actual coordinates: 44.853165, -65.292819
This site commemorates the residents of the county asylum and poor house located near this site both survivors and those buried here in unmarked graves. Though it is unclear if the graveyard was segregated, the residents of the poor house were, Whites being housed in the newer building built in 1881 and in 1897 a second new building was constructed to house the areas White residents, while Black and Indigenous people remained in the aging existing building.
I ran across one of the Black residents in the typical way; finding a story on the internet revealed through the handing down of oral history from Maxine Tynes to Brenda Thompson who chronicled the story in writing and presented by Suzanne Rent in the Halifax Examiner.
Lucy Mitchell was known pejoratively as « Crazy Luce » and was born in Bridgetown around 1810. She likely existed as a domestic servant for wealthier White households and probably live in the poor house for most of her adult life and by 1899 she represented on of 43 Black residents of the segregated Black residence. Suzanne Rent points out that residing in the poor house was a culmination of the pressures of being a Black female in a racist society, being poor, single and probably struggling with mental illness, a pretty understandable result of a life living on the margins. Lucy lived to the age of 100 and died in 1910 and she is buried here somewhere… in an unmarked grave.
Brenda Thompson compiled this list of other Black people known to be buried here:
Derby Bailey, d. 18 October 1912, 40 years of age
Katherine Pomp, d. 4 February 1908, 94 years of age
Margaret Simms, d. 19 October 1910, 86 years of age
Lucy Mitchell, d. 20 October, 88 years of age
Thomas Francis, d. 28 November 1910, 34 years of age
Benjamin Francis, d. 22 Jan 1911, 6 weeks old, at Ward 11
Alice Stephenson, d. 28 May 1913, 2 years of age
Edward Owens, d. 11 September 1913, 2 mos.
Joshua Sims, d. 24 February 1914, 63 years of age
James Johnson, d. 28 April 1914, 83 years of age
Thomas Jackson, d. 4 Aug. 1914, 3 years of age
Silas Jackson, d. 2 Dec. 1914, 2 months of age
Paddy Mitchell, d. 13 Dec. 1914, 85 years of age
Ruby Evelyn E. Jackson, d. 28 May 1915, 1 month, 27 days of age
Cyril Jackson, d. 27 Dec. 1915, 2 weeks, 1 day of age
Letitia Camps, d. 20 Jan 1917, 60 years old of age
Emma Godfrey, d. 26 April 1919, 90 years of age
Henry Cuff, d. 2 June 1919, 73 years of age
Alexander Jackson, d. 7 August 1920, 94 years of age
Mary Parker, d. 20 August 1921, 80 years of age
Margaret Johnson, d. 23 November 1921, 86 years of Age
Henry Sims, d. 30 November 1922, 77 years, 6 mos, 27 days
Fred Jarvis, d. 16 Dec. 1922, 1 year of age
Mary Stephenson, d. 11 March 1925, 42 years of age
Lavinia Cuff, d. 25 Dec. 1926, 88 years of age
Jennie B. Owens, d. 31 December 1927, 24 years of age
Albert Mitchell, d. 15 August. 1928, 56 years of age
Elsie Owens, d. 12 March 1930, 6 mos.
James Owens, d. 17 Aug. 1930, 1 yr. 6 mos. 15 days
William Bailey, d. 12 Aug 1932, aged 80 years
Dorothy Owen, d. 10 Jan 1934 at Ward 11, 3 mos. 28 days
Ethel Elizabeth Simms, d. 23 March 1934, 13 days
Eleazar Marsman, d. 18 Sept. 1934, age 69
Irving Crosby, d. 28 July 1935, age 83
James Henry Owens, d. 12 Nov. 1936, age 87
Naamon Owens, d. 15 July 1938 Ward 11, aged 44 years
Harold Stevenson, d. 21 May 1940 Ward 11, 4 mos. 29 days
Percy Jackson, d. 5 May, 1941 in Inglewood, 59 years of age
John Henry Jackson, d. 9 December 1941 in Bridgetown, aged 69 yr 2 mos
Lillian Golden May Bell, d. 9 Nov 1944 in Boston, 73 years of age, Buried at the county home
Curtis Bailey, d. 8 Sept 1950, 65 years of age
Sources:
Halifax examiner, https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/morning-file/the-life-of-lucy-mitchell-at-the-annapolis-county-poor-house/
The Nova Scotia Advocate, https://nsadvocate.org/2019/04/02/brenda-thompson-punishing-the-poor-in-nova-scotia-then-and-now/
https://www.facebook.com/AnnapolisValleyMacdonaldMuseum/posts/bridgetown-county-home-in-1877-discussions-began-about-having-a-poor-farm-to-ser/2608698119369399/
Images:
Public Archives of Nova Scotia: https://archives.novascotia.ca/images/mccully/201216038.jpg
https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/2758187/annapolis-county-asylum-%26-poor-farm-cemetery
