A Brief History of Cressy Cemetery

Researched and written by local historian and writer Phil Ainsworth - 31May2013

An examination of church history, maps, land records and cemetery transcriptions yields the following information.

Neither the Cressy Church nor the Cressy Cemetery appear on the 1863 Tremaine map of Prince Edward County. The church was not yet built and private farm cemeteries were not marked on the map.

The Cressy Church appears on the 1878 Belden atlas of Prince Edward County. The Church would have been just a year old. Seven burials marked by gravestones had occurred before the church was built, when the cemetery was a private one on the Williams/Wright farm.

The history of Cressy Church published on the hundredth anniversary of the church in 1977 states that the church was built upon the occasion of a disagreement between the two Methodist congregations, the Wesleyan and the Episcopal Methodists, who had been sharing the Methodist Church building on Lot 11 Lakeside which was almost across the peninsula on Lake Ontario from the site chosen for the new Cressy Church.

In 1877 the new Methodist Episcopal church was built on Lot 34 Bayside on land ‘donated’ by the farm owner, William James Wright. There is no official record in the Land Registry Office of this land being transferred to the Church trustees until forty-two years later. The first reference to the Church in land records is at the time of the sale of the farm by the Executors of the Estate of Melbourne Wright et al to Joseph Gerald Burley and Marjorie Burley, his wife, in October 1939. In the description of the quantity of land it states, “160 acres, Lot 34, and the east half of Lot 35, “reserving one and a quarter acres sold for Church Purposes”.

A review of the transcription of the grave markers in Cressy Cemetery completed by local cemetery transcribers, Mildred and Loral Wanamaker, of Ameliasburgh, in 1965, shows that the earliest marked burials in the Cressy Church Cemetery occurred in 1859 at the deaths of Aaron Conner, aged 83 years and Sarah L. Nutting, five years old. This was eighteen years prior to the construction of the church.

Other burials there prior to 1977 include:

Annie Conner - 1864

Nathaniel H. Nutting M.D. - 1965

Andrew Denike - 1867

John Mos Crop [?] - 1868

Edward N. Wright - 1872

Examination of ownership of the farm containing the church and cemetery shows owners and beginning dats as follows:

Jasper and John Dingman - 1824

Philip and Theodore P. Williams - 1842

William J. Write - 1866

Joseph Burley - 1939

This would place the first burials during the period of ownership by the Williams and the Wright families. It was quite common for people to be buried in family cemeteries on farms during this period.

Possibly there was a connection between the Conner family and the Williams family which led to their burial there. Dr. Nutting’s wife was a Hurlbut. Edward N. Write, who drowned less than three months after marrying Harriet Hurlbut in 1872, was a brother of James and Melbourne Wright who owned the farm containing the Cressy Cemetery from 1866.

Conclusions Regarding the Cressy Cemetery

There are seven burials marked with gravestones prior to 1877 in the Cressy Cemetery. The Cressy Church was built in 1877.

The Cressy Cemetery was likely a private cemetery established on the farm where it is located as this was common practice before the establishment of church and community cemeteries.

Of the seven burials prior to 1877 when it would have been a private cemetery, three took place after the Wright family purchased the farm in 1866. One was a brother of the owners.

There may have been other burials for which markers no longer exist, prior to the earliest ones recorded on gravestones, which were both in 1859.