St. John's Anglican Cemetery Dufferin Bridge (Inactive)

(Vigrass Cemetery)

4675 Nipissing Road South

Conc A Lot 38 Spence

Near the Muskrat Valley Road once stood a small St. John’s Anglican Church where now all that remains is the outline of the stone foundation, guarded by a comparatively young pine tree. Around it lays the lonely cemetery beckoning the traveler to stop and visit.

Wm. Beasley lies here with two wives, one who died at 19 years, 7 months, probably in childbirth.  Another young bride, Ruth Ellen Downing Vigrass, age 18 years, 10 months, died when struck by lightening just two weeks after her marriage to Gerald Vigrass. Three other members of the Downing family, Laura, Richard, and Jean; James Burn’s wife Mary; Annabelle McDonald wife of Garfield Phillips; James and Thomas Hughes 25 and 30; children of James and Martha Vigrass, Lilla Jane 14 and Edwin Paul 22 both drowned in separate accidents; the parents James and Martha Beckett Vigrass, who headstone has been vandalized; Anne E. Granger infant daughter of Wm. And Elizabeth; John Robert Moring’s wife Katherine Mary Stevens; Morley David and Madeline M. Sawdon; Raymond M. and Audrey E.Burns Sawdon; and David Shelswell and his wife Hannah M. Holmes.