Understanding Poverty and Community at the Ingersoll Rural Cemetery Potter's Field

Cody Groat and Rebecca Small use the burial log to explore the history of community members buried in the potter's field in Ingersoll. Source: Western Communications

Cody Groat and Rebecca Small use the Potter's Field at Ingersoll Rural Cemetery as a starting point for asking questions about rural society.

The unmarked Potter’s Field at the Ingersoll Rural Cemetery was the burial place of nearly 400 people between 1864 and 1976. Many people interred here were societally disenfranchised based on their race or economic circumstance. This presentation will demonstrate the new and diverse interpretations of the lived experiences of poverty and community in nineteenth-century Ontario, focusing on death in particular. Narratives relating to the unhoused, victims of infanticide, the formerly enslaved, transient labourers during the Great Depression, and those impacted by the discriminatory Chinese Head Tax are all considered. This presentation illustrates the ways that previously marginalized rural Ontario histories can be brought into national conversations when considering the nuance and specificity associated with death, burial, and memorialization. It will also discuss recent efforts to memorialize those buried in the Potter's Field and the contemporary community response to these memorialization efforts.