Wason will work on the Presbyterian graveyard
When Debbie Wason presented her Girl Scout Gold Award project, the Gold Award Committee members were impressed with the proposal and commented they never had someone suggest a project involving a cemetery. Wason, a dancer at the Dance and Music Design School, located at the old Canterbury Presbyterian Church, is cataloging the cemetery in the backyard.
To her knowledge, there are no records on the 106 people who are buried behind the dance studio and since she spends a lot of time there already, she took it upon herself to document the headstones.
Wason presented her project in January and started it in March. She started by first recording all the legible headstones, noting the person’s name, death date, and if the person had a monument in their name.
Some of the headstones are so worn by time and the weather, she had to conduct gravestone rubbings by attaching a large sheet of paper to the stone and rubbing the paper with a piece of wax. Wason said this wasn’t difficult, but was definitely time-consuming. Part of her project requires 20 of the 80 work hours to be leadership hours, which means seeking assistance from volunteers. Her father helped complete the rubbings.
Once she collected all the data, Wason began researching each of the names to gather more information about the deceased. She borrowed two books from the library, one on the history of the Presbyterian Church and another on the history of Cornwall. She’s early in the process, but Wason said she recognized a few of the names listed on the initial pages of the church book.
Other information she hopes to include in the catalogue are if the person served in the military or was a member of the church clergy. She’s also trying to find more information about a group of headstones in a gated area. Wason said most of the deceased share the surname “Emslie.”
The scout also would like to include each person’s birth date, but that’s proving more difficult. Most of the headstones don’t list it, so she has to approximate based on age and death date.
The oldest headstone has a death date of 1830 and the most recent a 1913 death date. Wason said the church was built in the 1820s.
Wason hopes to complete her project by the time she meets with the committee on Oct. 15. Once all the information has been collected, she’ll compile it into a binder, which will include photos of each of the headstones, and leave a copy at the cemetery and the library. With assistance from her father, Wason created a box to store the binder at the cemetery.
