Family Field Trip to the Necropolis Cemetery

Last weekend, on a beautiful autumn day, Doug, Ewan and I took a walk in Toronto's Necropolis Cemetery.  Our mission:  to photograph the Scott family gravestones that we had found on a previous trip, and to find the Elliot family gravestones which the Toronto cemetery database assures us are there.  Katrina declined to join us;  for some unfathomable reason, she thought it would be "boring"!

The Necropolis is a lovely historic cemetery which was opened in 1850 to replace the Potter's Field cemetery, and is located (conveniently for us) right behind Riverdale Farm.  It has a High Victorian Gothic chapel and many historic gravestones, including that of William Lyon MacKenzie, first mayor of Toronto, which we pointed out to Ewan (he was not at all impressed).  It is also where Jack Layton is buried.  His grave had many flowers and a fresh-looking bottle of Orange Crush on it.

 There is a simple white gravestone for John Galloway Scott and his wife, Mary Elliot Scott, lying on the ground on the south-east corner of the grounds.  Directly beside it is a rather more imposing monument in red granite. The monument marks the grave site of Thomas Chalmers Scott and his first wife Ann (Galloway) Scott, as well as their son John Galloway Scott and his wife Mary (Elliot) Scott.

Here's a shot of the whole monument, and the shady trees surrounding it. You can see the smaller stone embedded in the grass beside it.

The monument reads:

 In Memoriam

Thomas Chalmers Scott

Surveyor of Customs, Toronto

Died 18th December 1876

aged 70 years

Ann Galloway his wife

died 1st September 1854

aged 52 years

"Blessed be the dead who die in the Lord"

And, on the adjacent side:

In memory of 

John Galloway Scott Q.C.

Master of Titles

Died 22nd June 1928

in his 92nd year

Mary Elliot his wife

died Feb. 16, 1937

in her 96th year.

The grave site of William Elliot's family was supposed to be close by, but search as we might, we couldn't find it. It didn't help that Ewan decided that he was a) cold, b) bored and c) tired as soon as we started searching, and couldn't be persuaded that the hunt for a dead relative's grave was like a detective game.  We'll have to make a second trip before winter, just the two of us.

We did find a grave related to the Lesslie family, friends of T. C. Scott

And right beside it, an Oliphant tombstone.  I don't know if these are relatives or not--I'm not aware that any of "our" Oliphants ever lived in Toronto:

Stay tuned for a return visit!