Cemeteries and Burial Grounds

McClelland and Colonel Cantley Burial Sites, Cantley

From A Place Apart by Norma Geggie, 1999:

As well as the Blackburn Cemetery with its two remaining markers, there had been another burial site in the vicinity, on property originally owned by Howard Brown. No headstones exist on this property on Prudhomme Road, but the original deed is said to have outlined the burial ground. Again, the site chosen is a rocky knoll topped by the occasional huge granite boulder with gnarled ancient maple roots embedded amongst them. There are however some areas where one can imagine a burial could have taken place. This was, as with other home burials, a site which would not have been easy to plough. They seem in each case to have avoided using prime farm land for such plots.

The McClelland family is another of the earliest to have come to this part of the Township of Hull around the 1830s. Not surprisingly there is an area in the vicinity of the original McClelland settlement where it is believed that early members of this family were laid to rest. This is to the north of Lauzon Road leading to the Lauzon farm which had originally been a Holmes property. This is now completely overgrown with raspberries and small shrubs.

The McClellands moved some ten years later to a site which is believed to have been where Colonel Cantley had lived. This man, for whom the community is named, was reportedly given land for his service in the 1812 War and his assistance to Colonel By in the construction of the Rideau Canal. On this land he settled with his former batman by the name of Johnston, and here he is said to have died in the 1830s, and been buried behind his original homestead - now in the vicinity of the rose garden of the present McClelland occupants. As the first Census was not taken until 1842, no record remains of this man as a resident in the area.

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List of Gatineau Valley Cemeteries.