Catherine MacDonald (McLean)

Catherine McDonald, died 1910 in Baileys Brook, Pictou County

Item can be found in Registration Year: 1910 - Book: 14 - Page: 109 - Number: 654

From: Carol MacLean <ritam@axion.net> Subject: [NS-CB] Graveyard at Bailey's Point leaves a lot of questions to beanswered Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:12:07 -0700

Folks,

This story is about my grandmother MacLean, her grandfather & family, the McDonald's who at one point, owned the land in Schooner Pond, and therefore, is mostly likely who the unmarked graves are.... I have been in touch with LeRoy Peach, and pretty much the info I gave him, matches the info in the story from the current owners. They just didn't know who or how this MacLean lady was connected...but now they do......

Carol MacLean

CBPost August 17, 2009

COLUMNISTS Last updated at 11:25 PM on 16/08/09 Graveyard at Bailey's Point leaves a lot of questions to be answered

LEROY PEACH The Cape Breton Post

Schooner Pond, near Donkin, was a noted mining area in the 19th century and a fishing station from the early 1900s to the 1940s. My uncles lived there in the summer and fished the area as early as 1915. In time, they were joined by the Bordens and the Greens. Schooner Pond became prominent again when Xstrata Coal acquired the existing Donkin Mine site for redevelopment in 2004. Within the context of that prominence and promise, the cove at Schooner Pond became interesting as well: Xstrata Coal learned that there was a graveyard near the boundary of the mine on the farm formerly owned by Ezra Bailey. The graveyard was situated on a jut of land known to fishermen as Bailey's Point. The Baileys, who had bought the farm around 1913 from a Mr. Baxter, were aware of the graveyard for years and Ezra Bailey's daughter, Martha, in 2009 was able to provide much useful information about the site. It was Xstrata's local community liaison committee which proposed that the bounds of the cemetery be delineated for interpretation and emphasis. Xstrata Coal agreed to hire Davis Archeological consultants of Halifax in May, 2009, to do an examination of the site. As we shall see, the project yielded valuable information. However, our knowledge of the burials there is still in its infancy. That's where Donkin natives Robert MacDougall and Jim MacIsaac come in. They've done very good research on the history of the area. In order to narrow down their research about the origin of the graveyard, they examined Samuel Holland's and A.F. Church's map-making, the early history of fishing, name changes in the area, census reports, church histories, and burial records from the latter part of the 19th century. They were spurred on in their research, of course, by the Davis delineation project and the recollections of Martha Bailey who lived on the Bailey farm until it was expropriated by DEVCO in the 1970s. On the basis of the Davis consultants' findings, including 14 grave shafts, as well as documentary and oral history, archeologists concluded that the burials likely dated from the mid-to-late 19th century and were probably related to a family burial ground. This view was strengthened by the fact that the earliest land grant was 1858. Martha Bailey was able to provide information that the graveyard pre-dated her father's purchase of the land, that graves were marked by four large stones and small stones and that some of the graves were surrounded by an ornamental metal fence which subsequently deteriorated. As well, she recalled a visit to the farm by a MacLean lady from Glace Bay, then in her 80s, who said that her relatives were buried at the site. Unfortunately, the lady died shortly after the interview. Much work therefore still needs to be done to identify the MacLean family supposedly connected to the site. Fifteen graves in all were found, five to eight of which contained the remains of children or young adults. One grave was shallow, possibly indicating a winter burial. Hand-hammered nails were found suggesting that they belonged to the early 1800s. However, these nails could still have been manufactured in the area at a later date. Nevertheless, although the graveyard remains a mystery, I shall summarize next week the ongoing research of Robert MacDougall and Jim MacIsaac.