Waterloo Region Branch, Ontario Genealogical Society 2009
Old Baden Cemetery
CC#4563
372 Snyder’s Road
E.,
Wilmot Township, Waterloo Region, Ontario
This
piece of ground was conveyed to Nicholaus Klein and
Peter Spehnler (Spenler) by
the trustees of school section number 13 (John Erb the younger, Christian S. Miller
and John Gascho, Jacob Kropf
the elder and Magdalena Kropf) for the sum of two
dollars. The deed was registered at 2:30 p.m. on 27 January 1866.
This
burial ground was to be for the use of all denominations of Christians. The
residents within three miles were to convene and replace trustees as needed.
Christian Maier (Mayer) signed the affidavit for the signatures of the above.
Commissioner was A J Peterson. The stones in the cemetery were read in
September 1978 by Lorraine Roth and Ruby Hammer.
For about forty
years, this cemetery was the primary burial place for Baden residents. A
Historical Atlas of Waterloo and Wellington Counties, by H. Parsell
and Co., dated 1881-1877, shows the location of the cemetery.
There may, once,
have been a church beside this burial ground. No records identify the church,
however. Because the cemetery was non-denominational, the question also arises
as to what denomination the church was - if it ever existed in the first
place.
By the turn of the
century, records held by the Township of Wilmot state that "with the
demise of the old Baden cemetery.”
Fairmount Cemetery,
located on the hill outside of the community. Although Fairmount was originally
intended as a Lutheran burial ground, it then accepted burials of all
denominations, because there was no other place for the graves.
The Township of
Wilmot did some work at the Snyder's Road cemetery in the late 1950's or early
1960's but didn't continue to maintain it on a regular basis.
Baden resident
Norman Haufschild, former Township of Wilmot Road
Superintendent, recalls when the work was done on the area. Mr. Gardener, who
lived by the Baden pond, said Haufschild, was hired
to bring his horse in and pull out the many small trees and brush that had
grown up around the tombstones which, by then, were virtually hidden.
At the same time,
the tombstones were piled up and the ground leveled.
No record was kept, however, of where the graves were that the stones marked. A
little later, the small fence along the front of the property, was rebuilt.
Unfortunately, this, too, has deteriorated. The paint has peeled and some of
the posts are in poor condition.
Walter Hammer, a
Baden resident who has lived _beside the cemetery since the late 1950's, has
served as custodian of the lot for the last 30 years. It was Hammer and Wilfred
Schneller, who owned the farm across the street from
the cemetery, who decided something needed to be done to maintain the rundown
cemetery -which, by the 1960's, had grown up again. Hammer and Schneller began to cut the grass in the late 1960's and
today, during the summer months, Hammer still cuts the grass on a weekly basis.
Today, the
tombstones remain stacked in a pile, more than half way back on the property,
almost invisible from the road. Several of these tombstones are in poor repair, some broken to the point that names and dates are no
longer visible. And, because they no longer mark specific graves, there is no
way of determining where the bodies are buried.
Other pioneer
cemeteries in Wilmot township have had work done to maintain them - including
putting stones back up and repairing others. Nothing has been done to the Baden
cemetery.
In 2010 a memorial
stone will be erected to mark the site of the cemetery and to record the names
of those who are believe to be buried there.
To
order a CD Version of all the cemeteries of Wilmot Township follow this link