Belleville cemetery
cemetery in Hastings County, Ontario, Canada
Belleville cemetery is a cemetery located in the city of Belleville, Ontario, Canada. Incorporated in 1872, it now covers 65 acres (260,000 m2) along the north shore of the Bay of Quinte.
History
The Belleville Cemetery Company was organized in 1872. Previous to this, burials were made in the city church yards but it became evident that more room would be required and preferably, out of town. Interested citizens therefore banded together and purchased 65 acres of land in what was then The Township of Sidney and fronting on the Trent Road, now designated as Dundas Street West within the limits of the City of Belleville. These pioneers purchased from one to as many as six lots, each lot containing six or eight graves. Each lot owner became a shareholder. The only shareholders then, as now, were the lot owners.
The company is owned by the lot owners and is administered by a board of directors composed of up to nine lot owners elected for three-year terms at an annual meeting, three to be elected each year.
The Belleville Cemetery Company, a not-for-profit corporation, is dedicated to the provision and maintenance of burial locations for the citizens of Belleville and the surrounding area in a serene, park-like setting.
“Belleville cemetery” enters the record as cemetery in Hastings County, Ontario, Canada. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Belleville, cemetery and Hastings can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Belleville cemetery” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Belleville, cemetery and Hastings provides the most credible route into that argument.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4883852. Authority coordinates are 44.141, -77.419. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1872.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Belleville cemetery”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Belleville cemetery primary sources, Belleville cemetery archive and Belleville research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Belleville cemetery”?
- Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Belleville cemetery” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.