Mount Pleasant Methodist Cemetery, Merton, 1999
Description
- Media Type
- Image
- Text
- Item Type
- Photographs
- Description
- A 1999 photograph of the cemetery of the old Methodist church in the vanished community of Merton in the former Trafalgar Township. At its height, the community of Merton had about 50 buildings including a school, a blacksmith shop, post office, sawmill, gristmill, coal merchant, hotel and stagecoach stop, railway station, the church and cemetery. Orchards and mixed farming flourished.
The Merton area (Lots 26-35 2SDS Trafalgar) was settled as early as 1810. the first settlers were David Utter, Joseph Smith, William Bates, Cornelius Tipps and Henry Cale. The community adopted the name "Merton" when the post office opened in 1852. The name was likely chosen to commemorate the battle of Trafalgar and Lord Nelson as other local villages had chosen Bronte and Palermo. The post office remained open until 1917 when it was replaced by rural mail service from Bronte.
Merton boundaries were present day Burloak Drive to 3rd Line, the railway tracks near Lake Ontario north to Upper Middle Road. The intersection of Bronte Road (originally called Station Road) and the Queen Elizabeth Way (formerly Lower Middle Road) was the centre of the Merton area. - Notes
- Mount Pleasant Methodist church was erected in 1889 on an acre of land given by William Utter. The contractor was Miles Bokes of Toronto. Mrs. Anson Buck laid the corner stone which is all that remains today. The church was dedicated on Sunday, February 2, 1881 with Reverend Stone of Hamilton as the preacher and Reverend Argue was pastor.
William McCraney, MP, and the chairman of the church building committee donated the pulpit chairs and the lumber for sheds. Land for the church and cemetery had a clause stating that the cemetery must be maintained if the church was demolished.
The first burial in the cemetery was George Hebblethwaite in 1886, a founding member of the congregation and member of the first official board and building committee.
Merton declined in the first quarter of the 20th century and the last service at the church was in May 1918. On March 18, 1927, the church was offered at auction and pieces of the building sold off. The Methodist church was demolished in 2010. "A Short History of Mt. Pleasant Church", a piece in The Oakville Independent Beaver of March 18, 1927 is the source of much of the information in this record.
The Mount Pleasant Methodist Church Cemetery can still be visited from the North Service Road. It lies alongside the south side of the North Service Road, west of Third Line. - Date of Original
- 1999
- Subject(s)
- Local identifier
- TTRMW000191
- Collection
- Trafalgar Township Historical Society
- Language of Item
- English
- Geographic Coverage
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Ontario, Canada
Latitude: 43.412213166679 Longitude: -79.7410059184265
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- Copyright Statement
- Copyright status unknown. Responsibility for determining the copyright status and any use rests exclusively with the user.
- Recommended Citation
- Mount Pleasant Methodist Cemetery, Merton, 1999
- Contact
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Trafalgar Township Historical Society Sponsor: Jeff Knoll, Local & Regional Councillor for Oakville Ward 5 – Town of Oakville/Regional Municipality of Halton
