Cemeteries swallowed by the city

It’s unsettling, to say the least, to be forced into considering the fragility of life when all you wanted was to hit the Dollarama, grab some chick-lit at the public library and then wolf down a cheeseburger at the food court. But here, smack dab between your car and the entrance to Bridlewood Mall at Finch Avenue East and Warden Avenue, sits the tiny Christie’s Methodist Cemetery, where the pioneering folks of Scarborough Township were buried between 1849 and 1950.

Before the asphalt, before the high-rises with their tennis courts and swimming pools appeared, this was the farm of Isaac Christie. And, according to Heritage Toronto’s Chris Bateman (writing for spacing.ca), “Christie and his wife Isabella Graeme, both immigrants from Armagh, Ireland, bought the 100-acre lot in 1836 and allowed local Wesleyan Methodists to set up a small wooden church among their fields. Permelia Roy, one of the first people to be buried at Christie’s, was interred in 1849.”