Researchers look to tell stories of Ingersoll's forgotten at unmarked gravesite
By Isha Bhargava, CBC News, posted August 13, 2024
A group of researchers at Western University are working uncover the stories of hundreds of people from the 19th century, buried in an unmarked grave site at an Ingersoll, Ont., cemetery.
About 400 bodies are believed to be buried in the large grassy area, known as a potter's field, at the back of the cemetery. The site is a resting place for people from marginalized communities, including immigrants and people living in poverty, who couldn't afford burials or a headstone.
Students used the cemetery's now-digitized burial registry to learn the names of those buried between 1864 and 1976 and who they were. They plan to erect a monument with the names of those deceased as a way to honour them, said graduate student Rebecca Small.
"These were people who unfortunately due to circumstances of poverty, weren't given any headstones," she said. "This is a way of commemorating them and [creating] a sense of permanence with a stone monument, and we wanted to be able to provide that to them."
The students combed through the registry and matched it with ancestry documents, census immigration records and military records to identify those buried at the potter's field.
They include Black Canadians, who escaped slavery in the United States and Chinese immigrants impacted by the Chinese head tax, which was later replaced by the Chinese Exclusion Act to discourage immigration.
Youth from the British Home Children, are also buried in the field. They were among more than 100,000 orphaned or impoverished children who came to Canada from Britain between 1869 and the 1930s. Most worked as domestic servants or labourers and some faced abuse.
Small and fellow graduate student, Emily Kirk, were hired as research assistants as part of a summer research internship program at Western, overseen by Indigenous studies professor Cody Groat. Isaac Bender, an archeology student is assisting them by using ground penetrating radar, along with other technology to conduct field research.
Ground penetrating radars are non-invasive technology used by archaeologists for burial identification and Bender's research looks at how it can combine with other techniques to get more data about the graves, he said.
"Essentially, it's pushing around what looks like a stroller back and forth in lines to collect data that can show us where graves are located in the ground," said Bender.
"We have to take a multi-modal approach to paint a better picture of where burials are and how confident we are that these are graves and not just a tree root or buried pipe."
They hope the research from ground penetrating radar can assist communities in their residential school investigations.
Among the "plethora of interesting stories" from the potter's field, one that stood out most to Kirk was Thomas George Alden. He was a 15-year-old British home child, who worked at farms across Oxford County, but died after he was crushed in a gravel pit.
"His story really speaks to the experiences that a lot of impoverished children had as they were brought to Canada without people to advocate for them," Kirk said.
Small was captivated by Ingersoll's large Black community, she said. Although many eventually moved back to the U.S. or settled in other parts of Ontario for better work opportunities and community, their contributions played a major role in the town's history.
Fascinated by the project, the town of Ingersoll and its neighbouring Zorra Township have contributed $25,000 for the monument. The students hope it allows the community to learn more about those who came before them.
"Just because people aren't famous or listed in history books, doesn't mean they don't have an interesting and really important story," said Small. "The people here really do represent patterns throughout Canadian history and even their individual lives are very intriguing and moving."
The timeline is not set for when the monument will go up.
