Chelsea Pioneer Cemetery in Chelsea, Quebec

About

Get directions 587, Route 105
Chelsea, Outaouais Region, Quebec Canada

Coordinates: 45.50987, -75.79110
18198271124
Cemetery ID:

Members have Contributed

About these numbers These percentages indicate the number of Find a Grave memorials that have a grave photo or GPS coordinates. We don't know the total number of burials in a cemetery, so we cannot calculate a percentage of those with memorials, photos or GPS coordinates.

Photos

Chelsea Pioneer Cemetery, formerly named Churches' Cemetery, is a family cemetery dating back to the late 1800s. The earliest monument date is 1837, however, it is believed interments followed the purchase of the land by Gardner Church before 1872. A large stone cairn sits in the entrance and is a cenotaph to the 11 men from Chelsea that served in WWI and WWII. Also included, is Private Richard Rowland Thompson of the Royal Canadian Regiment, a recipient of the Queen Victoria's Queen's Scarf of Honour for heroism in the Boer War, who was interred in the cemetery in 1908.

The site contains 14 memorials where 32 names are memorialized. While a further 24 are known to be buried here, the number could be between 56 and 100. Besides two 1913 burials, the last permanent interment happened in 1962.

Ownership of the site was provided to the Historical Society of the Gatineau (now Gatineau Valley Historical Society or GVHS) in 1966 by Cecil Meredith, a Church descendant after followed interest in its preservation. The new name Chelsea Pioneer Cemetery was selected in the 1980s in recognition of all those buried there. Following years of care and maintenance by the GVHS, the cemetery's ownership has been passed on to the Municipality of Chelsea in 2018.