Old Protestant Cemetery Committee

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Old Protestant Cemetery Committee

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The Old Protestant Cemetery Committee was established on 31 August 1916, in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. With Justice Horace Hazard appointed the first chairman of the committee, its mandate was to work toward the restoration, preservation and upkeep of the Elm Avenue Protestant Cemetery. A committee of seven members, appointed at the annual meeting held each November, were to solicit donations and oversee the restoration of the cemetery.

The Elm Avenue Protestant Cemetery is located on what is now University Avenue in Charlottetown. In 1789, John and Terence Webster obtained a grant of land within Charlottetown on which part of the cemetery is located. The first individual interred there was an Isabella Bell who died at the age of twenty-four on 11 August 1789. It was not until 12 October 1826 that the cemetery was officially granted, by Royal Instruction, to the rector and church wardens of the St. Paul's Anglican Church. It is estimated that approximately 2000 people are buried in this cemetery although not all graves are marked by a stone. The open southwest corner of the cemetery was originally the potter's field. There may be as many as three underground vaults located within the cemetery.

Included among those buried within the cemetery are: three Attorney Generals; two Chief Justices; three Colonial Secretaries; Benjamin Chappell, first postmaster of Prince Edward Island; John Stewart, founder of Mount Stewart, Prince Edward Island; the Reverend Theophilus Debrisay, rector of St. Paul's Anglican Church in Charlottetown and member of the Legislative Council; and George Stewart Dowie, the last man to be executed publically on Prince Edward Island. In January 1873, the Elm Avenue Cemetery was closed and a new Protestant cemetery was opened in Sherwood, Prince Edward Island.

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