Wesley United Church Cemetery - Barrington Head, Nova Scotia
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T0SHEA
N 43° 34.043 W 065° 34.419
20T E 292162 N 4827043
Built as a Methodist Church, this was a United church for nearly 90 years. Still a meeting place, the building has been repurposed into a community centre.
Waymark Code: WMPAHN
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada
Date Posted: 07/30/2015
Views: 3
Methodism was introduced to Barrington Head and area in 1786 with the arrival of one Freeborn Garrettson, a former slave owner in Maryland who converted to Methodism and came to the Maritimes as a preacher. It was two of his followers, James Mann and Rev. James Oliver Cromwell, who saw the construction of the first Methodist chapel in the village in 1816.
By 1850, the congregation had become sufficiently large to require larger premises, the result eventually being this church, which was built in 1866.
The church's small cemetery is to the rear of the church, in which there are no more than 40 to 50 headstones visible. The cemetery was most likely begun around 1816, as the first log chapel was built on this site. The most recent headstone dates that we found were in the 1860s, though there could well be some newer ones. Many of the inscriptions on the oldest stones are no longer readable. There are many empty spaces in the cemetery, meaning that there could be many interments which no longer have a marker.
