Pierre Jacques Pioneer Cemetery

This small cemetery is located on agricultural land in the community of Glenwood in western Prince Edward Island. It is situated on a grassed knoll overlooking the Big Pierre Jacques River. It does not have its own parcel number, but is part of a larger section of land. The registration includes the area believed to comprise the original cemetery site.

The cemetery is valued for its historical association with the early Protestant Scottish pioneers of Pierre Jacques, which is now known as Glenwood.

The Scottish settlers to this area came from Benbecula in the Isle of Skye. They had originally arrived in the Belfast area in eastern Prince Edward Island as part of Lord Selkirk's immigration plan. However, around 1810, they located to this area, then known as Pierre Jacques, in the western part of the colony. They were later joined by other Protestant Highlanders from the Indian River area in the 1820s and 1830s. There was no Presbyterian Church in the area until one was established at West Cape in the 1830s.

Although not formally marked and now adjacent to agricultural land, the current cemetery is believed to have 18 interments. These include individuals such as Angus Stewart; Ronald MacDonald and his wife, for whom the MacDonald Road is named; as well as members of the Campbell and Gillcash families. In the 1970s, there was evidence of some fieldstones which had been used as markers, but these have since disappeared. A local resident, Mrs. Annie Laurie Livingstone, who lived to be one hundred, had a list of all those interred here, but this was lost.

Although located near farmland, the landowner does not disturb the site and is aware of its important link to the early pioneers of the community.

Source: Culture and Heritage Division, PEI Department of Communities, Cultural Affairs and Labour, Charlottetown, PE C1A 7N8

File #: 4310-20/P12

The heritage value of the cemetery is shown in the following character-defining elements:

- the cemetery in its location, extent and the surviving land formations

- evidence of the use of the place as a cemetery with unmarked graves