A Trip To A Picturesque Muskoka Cemetery in Ufford, Ontario

The restored family burial ground for members of the Doherty family of Ufford who died on evening due to sickness

William Shea of the story William Shea and the bear as written by Bert Shea

John Lily Shea who rescued a near frozen teacher traveling across the ice of Lake Rosseau and brought him to safety over his shoulder while fighting a blizzard

John Shea the builder of the original picket fence around the Doherty graves

Parents of Harriet Shea, wife of John Shea

A TRIP TO THE CEMETERY DOESN'T HAVE TO BE A GRIM AFFAIR

RE-CONNECTING WITH THE PAST IS MORE INSPIRING THAN ONE MIGHT THINK, UPON PASSING THROUGH THE CEMETERY GATE

     Look, I'm not trying to convince anybody, especially my mates who join this blog each day, (because that wouldn't be right) that going to a graveyard is just as fantastic, and satisfying, as sitting down with a cold beer in hand, to watch Sunday afternoon football, or golf tournament on the boob tube. But low and behold, if you're halfway interested in where you came from, and where you might be headed, and if you're offspring have any idea who their great grandparents even were, then holding a little fascination for such places, isn't as macabre as it might seem at first consideration. Honestly, I would always opt for an historically themed outing, versus being an armchair quarterback, and I don't drink beer any more. I find graveyards, from the living side of the equation, delightfully haunted places, that tell us so much about the past, and in the case of the cemeteries we visit, our family's past. And to get to these places of humble solitude, we have to pass through some of the most beautifully pastoral acreages in the entire province. When you come through the hamlet of Ufford, heading west toward Windermere, it is an incredible unfolding, panoramic scene, of hills and valleys, and sprawling lush pastures, bordered by tall, sculpted evergreens, that once marked-off the modest holdings, of pioneer homesteads, belonging to the Shea and Veitch families, amongst other well known pioneer families settling in a place named after Ufford, in ancestral England
     Instead of going antique hunting, as we usually do on Sundays, Suzanne and I decided, as a needed diversion from the same old, same old, to instead take one of our grand tours of central Muskoka, like we used to, when the boys were younger and also enjoyed motor trips.
     We took the back-roads as much as we could, traveling from Gravenhurst to Bracebridge on the picturesque Muskoka Beach Road, and then after navigating the urban traffic in my old home town, took South Monck Drive, and its extension to Falkenburg, and then toward Milford Bay, but cutting off onto the Dougherty Road where the Dougherty family graveyard is located; a short distance from the Ufford Cemetery, where many members of Suzanne's family are buried. It's an amazing countryside drive, and although it may seem to some a little macabre to be seeking out cemeteries all over the place, to heritage-minded folks of our ilk, it's like attending any historic site or museum. We are re-connecting with kin folk from past centuries, at the same time as conducting family research, to put some leaves back on the old family tree. Suzanne has been working for the past five years to infill family history that was missing, particularly on my side, and it's remarkable how much she's changed our overall understanding, of what came before us. As far as our trip, we did carry on to Windermere, Suzanne's home town, and then to Ullswater, on to Utterson, Port Sydney, Bonnie Lake, and back to Bracebridge, where we enjoyed a waterside lunch down along Bracebridge Bay.
     The photographs above were taken by Suzanne at the site of the Doherty roadside cemetery, that has been beautifully restored and properly marked, by the Township of Muskoka Lakes, and then she snapped some images of the Shea family tombstones, of which we didn't have a previous record in our home file. Getting back to the Doherty family plot, on the road named in their honor, it was Suzanne's grandfather, John Shea, a former clerk of Watt Township, in the present Township of Muskoka Lakes, who first erected a picket fence around the previously unmarked cemetery, only a few metres off the roadway. Upwards of four members of the Doherty family, dwelling near the site of the graveyard, perished in one evening, suffering from either influenza or diphtheria, despite the effort of those in the rural neighborhood, who had tried to help them battle the sickness. Due to the contagious nature of the outbreaks, in those backwoods circumstances, and without proper medical intervention, burials were often conducted in this fashion, on homestead acreages, and often in the late evening, and early morning hours, to avoid having any attendants and spectators, who might also have become infected by association. Even the grave diggers, and undertakers were taking major risks in tending to the deceased, because of the potential of contracting the same illness. The surviving family members moved away following the deaths, that fateful evening, and for many years, the plots were only marked by the lilac trees planted as a memorial tribute. John Shea had taken it upon himself to erect a fence to identify the burial ground, and to provide some added memorial recognition for a pioneer family, that had been nearly wiped out as a result of a raging illness. We were so pleased to see that a similar picket fence enclosure had been re-created, to define the once overgrown, and hard to locate family plot.
