Holy Trinity Anglican Church Cemetery - Bridgewater, NS - Abandoned Cemeteries on Waymarking.com

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Holy Trinity Anglican Church Cemetery - Bridgewater, NS

in Abandoned Cemeteries

Posted by:  T0SHEA

20T E 379217 N 4914370

Partially built in 1854, the standing frame of what would have become Holy Trinity was blown down in 1855. Rebuilding commenced in 1856, with consecration of the church finally occurring on June 12, 1858.

The first church built in Bridgwater was the worship site of Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Lutherans from 1832 until each congregation built its own church, beginning with this one, begun in 1854. This church has been in continuous use for 157 years as of 2015. Still wearing its clapboard siding, the Gothic Revival church has undergone one major change it its history, with the present bell tower being added in 1889. The chancel was enlarged in the same year. The bell tower houses a bell donated by Judge Mather Byles DesBrisay, founder of the DesBrisay museum, which was initially housed in a gallery located where the tower now stands.

In the churchyard is a small cemetery, long out of use and now a part of it neglected and overgrown. There are just under 100 known burials in the cemetery, but much fewer headstones are to be found today. The first known burial was that of Elizabeth Ann Aitken, who died February 28, 1867 aged 79 years. She was a native of Aberdeen, Scotland and the eldest daughter of the late Rev. Roger Aitken, Rector of St. John's church, Lunenburg. The last known burial is that of M. E. (Julian) Oakes, who died December 27, 1903, aged 79 years.

The first church in Bridgewater was built c. 1832, and called the Union Church – it housed the congregations of Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Lutherans in Bridgewater. Unfinished and exposed to the elements and local farmyard creatures, it was dubbed the "Lord’s Barn" by locals. In the early 1850s, this was sold to the Baptists, and they used it as their meeting place until a new structure was built in 1922. Each of the three congregations each consequently built their own church over the next several years. The Lutheran’s built St. Paul’s at the corner of Pleasant and Phoenix Streets c. 1858 , the current structure dating from 1906-1907 when a replacement was needed, as the original one had been struck by lightning and burned down. The Presbyterians built their church at the corner of Maple and St. Andrews Streets c. 1852, building a much grander building in 1874, both of which were demolished in the latter half of the 20th century.
From the Town of Bridgewater