The nearly 200-year-old Dorchester Rural Cemetery overlooks Back Brook, just off the 106, across from Palmers Pond, in the Village of Dorchester. It\u2019s a lovely setting, and well-kept, thanks to lone volunteer caretaker Peter Spence. For decades Spence has been the one-person board that looks after the community cemetery, and now a group of volunteers are looking to form a new board to take over the task.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt at some point, somebody is going to have to be the new me,\u201d says Spence. And that\u2019s the topic of a meeting tonight at the Dorchester Veterans Community Centre at 7pm.<\/p>\n
Diane Nicholson is one of the driving forces behind that meeting. Nicholson is a history buff, but says there\u2019s a lack of documentation about the Dorchester Rural Cemetery. She knows it was once called Greenwood Cemetery, and is not affiliated with a church, though it was considered a Protestant cemetery. She also knows it\u2019s the final resting place of a Father of Confederation, Edward Barron Chandler, and also a contemporary of his who fought against confederation, Albert Smith.<\/p>\n
There are family names on the headstones that are still common today, and others that aren\u2019t around anymore. \u201cBut at one time, they were so prominent,\u201d says Nicholson. The graves of Chandler and Smith are easy to spot, with large obelisk-type stones, with Chandler\u2019s marked by a plaque installed by the federal government. Smith\u2019s obelisk is just a bit taller, on a slightly higher knoll than Chandler\u2019s, points out Nicholson with a laugh. But although the two men disagreed politically in life, Smith was a pall bearer at Chandler\u2019s funeral. \u201cEvidently, they put their differences aside,\u201d says Nicholson.<\/p>\n
The cemetery is full of New Brunswick \u201cmovers and shakers\u201d says Nicholson, considering that in its hey day, Dorchester was the shire town of Westmoreland County, and at one time not only bigger than Sackville, but bigger than Moncton.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was big,\u201d says Nicholson. \u201cThere were fourteen lawyers in the village square\u2026 The court was here, three shipbuilders building wooden sailing ships\u2026 hotels. It was really quite the place.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the twists and turns of history have taken Dorchester down a very different road than Moncton, and its now a small village, albeit one with more than its share of built heritage. For the Dorchester Rural Cemetery to continue on as an active community cemetery, Nicholson and her colleague Marlene Hickman say there needs to be fresh blood.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re looking at a group of people that are all 70 and older,\u201d says Hickman. \u201cWe need the next generation to move up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sadly, the cemetery is already home to some of the next generation, says Hickman. \u201cWe need to look to the future,\u201d she says. \u201cThe history is important. It makes this cemetery significant and so many ways. But we need a future for the cemetery as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Dorchester Rural Cemetery organizing meeting takes place Wednesday, May 17, at 7pm at the Dorchester Veterans Community Centre at 4955 Main Street in Dorchester.<\/p>\n
Hear this story as reported on Tantramar Report:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The nearly 200-year-old Dorchester Rural Cemetery overlooks Back Brook, just off the 106, across from Palmers Pond, in the Village of Dorchester. It\u2019s a lovely setting, and well-kept, thanks to lone volunteer caretaker Peter Spence. For decades Spence has been the one-person board that looks after the community cemetery, and now a group of volunteers…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":154352,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57,219],"tags":[26149,20502,6809,6632],"radio":[227],"origine":[274,275,277],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154348"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154348"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":154444,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154348\/revisions\/154444"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154348"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=154348"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=154348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}