This land that we live on, these roads we travel, were once inhabited by our ancestors. Some who live today are very interested in those lives and those stories.
There are cemeteries which dot the modern landscape, some filled with unmarked graves, that have returned to nature. One such cemetery is on the 138A halfway between Dewittville and Ormstown. There is a monument there to the first Catholic Church in this area, the original St. Malachy. It was at first a mission church with visiting priests; then eventually a chapel, a small church, was built by early French and Irish settlers. As the years went by, Huntingdon became more populated than Dewittville and Fr. Terence Kiernan, the priest in 1852, wanted to begin a move to establish a church in Huntingdon. This was done by the next priest, Fr. Edmund Doyle, who moved the rectory to Huntingdon.
At this time, the Huntingdon Catholics began to bury their dead on land which would eventually become the site of St. Joseph’s Church. By 1861, the little chapel was abandoned and parishioners from Ormstown and Huntingdon were attending church in their own village. Behind the present-day church in Huntingdon are the graves of over 400 people, French and Irish, over the age of one; there are around 100 of those under one year. There are a few stones, many fallen and illegible.
Years ago, Dan Mark of Hemmingford visited the cemetery, took photos of existing stones, and searched church records available online for the names of those buried there. This information is available on the excellent website, Find a Grave: www.findagrave.com/cemetery/2703047/saint-joseph-catholic-cemetery-old.
It was in 1893 that the new cemetery was opened, and people began to bury their relatives there rather than in the old cemetery behind the church, which was full. Almost right away some parishioners decided to move the bodies from the old cemetery to the new. This was recorded as the reinterments took place. In consulting the list of reinterments, I was able to update the names to the new cemetery on the Find a Grave website.
Working from the website in conjunction with church records available on the Family Search and Ancestry websites, I was able to gather the names to form a list. In some cases, only one spouse is buried at St. Joseph’s because the other spouse died before the cemetery had opened. There are a few who are buried with their spouse in the old cemetery, even though the new cemetery was open when they died.
In going through the records, I was amused to see how the Irish priests would misspell the French names, and the French priests would misspell the Irish names. With this in mind, I searched for baptism records and marriage records as well as the burial records to try to be as accurate as possible.
These early settlers lived such difficult lives. Two of the sisters of John Flynn – my great, great grandfather – were Ann Flynn Martin and Margaret Flynn Hughes. Each married at age 16, had nine and 11 children respectively, and died at the ages of 45 and 44 years. Another sister, Ellen, was married at 18 and started west with her new husband, only to die on the way. He brought her back to be buried in Huntingdon.
I thought it was important that these and all the lives of ancestors long gone be remembered. It is predominately French and Irish who are buried there: Tessiers, Castels, and Galipeaus are at rest beside Feenys, McCaffreys and Murphys, to name but a few.
When the list was finally completed, I sought permission from the church wardens to install a sign. They were most supportive and interested to hear the story of the research. Then I approached Sylvie Dumas of Enseignes Dumas, Ormstown. The signs were finally ready and installed last fall beside the entrance to the old cemetery. Many thanks to Clément Hénault, André Taillefer, and Bill Martin for the installation. Again, only those over the age of one year old are listed; however, there is a complete list available for those interested. As well, the history of the church and the pastors is on the parish website, stjosephhuntingdon.org.
There is an Irish Proverb which says, “There are three deaths: first is when the body ceases to function. Second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.” So why not stop by and speak those names once again?