You should try putting this request on the graveyard discussion group,
Grave-L

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_________________________
William Moss RPA

Archéologue principal
Design, Architecture et Patrimoine
Service de l'aménagement du territoire
Hôtel de Ville
CP 700 Haute-Ville
Québec (Québec)
Canada G1R 4S9
Tél. : 418.691.6869
Cell.: 418.576.1147
Fax  : 418.691.7853
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Dear Histarchers,

During the time there were public executions in Ontario for a wide variety
of
crimes, it was a widespread and common practice for hanged prisoners,
unclaimed by relatives, to be buried in the jail yard.

 It is thought that after rebels Matthews and Lount were hanged at the (2nd)
jail in Toronto in 1837, they were at first buried in the exercise yard,
then
later reburied at the Necropolis.

 Archaeologists have uncovered burials in the exercise yard at the Waterloo
County Jail.  At Toronto's Don Jail, the burial area was referred to as
"Murderer's Row".  In No Tears to the Gallows, author Mark Johnson cites
death-row prisoner Frank McCullough, in 1919, looking down from his cell
window to point out where the last fellow hanged was buried and commenting
to
attending Reverend R. Bertram Nelles : "You see my place is right next."

 The Don Jail was preceded by the 1838 Gaol (on the site of Upper Canada's
first Parliament Buildings).

 Does anyone have knowledge of jail yard burials at this particular jail
(Toronto's 3rd), or at others in the period1830 to 1850 in Ontario, or
elsewhere if relevant?



Rollo Myers and Adriana Balen

Citizens for the Old Town

416 861 1793

159 King Street East Toronto, Ontario M5C 1G9