In the Westchester Mountain Pioneer Cemetery, I recorded an iron cross
with the inscription of W.E. Faulkner 1884 (could also be W.H.) and
the year was preceded with "R.D.". This was back in 1999 and I was
never able to identify this person.
I just did a search of the Colchester County cemetery transcriptions
and came up with the following:
W.H. Faulkner 1884 - Church of England Cem., Londonderry, Marker 110
W.E. Faulkner 1884 - Debert Cem., Debert, Marker 142
W.E. Faulkner 1884 - Hillside (Sore Finger) Cem., Londonderry, Marker 305
W.H. Faulkner 1884 - Hillside (Sore Finger) Cem., Londonderry, Marker 60
W.H. Faulkner 1884 - Folly Village Cem., Glenholme, Marker 871
W.H. Faulkner 1884 - Willow Church Cem., Waugh's River, Marker 38
I'm searching for answers as to why there appear to be multiple
listings for this person and believe that I found part of it on Bryan
Keddy's "Halifax City" website at:
http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/bryanfkeddy/index.html
On his Camp Hill Cemetery page
(
http://www.angelfire.com/ns/bkeddy/camphill.html), he has the
following text:
"The Trask book has for Camp Hill just a few photos of specific stones
or detail as examples of carvers' work. She does mention that Camp
Hill has cast iron gravemarkers from the 1840s, that cast iron markers
were relatively infrequent in NS and most were from the the Foundrys
of William Johns or W. D. Faulkner, both in Halifax. Seems the Johns
Foundary, was most active in 1840-1850s and has about 12 markers at
Camp Hill, several rusted w/raised lettering worn beyond legibility.
Faulkner's markers (of about the same period) had a place to insert
information on paper under glass, all now washed away. Seems
Faulkner's markers were sold all over NS because of the ease with
which they could be "personalized" from stock, but cast iron monuments
were never very popular".
The marker that I found at the Westchester Mountain Pioneer Cemetery
matches the description of another "W.H. Faulker, R.D. 1884" marker
listed for the Kingston Baptist Cemetery, Kingston, New Brunswick
(Marker 18) at:
http://gkmiller.tripod.com/Churches/KingstonBaptist.htm
So it seems that these markers were also sold in New Brunswick and I
have found other "online" cemetery transcriptions for both NB and NS
that have listings for the "1884 Faulkner graves". The Second Falls
Cemetery in St. George's, NB, also has one of these markers, but their
cemetery transcription records the person buried there as TAYLOR and
describing the stone as an "iron marker with small marble inset" along
with the "W.E. Faulkner, R.D. 1884" details. The web page for this
cemetery is at:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~nbpstgeo/stge4a.htm
Better yet, "click" on the camera icon for this marker and you'll get
a picture of it.
It's a shame that we may never know who these markers were meant to
memorialize and can only guess based on their location to other
markers and stones.
I'm still looking for more information on and the history of these
iron markers and the companies that sold them (i.e. was the Faulkner
foundry named W.D. Faulkner or something else?). Also, would anyone
know what the initials R.D. stand for? I will also contact the
Colchester Historical Society regarding this and if corrections can be
made to the cemetery transcriptions on their site.
Neil Weatherbee
Gatineau, Quebec