess the stones at the Old Burial Ground and their current condition, and make recommendations on ways to protect and restore them. She said the site was in worse shape than many rural cemeteries she’s seen because its location in the city makes it more susceptible to vandalism and wear and tear.

Lacy said monuments that posed risks to public safety were the city’s top priority, followed by other stones.

“There were some broken stones, and repairs are more complicated because of the size of the site and because it needs so much care moving forward where it hasn’t had many repairs in the past,” said Lacy, who co-owns Black Cat Cemetery Preservation with her husband, Ian Petty.

“That makes it a pretty big undertaking. There were also some chest tombs where parts had fallen inside, and some unhoused individuals had been taking shelter inside of them, which is dangerous because we don’t know how stable those stones are.”

Lacy said assessing stones of various size and condition took several months, and when restoration work started, the stones at the greatest risk of collapsing were repaired first.

Lacy said it’s also easier said than done to contact family members of those in the cemetery in this case, but it’s still important to treat the grave sites as respectfully as possible, as the remains buried there were still someone’s relative, and the cemetery is a public heritage resource. It was named a provincial heritage site in 2006 and was added to the national historic places registry in 2009.

“With sites like this, you want to have archaeologists and historians involved,” she said. “Usually when we’re a couple of generations removed from when these people were buried, and there aren’t any direct family ties, it’s up to whoever manages the cemetery to be the caretaker for a grave unless a family member comes forward.”