     We stopped for a while at the Ufford Cemetery, a pine forest-bordered field, that is the final resting place for many of the Shea and Veitch family members, I recall from reading the family histories written by Suzanne's uncle, Bert Shea, which are landmark histories in this part of Muskoka; because of its detailing of the first homestead families in the Ufford and Three Mile lake area of Watt Township. I have used Bert's book for the past quarter century, whenever putting together newspaper features regarding the homestead years of Muskoka's development, all the way back to the late 1850's, when the first settlers began trickling in to South Muskoka. At one point, I yelled to Suzanne, respectfully of course, that I had found the grave of John Lily Shea, who I had just recently wrote about in this blog; regarding how he had saved a man from freezing, when he found him near death, huddled, wearing inadequate clothing and footwear, in a modest, half fallen-in shelter, during a snow storm on Lake Rosseau; carrying the fellow all the way to Portage Bay, where he enlisted the help of an elderly homesteader at home in his small shanty with a big fire roaring above the hearth. The man rescued, a teacher, on the way by foot to the Village of Rosseau, had a near death experience, but would survive and carry on his teaching career, thanks to the good natured Mr. Shea. The fellow I was standing above at this moment in history, wondering if he could have carried a fellow of my girth the same distance. Maybe, maybe not.
     The tombstones above, all belong to Suzanne's side of the family; which is, of course, on her mother Harriet's side, being the daughter of John Shea, the builder of the Doherty Cemetery picket fence. Her brother was Bert Shea, and sisters were Edna, Ada, and Leah. One important inscription to me, is the one belonging to pioneer homesteader, William Shea. There is a fascinating story written about William Shea, in Bert Shea's book, entitled "William Shea and the Bear," and I've highlighted this wonderful folk tale dozens of times in regional publications, and of course, on this blog site. In summary, the elderly William Shea found it necessary to remove a nuisance bear, that was destroying the shooks of hay in the newly harvest fields, of the family farm in Ufford. As the provisions were necessary to feed the livestock over the winter months, the "bruin" was causing the family considerable concern about the mounting losses.
     William Shea, being a particularly good shot with a firearm, decided that it would be best for him, to burrow into one of the shooks, and await the next visit of the bruin, which he hoped was on that first night of deception. It was a moonlit night, when he tore open enough of the shook, to allow him inside, where he was then able to make a small opening with his hands, to allow a view of the pasture bathed in the moonlight, and enough space to shove the barrel of the gun through, in the event the bear showed up as anticipated. After a considerable wait, standing in the hollowed-out shook, William Shea heard the tell tale rustling of a creature of considerable weight approaching. It was the bear that had been responsible for destroying portions of the harvest, and William Shea could hear its breathing within a few feet of where he was hidden away. He prepared his gun to take a shot, and just when the bear came into view, a cloud drifted across the harvest moon, and obscured his target. He waited for a few minutes to see if the cloud cover would clear, to allow him a better view of where the bear was positioned near the stook.
     The cloud cover remained, and William began to worry that he might soon be detected, and potentially attacked, but his main concern was that if he let off a shot, and only injured the bear, it could pose a greater danger to all homesteaders in the neighborhood; an injured bear will attack without warning, and any provocation, due to the pain it is suffering. William decided it wasn't worth the risk, and opted instead to make a noise to scare the bear away from the stook. He may have even let off a shot into the sky, to startle the bruin into a retreat. That night, the bear and the good William Shea played to a draw, you might say, but I think the story Bert told, reflects that the creature was finally killed in daylight conditions shortly after the standoff in that Ufford pasture.
     I suppose we should wear a cloak of melancholy in such places, as the Ufford Community Cemetery, but you know, life's too short for that kind of thing. There are so many remarkable stories emminating from these peaceful, countryside places, of people important to our own biographies, and all the friends and neighbors we knew way back, when life seemed gracefully eternal, and death wasn't talked about unless we happened to be intimately involved. These are not sad places to family historians. It's all here; what we need to know in order to understand how we were connected, and remain linked with the offspring of these pioneers of early Muskoka history.
     If you should find a couple of ghouls wandering around a cemetery near you, one late afternoon, or early evening, don't call the fuzz; it's just us, reconnecting with our roots.