Halifax — Citadel & Waterfront
Old Burying Ground
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Transcript
The Old Burying Ground opened in 1749 and served Halifax's early Protestant population. Thousands of people were buried here before the cemetery closed in the nineteenth century.
The best-known monument is the Welsford-Parker Monument, commemorating British victory in the Crimean War.
Cemeteries reveal social hierarchy through stone. Wealthier families could afford elaborate memorials; many others left little visible trace.
The ground also preserves the demographic reality of an eighteenth-century port: disease, infant mortality, military service and dangerous sea travel shortened lives.
Halifax later expanded around the cemetery, turning what began at the town edge into downtown green space.
Like many old urban burial grounds, the site preserves land by refusing the city's normal economic logic.