A new columbarium will soon be open at St. Matthew on-the-Plains cemetery in Aldershot; the dedication ceremony conducted by the Right Reverend Susan Bell, Bishop of the Niagara Anglican Diocese, will take place on Sept. 21, 2023 at 4:30 p.m.
The cemetery has been sold out since the end of the last century, but this new columbarium will add 84 niches, including an ossuary. Columbariums are structures with niches or recesses that hold cremains (cremated remains) in funerary urns.
The story of St. Matthew on-the-Plains Church began back in 1849 when early pioneer families in Aldershot started to meet in their homes to worship. A decade later, the Wyatt family donated a portion of land for the first church building, and St. Matthew on-the-Plains opened for its first service on Sept. 22, 1861, according to the 90th anniversary booklet released by the church in 1951.
No cemetery was originally planned for the church, as per the wishes of Mrs. Wyatt, says St. Matthew’s lore. Soon, though, plans were made to extend St. Matthew’s Avenue across Plains Rd., and through farmlands to Burlington Bay — something the settlers did not want.
Then, an unemployed labourer died.
Those early residents buried the man beside St. Matthew on-the-Plains Church, on land donated by the Applegarth family, thereby both creating the cemetery and preventing the road’s construction. An unengraved gravestone, which can be found today in the north-east corner of the cemetery, marked his grave. Mrs. Wyatt herself was buried in the cemetery in 1871.
More recently, the Art and Verna Plant Quiet Garden was built adjacent to the cemetery and dedicated on the feast day of St. Matthew, Sept. 21, in 2006. It is a place for reflection and rest for those who need it.
And now, the cemetery is expanding by way of this soon-to-open columbarium. Anyone who would like to attend the dedication and the wine-and-cheese celebration that will follow can RSVP to the church office at office@stmatthewburlington.ca or 905-632-1233.
Sources:
St. Matthew on-the-Plains. n.d. About [St. Matthew on-the-Plains Cemetery]. Url: https://cemetery.stmatthewburlington.ca/sample-page/ (accessed Sept. 14, 2023).
St. Matthew on-the-Plains. 1951. A brief history of St. Matthew’s Church on the Plains, Aldershot, Ontario. 90th anniversary booklet, 1861–1951. Burlington Historical Society repository, Burlington Digital Archive. Url: https://digitalarchive.bpl.on.ca/Documents/Detail/st.-matthews-church-90th-anniversary-booklet-1861-1951/109006 (accessed Sept. 14, 2023).
