in Chatsworth, Grey Highlands, Southgate, West Grey
May 25, 2021
Photo: Google
BY SOUTHGREY.CA STAFF — The Old Durham Road Black Pioneer Cemetery is the burial place of early black pioneers that helped to open up and settle this land. The location is the marker of a vibrant community of about 120 black settlers who had cleared land, built log cabins and begun farming, circa 1849. Almost forgotten and with gravesites desecrated in the 1930s by a farmer who allegedly removed the headstones, ploughed the land and planted potatoes, the cemetery has overcome concern and controversy over the years to be recognized as a place of historical significance. It is not known what happened to most of the headstones or remains. In 1989, a local committee was formed and the Old Durham Road Pioneer Cemetery Committee (ODRBPCC) has been caring for the cemetery ever since.
Recently, the ODRBPCC learned of a Grey County plan to build a transportation depot on the property adjacent to the cemetery. Quickly, the committee organized an objection to the proposed facility and sent off the following letter to Grey County officials:
Dear Warden Hicks and Grey County Council Members,
I am writing to you as president of the Old Durham Road Black Pioneer Cemetery Committee, which since 1990 has cared for the municipally owned Black heritage cemetery at the corner of Grey County Road 14 and Durham Road B, directly adjacent to the proposed county “transportation depot”.
The committee strongly opposes the decision by the county to locate a depot on this site. The ignoble history of this little cemetery’s struggle for survival has been well-documented. An annual decoration service has been held every year since 1990 when the burial ground was reclaimed and reconsecrated as a cemetery. We keep up this tradition, not only to commemorate and remember those buried there, but also to remember the many wrongs committed that allowed this cemetery to be desecrated. Neighbours colluded in the removal of headstones.
The township and the county turned a blind eye when this removal was carried out. Although unproven, local oral history insists that headstones were used as a base for Grey Road #14 when it was widened several decades ago and that the road may have actually encroached on some of the burials.
Further to this, the current boundaries of the cemetery were negotiated with a recalcitrant landowner. The actual burial ground is bigger than what the current boundaries outline. The four extant headstones were found in a rock pile directly north of the cemetery. This would mean, at the very least that the county would have to undertake a proper archaeological investigation to ascertain that no headstones or human remains were present on the depot’s property adjacent to the cemetery.
The cemetery receives visitors from all over North America and beyond. It is never lost on visitors that the municipal dump is a stone’s throw away. Whether this was coincidental or not, the optics are dismal. To put another disruptive enterprise adjacent to this nationally significant heritagecemetery is cause for further dismay.Itwould suggest that absolutely nothing has been learned by the well-meaning civic officials and county employees in the decades that followed the desecration of the cemetery in the 1930s.
I ask you ... would you be putting this depot next to the McNeil Cemetery in Priceville without consulting its board of directors? Would you put it next to any other pioneer cemetery without consultation? I suggest that you ask yourselves that question before this plan proceeds any further. In the meantime, please know that we are in full opposition to a county facility on that site.
On behalf of the entire committee, I remain sincerely yours,
Naomi Norquay President, Old Durham Road Black Pioneer Cemetery Committee
Since writing the letter, Naomi Norquay has said that Grey County CAO Kim Wingrove has been in touch with her and that "they had a productive conversation." As a result, representatives from the County and the Committee will meet to discuss the matter further but for now, the following statement has been released in response by Grey County:
Grey County has heard the concerns raised by the Old Durham Road Black Pioneer Cemetery Committee with regards to the proposed transportation depot. The County is halting all activity related to the property adjacent to the cemetery in order to work with the local community and undertake a thorough investigation of the property. We will be reaching out to connect with stakeholders, including the Old Durham Road Black Pioneer Cemetery Committee, as part of this process.
Although the ODRBPCC is hopeful that the halt to construction of a County depot on the adjacent property will continue, they urge anyone in agreement with them to express opposition to the proposed facility to their representatives on Grey County Council (municipal mayor or deputy mayor).
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