• Register of Interments in Mount Hermon Cemetery
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Register of interments in Mount Hermon Cemetery, 1848-1904

Description

In January 1848, 17 of the most important lay persons of the main Protestant denominations from Québec City and the surrounding area formed two organizations to manage Protestant cemeteries. One of the organizations, called The Quebec Protestant Cemetery Association, was formed to manage and maintain the quality of all the Protestant cemeteries in the Québec City area and the Eastern Québec region. The other organization was charged with the creation of an entirely new cemetery for the Protestants of the Québec City area. The new cemetery, named Mount Hermon Cemetery, was to be located in the middle of the Parish of St. Colomba de Sillery. Today, the location corresponds to the corner of côte de l'Église and chemin Saint-Louis. On June 15, 1848, Christopher Ferguson, aged 42, of the vessel Transit, dead of erysipelas, was the first individual to be buried in the cemetery.

In late spring 1849, the government passed a law to incorporate The Mount Hermon Cemetery (12 Vict., c. 191) and permit it to lawfully and efficiently manage the cemetery's property and capital. The cemetery was officially reserved for Protestants, except in cases specially authorized by the directors. Between June 1848 and December 1883, of 6,164 entries, half of the deceased were members of the Anglican Church (2,991), followed by Presbyterians (1,117) and Methodists (583).

In 1860, the English cemetery on rue Saint-Jean beside St. Matthews's church, in the faubourg Saint-Jean, was closed (23 Vict., c. 70). Located in a heavily populated quarter, the cemetery had become a serious nuisance over the years "inasmuch as the numerous interments, one upon another, have raised, in a large portion of the said Burial Ground, the surface thereof above the level of the adjoining locality, which is thereby exposed, as well as the wells therein, to receive the drainage from the said Burial Ground". Within a few months of each other, the Methodists and the Presbyterians voluntarily decided to close their cemeteries, in part yielding to pressure from the local population, but especially because of the large number of lots available at Mount Hermon Cemetery, which, in fact, is where all Protestants who died were buried from the early 1860s onward.

Mandatory registration of all Protestants buried in the cemetery was among the conditions imposed by the law of 1849. The Register of Interments in Mount Hermon Cemetery, written in large part by the supervisors of the cemetery, begins in 1848 and ends in 1950. The existence and the quality of the register stem from the initiative of one or more persons who, between 1848 and 1938, meticulously entered the causes of death of 12,200 persons buried in the cemetery. The register lists the following information: number, family name and given name, date of interment, where buried, date of death, age, place of death, place of birth, religious denomination, officiating clergyman, occupation, disease or cause of death and, finally, remarks.

The register is a valuable work for studying the health and social situation of Québec City and the surrounding area over a period of nearly a century. Apart from coroners' inquests and certain censuses, few 19th-century sources can be used to trace causes or circumstances of death. In this regard, the Register of Interments in Mount Hermon Cemetery is exceptional, but not unique. Though we do not know what led him to do so, the superintendent of the Toronto Necropolis, established in 1850, decided to keep exactly the same kind of register. Both registers mention jaundice, liver complaint, consumption, smallpox, dysentery, scarlet fever, dropsy, whooping cough, toothache, exhaustion, drowning and murder. Tragic deaths are reported in the Mount Hermon register. We know, for instance, that, of the 253 people who drowned as a result of a fire aboard the Montréal, which sank near the mouth of the Cap-Rouge river on June 26, 1857, 180 were buried in Mount Hermon Cemetery.

For genealogists, the Mount Hermon register provides a good complement to civil status registers, in which the data are incomplete for Protestants. The mentions of age, occupation and origin, and the entries concerning individuals not entered in the registers of civil status bring us into touch with Protestants who settled in or passed through the Québec City area, some of whom were from Ireland, Scotland, England, Norway, Germany, the United States and various British colonies. The tombstone inscriptions are also of major interest. A partial listing is available on the premises of the Société de généalogie de Québec.

Going through the register, one comes across the names of figures who left their mark on the history of Québec City in various lines of endeavour. Among those buried were the architect Edward Staveley, in 1877; the furniture manufacturer William Drum, in 1876; the notary Archibald Campbell, in 1862; the judge Henry Black, in 1873; the merchant George Benson Hall, in 1876; the doctor and surgeon Anthony Von Iffland, in 1876; the shipbuilder John Munn, in 1859; and the Consul of Sweden and Norway K.G.A. Falkenberg, in 1873.

The index and the register of interments at Mount Hermon cemetery (1848-1950) were microfilmed in 1989 by the Archives nationales du Québec (Microfilm project M211/1) and can be consulted on site (ZQ115). Recently, in collaboration with Guy Dorval and Helen Langford, and with the kind authorization of Brian Treggett, superintendent of Mount Hermon cemetery, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec placed on line a database with all of the information relating to 8,770 deceased persons entered in the cemetery's registers between 1848 and 1904. The information from 6,164 entries was extracted by Mr. Dorval while preparing his thesis (La géographie de la mortalité à Québec au XIXe siècle : le cas des protestants ensevelis au cimetière Mount Hermon, Sillery, 1848-1883, thesis presented for the degree of Master of Arts (M.A.), Université Laval, 1992) and nearly 2,606 additional entries were compiled by Ms. Langford, a student employed by the Archives nationales du Québec in summer 2004.

A true institution at the service of the Protestant community, Mount Hermon cemetery is also a haven of peace and quiet. More than 150 years of history go by during a pleasant stroll in this majestic setting.

Rénald Lessard in collaboration with Guy Dorval