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Little Dutch Church Archaeological Project
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Built in 1756, the Little Dutch Church was the first Lutheran church in Canada. In 1994 a tragic fire occurred and one third of the building was damaged. In an attempt to assess the structural integrity of the building, a team ripped up a section of floor and entered the underlying crawl space. What they discovered was three crypts and human bones scattered on the ground. In 1996, a team from Saint Mary’s University tested several areas outside the crypts, and found a shallow mass grave with at least ten bodies, stacked two or three layers deep. All the remains were removed to the University Physical Anthropology Laboratory and analysed. The bodies from the crypts were identified as Anna and Otto Schwartz, and Bernard Michael Houseal, individuals between the age of 60 and 80. Those from the mass gravesite were probably immigrants recruited to augment the “Foreign Protestant” population in Nova Scotia, who travelled on the ship Anne in September 1750, and had contracted typhus fever on board and died. The epidemic may have caused the deaths of nearly twenty per cent of the population of Halifax; records show at least fifty people of German ancestry expired from 1749-1751. One of the burial grounds for German Lutherans was located on the plot of land now partially occupied by the Little Dutch Church, which was built over the graves in 1756. In 1998, another dig was attempted and they found a small pit with jumbled remains. It seems the Church had been elevated in 1896 to accommodate an elevation of Brunswick Street, and in the process, workers had encountered many human bones under the Church. According to one 1896 newspaper account, these bones were collected in tubs and later reburied. Seven of the fourteen people found were analysed as black, six as white, and one as an aboriginal North American. The burial records for 1750 identified him as “John Tray, Protestant Indian”. As most Mi’kmaq are believed to have converted to Catholicism after Grand Chief Membertou did so in 1610, it is believed this particular “Indian” could have been a Mohawk. The remains of all these bodies were solemnly and reverently reinterred in 1998 in the cemetery with a German hymn and a Mi’kmaq sweet grass ceremony. May they rest in peace at last. See: 1 In 1750 Governor Cornwallis recruited Protestants from Europe to offset the French and Catholics in the Province. David Christianson, Curator of Archaeology at the Nova Scotia
Museum, talking about the Little Dutch Church Archaeological Project: Additional Links/Resources: |
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