Thursday, December 22, 2011

Friends (Hicksite) Burying Ground, Newmarket









Located on the west side of Yonge Street, 300 meters south of Mulock Drive.  Quakers settled in the Newmarket area around 1807.  In 1828 the Hicksite Friends, followers of Elias Hicks, separated from the original society. In 1839 the Hicksites built their meeting house and established the burial ground. The meeting house stood on this site until 1942 and the last burial in this cemetery was in 1919.

The early Quakers did not permit headstones and buried in order of death. Which is why the east side of the  burial ground where the first burials are located are not marked.  Later, when headstones where permitted these were usually just fieldstone, Unfortunately, during a restoration a number of fieldstone markers were removed to the western edge of the cemetery, thus destroying many family relationships and the order of burial.

The cemetery was restored by the Town of Newmarket in 1989; it is closed to burials and is maintained today by the Town of Newmarket and is a designated heritage site.

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