Public engagement with historical burying grounds in Halifax, Nova Scotia

Abstract

This thesis examines public engagement with three historical burying grounds in downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia: The Old Burying Ground, the Poor House burying ground, and St. Peter’s Cemetery. The research question was inspired by a significant event in 1958 where the Downtown Merchants Association proposed to turn the Old Burying Ground into a parking lot (McGuire 1990). This was met by serious opposition from the public, even with the promise by the Merchants Association to provide a suitable monument on the site to acknowledge its history and significance. This is important because it does not appear that the other cemeteries received the same opposition as they underwent transformations in the twentieth century, such as the construction of a library and the paving of a parking lot. Through the use of newspaper articles from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, modern news coverage, social media comments and news article comments, I provide a timeline of events related to the sites. Through this timeline, I explore notable themes and similarities of how people have expressed opinions and interests in the burying grounds from the nineteenth century to present. The results of this research suggests that the reasons for maintaining and memorializing the Old Burying Ground in comparison to its neighbours is related to the level of preservation the site holds and its military associations, but also the larger ideas of power that dominate the site.