St. Paul's Toronto, Burial Register
Description
- Media Type
- Group
- Text
- Genealogical Resource
- Place
- Description
In the pioneer era of the early 19th century, when Catholic cemeteries had not yet been established within the Archdiocese of Toronto, Catholics were buried in private family plots or in public cemeteries. In either case they were usually deprived of resting in consecrated ground.
By the 1820s and 1830s, the Catholic church had begun to take permanent root in Upper Canada and the need for cemeteries was keenly felt by the Catholic community. Many of the Catholic churches had their own cemetery in the church yard or in a plot of land very close to the church. In those days churches were few and far apart and roads were often very rough or non-existent.
For early parishes such as St. Paul's, Toronto, St. Patrick's, Wildfield, St. Ann's, Penetanguishene and St. James, Colgan, the government of Upper Canada generously gave to the church large amounts of land, usually around 200 acres for each church, for the purpose of building a church, school, and rectory as well as establishing a large cemetery and farm.
The first Catholic cemetery in Toronto was St. Paul's. For a time the cemetery served adequately for all Toronto's small but growing Catholic population. However, the huge immigration of the Irish to Toronto quickly filled St. Paul's Cemetery to capacity. Many died of typhus in the fever sheds attended by the clergy of the Archdiocese.
Toronto's first bishop, Michael Power died from typhus on October 1, 1847 and was buried in the crypt of St. Michael's Cathedral which was then being built. This crypt underneath the Cathedral contains the tombs of some 50 Toronto Catholics who died in the late 1840s and early 1850s thus making it Toronto's second Catholic burial place.- Date of Original
- 1849
- Subject(s)
- Language of Item
- English
- Geographic Coverage
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Ontario, Canada
Latitude: 43.64999 Longitude: -79.38206
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- Terms of Use
- Protected by copyright: Uses other than research or private study require the permission of the rightsholder(s). Responsibility for obtaining permissions and for any use rests exclusively with the user.
- Contact
- Archives of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of TorontoEmail:archives@archtoronto.org
Website:
Agency street/mail address:1155 Yonge Street, Suite 505
Toronto, ON M4T 1W2
