Dundas' Forgotten Cemetery, Part Two

by Stan Nowak
This article was first published November 14th, 2003 in the Dundas Star News. Reproduced with permission of the author.

The name of "Hopkins" has been a long and established one in this community for 200 years. They were an early pioneer family who settled in the northeastern-most portion of what is now Dundas and a part of which is known as "Hopkins Corners". The property where the Family Cemetery is now located was registered as Concession 2, Lot 28, in West Flamborough Township in Wentworth County to Joseph Hopkins in 1803. By 1816, Joseph Hopkins had 665 acres, a house, and some animals at his disposal. There was a school house across the street, and a prosperous society including other families with names such as Morden, Lyons, Everett, Desjardins, and Newman flourished and grew. Throughout the decades, this area became a thriving agricultural community. As generations elapsed, Joseph's property was subdivided and passed along to his heirs.

It was Gabriel Hopkins who set aside the land at the top of the hill for the little cemetery (which sat on Concession 2, Lot 29) that houses the remains of his older brother Joseph, who died in 1841, his three wives and other members of his family. Gabriel himself is not buried there, but elsewhere in Hamilton. The earliest known burial was Patty Mariah Hopkins, who died April 6, 1816, at the age of 15 years. She was the daughter of Joseph and his first wife, Hannah Kelsey. Time passed, the property kept changing hands, and more family members joined their ancestors in the little graveyard. Being a close-knit community, the cemetery evolved into a community burial spot, which is why there are also Mills, Almas, Everetts, and Newmans interred there, although some were related by marriage. The last person interred there was Ann Hayes, wife of James Newman. She died on November 19, 1905, and is buried under the Newman Family monument at the bottom of the hill near the woods.

After Ann Hayes' interment, the cemetery began its slow decline and deterioration. The little graveyard became overgrown, neglected and forgotten. In 1974, the responsibility for the cemetery was transferred from West Flamborough to the Town of Dundas. By then, it was completely abandoned and covered by bramble, bush and lilac trees. Most of the tombstones were either flattened or quickly heading in that direction. Some lay broken and in pieces. The Dundas Parks Committee originally wanted to relocate the graves to a section of Grove Cemetery, but the provincial government disagreed, and the graveyard stayed in place. Recommendations were made to clean up the cemetery, but nothing was done until over twenty years later.

In 1989, two members of the Hamilton Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society visited the cemetery and transcribed for posterity the information—some very faint—offered by the more than thirty tombstones that were found there. Only the Newman monument was intact, and remains in its original location to this day.

Today, the once-thriving Hopkins farm is an overgrown, unused field. The family cemetery, also known as the Valley Cemetery, has been cleaned up and all the tombstones have been gathered and assembled in a central monument, but there is no obvious indication that there is an historic graveyard nearby. Those buried there deserve to be recognized and remembered. It is through the courage, efforts, and sacrifices of pioneer families like the Hopkins and Newmans that we live and thrive in this historic community today.

The discovery of this cemetery stemmed from a phone call from another city this past summer expressing a particular concern for the old graveyard. The concern is unwarranted—the proposed interchange will not, in any way, disturb the final resting place of the Hopkins and Newman families in "Dundas' Forgotten Cemetery".

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