Mount Royal Cemetery - History and Description

History and Description

In the middle of the 1800s, the cemeteries located downtown needed space desperately. Concerned with epidemics and public health issues, these cemeteries had to be developed elsewhere.The Protestant community of Montreal purchased, in 1851, a section of Mount Royal that belonged to Dr. Michael McCulloch.

The Mount Royal Cemetery, one of the first rural cemeteries in North America, was incorporated in 1847 under an Act of the Provincial Parliament of Canada. Following the trend of the American rural cemetery movement, the purpose of choosing land on the mountain was to use the natural surroundings to combine horticulture and commemoration in perpetuity. The original landscaping plan laid out the site in a series of terraces which followed the natural curves of the mountain. It was consecrated June 8, 1854 by the Anglican bishop Francis Fulford, after the first burial of Reverend William Squire, a Methodist minister, on October 19, 1852.

Administered by 21 Trustees elected as representatives of the six founding denominations, it is open to persons of all faiths and races. There are areas for war veterans, sailors, and various benevolent organizations that purchased lots subsidized by The Mount Royal Cemetery Company. The St. Andrew's Society, one such organization, buried 15 Scottish casualties who were aboard the steamboat "Montreal" when she caught fire and sank near Quebec City in 1857.

In 1862, ten years after the opening of Mount Royal Cemetery, the entrance gates were built in the early English Gothic style of architecture.

Mount Royal Cemetery contains more than 162,000 interments and is the final resting place for a number of notable Canadians. It includes a veterans section with several soldiers who were awarded the British Empire's highest military honour, the Victoria Cross. In 1901 the Mount Royal Cemetery Company established the first crematorium in Canada.

Historically used by members of the English-speaking community and those of Protestant faiths, the cemetery is now non-sectarian and open to all. Several small Jewish cemeteries are also located in or nearby Mount Royal Cemetery: Congregation Shaar Hashomayim Cemetery, Spanish and Portuguese-Shearith Israel and Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom (Westmount, Quebec) .

The cemetery was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1999 as an example of "Exceptional 19th-century cemetery design and aesthetics." A plaque indicating the cemetery's historic status was erected in 2002.