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The Lost Holmes Cemetery
Much of the information on this web page was taken from the book entitled "The Story of Bethel", and the special insert called "Brick Bethel Church".
Quote from the book "The Story of Bethel"
Somewhere near John and Frank Majek's farms there is another very old cemetery that was known as the Holmes Burying Ground. This cemetery was discovered by Muruiel Smyth while she was doing cemetery transcriptions for the Chatham-Kent Genealogical Society. Two tombstones were found commemorating Margaret E Smith wife of James Smith, March 22 1861, a good 40 yr's; and James Smith who died at his residence on Grove Farm Jan 9 1863. Muriel did more research and discovered in the Township Papers for north Harwich a Crown Lands map of September 1861 with the Holmes Burying Ground location of Lot 1 Concession 23 Harwich Townshiip, marked as Grave Yard. The Holmes Burying Ground is also mentioned in Chatham obituaries of the late 1800's.
No more than two stones have been found. It is believed that other stones were carried away by high water and natural erosion.
Nothing more is known of this area at the moment. We may never know more though we might find SOME further information and photos if we search for it.
June of 2013 Les Mancell and John Skakel received permission to go back and inspect the area. Mr Majek told us that he could remember a time when there were a number of monuments standing on his farm's border, right next to the river. However, they have long since fallen, and it is thought as mentioned above that many have simply disappeared into the river.
The first thing we found was a likely cemetery location just out into the "Worked field" next the very end of the row of trees. This seems to be a well laid out cemetery with MANY burials in it. On the NE side is a large possible Children's area and singles area or Communal burial area of some type. We caution that this was found by dowsing so this information should be taken with care.
Off past the edge of the field right next to the river we found the PARTIAL remains of two monuments. We found the likely existence of four graves in there which would indicate a totally separate burial area. Again though we caution that this was identified by dowsing so the results should be taken with care. One burial was VERY close to the edge of the river. It is possible that remains could have been disturbed or exposed by the erosion. The two monuments found in this area seem to be different from the two found earlier by KOGS researchers. Thus, there have really been the remains of four monuments found there.
Again, we seem to have found the remains of two burial areas here. The remains in some or all of the burials may well have been moved to Chatham, or Fields Cemetery, etc. Without further research by GPR and possible archaeological documentation this will never be known, and there is absolutely NO reason to do such here.