HISTORIC TOMBS.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19610, 4 May 1929, Page 19

HISTORIC TOMBS.

A COMPANY OF PIONEERS. BARBADOES STREET ANGLICAN CEMETERY. Tr» account of the bloodstained tombstone in the old Barbadoes street Cemetery, which appeared in The Press a day or so ago, has attracted a small number of sightseers to the cemetery. Four came on Thursday and three yesterday morning. One old man knew the family well, having worked for Mr Robinson. The mark on the tstoiio is supposed to grow fainter for part of the year and to become more noticeable about the time of the year that Margaret Burke was murdered. At present it is very plain and it is not hard to imagine that the -usty brown patch is the splash of murdered blood.

The Council employees are making good progress tidying up the old cemetery, which already shows a great improvement. The Anglican cemetery on the other side of tho rond cannot rival it in .such a tale of mystery and imagination an that of Margaret Burke, but it presents a much more inviting appearance -green close-shaven lawns, low grave mounds covered with a carpet of grass, and mouldering headstones, many tilted at fantastic angles as they have sunk deeper into the turf. Trees and shrubs that must be as old as the settlement, and an aged yew or so give it an atmosphere of Old World peace. It contains more names that are clothed with the aura of history—the names of mighty men in their day. Many of the graves, too, are earlier, quite a number belonging to the 'fifties. Some have been touched so heavily by the hand of time that no lettering remains, and only a weatherworn slab marks the resting place of a pioneer. One of the earliest is that of Alfred Beech, dB5l. The stone bears the mark of an English mason and must have been shipped from overseas. Lieutenant-Colonel James Campbell, of the 45th and 50th Regiments, who died on July 7th, 1858, is another early one. Tho legend: "William Lyon, drowned at Riccarton, 18otj, aged seven years," records an early misfortune. Our earliest pioneers, William and John Deans, lie lieneath tho following inscription, "William and John Deans, of Riccarton, pioneers of colonisation on the Canterbury Plains, who both died at the early age of 34." William was drowned in 1851, and John died in 1854. Another early stone has "In memoriam Theodore Williams, one of tho early colonists, who died at Riccarton, near Christchurch, 1852, aged 40." The word "near" is illuminating: Christchurch and Riccarton were two separate cities as cities went then. Henry Jacobs, R.D., the first Dean of Christchurch, who died in 1901, also li«as among his contemporaries so many of whom had preceded him. An interesting stone is that of "Marianne, dear wife of the Rev. Octavius Mathias, incumbent of Christchurch and Commissary to the Bishop of New Zealand, who exchanged this mortal life for an Eternal one, September Ist, 1851, aged 40." In those days Christchurch was one parish and New Zealand one bishoprie. Underneath is one of those sentences that sometimes repay the haunter of tombs and graveyards: "Fare well reader and mind Eternity." In «uch a setting where time has mellowed the sharp outlines of the stones and softened the clear cut of the letters to an indistinct blur one can fee! the fitness of such a poem as Cray's Elegy in a way that is impossible in our fresher upstart centttories with their aggressive newness. Beside Marianne is the grave of the "Venerable Octavius Mathias, of Aknroa. who died on the first clay of June, 1864, aged 59 years." There also lies "The Most Reverend H. J. C. Harper, first Bishop of Christchurch, New Zealand." The newcomers, of course, are many, and their dates extend far into the present century, but they are too few to destroy the reeling of the presence and almost bodily nearness of men who died while the history of Canterbury was scarcely begun.