Shoal Harbour Methodist Cemetery Municipal Heritage Site

Shoal Harbour Methodist Cemetery has been designated a municipal heritage site by the Town of Clarenville due to its historical, spiritual and aesthetic values.

The cemetery has spiritual and historic values as the oldest known cemetery in the Clarenville/Shoal Harbour area and the first cemetery of the community's Methodist population. The cemetery dates back to at least the latter part of the nineteenth-century. The cemetery is easily recognizable as being a sacred site and demonstrates the importance of spirituality in the lives of the early settlers who established it. The fragmented marble gravemarkers at the site bear both spiritual epitaphs and religious iconography. It is believed that the community’s original Methodist Church (consecrated in 1866 and burned to the ground in 1892) once stood at the front of the site, although this has not been established with certainty.

The cemetery has historical value due to its connection with the area's earliest, permanent residents, John Tilley (or Tilly) and his family. John Tilley (died 1871), who realized extraordinary accomplishment in both his business life and in his personal life, his wife Elizabeth (died circa 1868), and very likely other family members are also buried there. The Tilleys also built the first Methodist Church in Shoal Harbour. Thomas Godden (or Gadden), a veteran of the Battle of Trafalgar is also laid to rest at Shoal Harbour Methodist Cemetery. The hand-chiselled name “Thos Godden” on a locally made slate stone would have taken considerable effort and likely indicates that he was held in high regard. The marble headstones that once marked the grave sites of John and Elizabeth Tilley and others were likely imported and are indicative of the esteem in which they were held, as imported headstones would have been costly.

The site also has aesthetic value. It is easily recognizable as a burial site and imparts a sense of solitude and reverence. The site is located within a former farm field, close to an embankment overlooking Random Sound. The materials used to construct the currently visible headstones (three of local slate, two of marble, and one of local quartzite), as well as the fence that enclosed the area lends it a definite sense of a time long past. The beauty of the natural environment with moss beds, mature trees, unusual rock groupings and a spectacular view of Random Sound add to the sense of reverence and undisturbed quiet.