ALEXANDER:
= Jane G. Alexander  d. 16 Apr 1881 ae 16 yrs
  Robert J. L. Alexander d. 24 Apr 1874 ae 5 yrs

CROW:
= James Crow  d. 6 Dec 1869 ae 73 yrs
  h/w Nancy  d. 30 Jul 1891 ae 81 yrs

McLAUGHLIN:
= William McLaughlin d. 26 Apr 1849 ae 74 yrs
  h/w Martha   d. 12 May 1865 ae 91 yrs
  Native of Londonderry, Ireland

PATTON:
= John Patton  d. 13 Feb 1856 ae 45 yrs
  Native of Londonderry, Ireland
  h/s John  d. 25 Aug 1828 ae 2 mos

WALLACE:
= Margaret  d. 14 Oct 1881 ae 5 wks
  Mary J.  d.  7 Mar 1889 ae 6 yrs 3 mos
  ch/o Calvin & Olive Wallace

{There is an ornate iron marker with no name -
Note made by W. E. Faulkner, 1884}

The Crowe Cemetery is an old cemetery found on the north side of the Shepody Road approximately 3.3 km from the Schoales Dam Forest Ranger station. It is completely overgrown, but there is a small sign by the side of the road and a trail leading up to the cemetery, where other paths take you to the various sites where stones are erected. Some monuments are only irom markers with no information preserved on them. It is hard to establish the dates between which the cemetery was used since some of the data is now missing, however we can surmise that it was not used prior to 1818 or even possibly 1826.

In 1818, James Crow came to New Brunswick from Ireland, most probably with his father or brother. Like many others at that time, he may have been given a location ticket which allowed him to settle upon a lot of land and improve upon it before formally applying for a grant of the land in his own name at a later date. He applied for his grant of land in 1826 and/or 1827. He was granted his 50 acre grant in 1834. There is no indication as to when the grant next to it, granted to George Crow, was received. This George Crow would appear to be the father or brother of James as he appears on a petition to have the route of the road changed in 1826. There is no record of this George Crow in the 1851 census for Hammond. We do find a George Crow living a few miles north on the border of what is now Hammond and Waterford Parishes in 1861.

So the land for this cemetery would not have been set aside for such use before 1818 and maybe as late as 1828, the earliest known date for a burial there. The latest burial may have been in 1891, as that is the last date known with any certainty. After that date, few people lived in that area.

The cemetery is found, as I mentioned, by travelling by foot about 150 m up the hill from the road. Many people may wonder why a cemetery was ever put here, so far from the road and on such a steep hill. However  we make this judgement based upon where the road is today. Back when the road was first laid out and the land was granted by location ticket, the road actually ran in pretty much a straight line rather than curving around the hills in this area, meaning that the roadway was actually about 300m further north than its present course at this point. The road, originally built about 1817, was changed in 1826 because some of the 1817 road, in this section in particular, was along the tops of hills, some of which were extremely steep and rocky, making passage through the area very difficult. The cemetery, then, would have been south of the old road and probably beside it on a little knoll. (See map at bottom of page.)

Without the benefit of a survey, it is hard to say with any certainty on which property the cemetery lies, but the best guess would place it roughly in the upper right hand corner of the George Crow grant. By the 1890's, there was the beginning of an exodus away from the area since the road was no longer used by the stagecoach nor was the
road used as the main road from Shepody to Saint John, a new one being opened through Harvey around 1845-1850. With the end of the stage through the area, the hope of the area becoming a thriving trading area began to wane. People began to move to Sussex, to Saint John and to other regions, some even as far away as Western Canada, where the land was good and they were looking for farmers.

There are only nine markers remaining in this cemetery, but there are undoubtedly more graves here than represented by the markers. Like many other cemeteries, stones may either be missing or never erected in the first place. Of the nine markers, three are missing the names of those buried there. This leaves us with only six markers designating people buried here. 

Jane G. and Robert J. L. Alexander ~ In 1819, James and Jane Alexander came to New Brunswick from Ireland. About 1830, they had a son named Thomas. In 1863 he married Margaret Wallace, daughter of Joseph and Jane Wallace. Their eldest child was Jane G., born about 1865. She died at the age of 16 on April 16, 1881, and is buried in the Crowe Cemetery. Her brother, Robert [Joseph] L., was born about 1868 and died 1874 and is buried beside her. They were Anglican.

James and Nancy (Ann) Crow ~ James came to Canada from Ireland in 1818, possibly with his father, George. He married a girl named Ann who immigrated in 1837, and they had three children, George, born about 1838, Mary, born about 1839, and William, born about 1841. James died in 1869 and Nancy followed in 1891. James was Presbyterian while Nancy was Anglican.

William and Martha McLaughlin ~ William and Martha came to Canada from Londonderry, Ireland, about 1820. They were Presbyterian and settled about 2 km east of Crawford Lake. 

John Patton and John Jr. ~  John and Mary Patton came from Ireland in 1820 with possibly three children, Robert, Rachel, and Mary. John Jr. was born here in 1828 and lived for two months.  John and Mary brought their family from Londonderry, Ireland. John was born about 1890 and died in February of 1836, leaving Mary to raise the family by herself. The Pattons were Presbyterian.

Albert Alonzo Searle ~ Albert is the grandson of Edward and Sarah Searle, who settled in the Long Settlement area. The Searles were Baptist by faith, possibly explaining the lack of records on this family, such as Albert Alonzo's mother's maiden name. Many by that name married into other denominations where the marriages are recorded.

Margaret and Mary J. Wallace ~ In 1817, Joseph and Jane Wallace came to New Brunswick from Ireland. In 1844 they had twin boys, named Luther and Calvin. In 1874, Calvin married Olive Ada Snider. They already had three children, all boys, when Margaret was born in September, 1881. She lived for five weeks and was buried in the Crowe Cemetery. Then in late November or early December 1882 they had a second daughter, Mary J., who lived until she was 6 years and 3 months. She is buried beside her sister in the Crowe Cemetery. Calvin was a lumberman and they lived east of Schoales Dam. Calvin and Olive are buried in the cemetery at Sussex Corner. The Wallaces were Anglican.

Below is a copy of the area as represented by the 1862 Walling Mapof Kings and Saint John Counties, showing the relative placements of the homesteads of 1861-1862. Those represented by known burials in the Crowe Cemetery are highlighted in orange. The Wallace, Alexander and McLaughlin families lives east of Schoales Dam and what was called then "Sands Lake", now known as Crawford Lake. The Crow and Patton families lived side by side on the Shepody Road, while the Searle family lived on the road going north to Long Settlement just east of the cemetery.