How I got drawn in to family genealogy as a hobby

The Ghosts of Belmont

I didn't start out haunting cemetaries. In fact, until I moved to Belmont from Toronto in the spring of 1991, the only time I ever went to one was because I had to. Ditto for being interested in the history of anything, local or otherwise. It was not long after I arrived, that a church group lecture by our local genealogist, Heather Hudson, on the history of Belmont changed my life completely.

Since then, I've almost made a career of reacquainting people with Belmont's history through my newspaper articles.

Over the years, a lot of Belmont's physical history has been either moved, drastically altered or completely recycled, with little left to remind us of the way we once were. It's not surprising then that there is no record of Belmont having any interesting ghost stories - in the strict sense of the word. We do have several places in the village that should inspire them, though.

Mind you, I've been told that a ghost was seen in at least one house at the south end of Main St., but I've never been able to verify which one it is.

One of the most historically fascinating buildings at the north end of town is 236 Main St. For many years it was a funeral parlour before being altered several times over and finally metamorphasized into Couture's Corner, a craft store.

Proprietor Patricia Foster-Couture is regularly told about what her building used to be, and shortly after moving in, was given the full historical tour by former resident and now neighbour Ruby Anger. Customers who know its history personally are quick to add more information to what Patricia already knows.

When asked, Patricia readily confirmed that an upstairs closet still houses the pulley used to raise the coffins between floors.. Surprisingly, the Coutures have had no trouble at all with ghosts, particularly of the funeral parlour's clients.

As anyone knows, the most likely place to find ghosts - especially at night time - is in a cemetary. But as any newcomer to the village has probably noticed by now, though we have three churches, we don't have a cemetary. Well, technically speaking, that isn't quite true . We do have one, but you'd be hard pressed to find it unless you knew where to look.

One of the pastimes of genealogists and historians alike is cemetary walks where tombstones reveal long lost ancestors and the last resting places of famous personages of the past. In Belmont, though, such a walk would be singularly fruitless and frustrating - as our genealogist discovered - for there are no longer any tombstones or markers in our cemetary.

The question of whether the cemetary actually exists and is not just an old wives tale was verified at a council meeting in 1993 in response to a request by the Provincial Cemetary Board with its original boundaries clearly shown on a very early map of the village on display at the Belmont Library as one of their annual heritage day exhibits.

The story behind our cemetary's elusiveness reads like the script for a Steven Speilburg movie and is without doubt the strangest example of recycling you will probably ever hear about.

According to the booklet Belmont Old Boys Reunion July-August 1971 "the land for a cemetary allotted by Thomas Nugent in 1850 was located on the northeast side of Union St. When it was first used, who was buried there, why and when it fell into disuse and neglect are all unsolved riddles that no one can answer. By the late 1930's all that remained were a few broken stones." and by the time the booklet was compiled, the cemetary had completely disappeared.

The property was later portioned off and sold to a developer with the assurance that there was no longer anyone buried there. The tombstones, they were told, had long ago been broken up and taken away to be used as sidewalks and foundations for houses in the village.

I've been told that if you were to go down into the basement of one house in the village, you would be able to clearly read at least one of its foundation stones, but I have never been invited to confirm it one way or the other. There are flat stones, looking suspiciously like townstones, imbedded in the ground on the other side of the cemetary which are too heavy to be turned over manually to find out if they really are.)

Much to the surprise of the builder, when ground was broken to begin work on the foundation, four coffins were unearthed. Not surprisingly, the rest of the property was thoroughly checked before the four coffins were reinterred and the area fenced off.

Since that time there has been a turnover in homeowners and during an interview with one of the current owners on an unrelated subject, the cemetary came up for discussion. Asked whether it bothered her living next to a cemetary, Angie Wallace repled, "Living next to an old cemetary doesn't bother me as much as living next to a new one would. I couldn't do that."

Getting acquainted with our "lost pioneer cemetary has given me a whole new appreciation for others like it. I learned belatedly that you must tread lightly (or not at all} among the stones of Belmont's forefathers who rest in eternal peace in the pioneer cemetary on Caesar Rd. If you don't, you risk being quite literally up to your kneecaps in Canadians.

Doing research for a local long-running family reunion, I found myself in awed silence as I read the fading stones in the fifth concession pioneer cemetary overlooking what is now Westminster Dr.

Little wonder that, when I went to England and Scotland in the spring of 1998, I found myself not only haunting their ancient cemetaries in search of my own family's roots, but being there just because I wanted to.