Officially founded in 1820, the St. James Anglican Cemetery is the oldest settler’s cemetery in the national capital region. Designated a heritage site by the City of Gatineau in 2012, it is the resting place of some of the region’s most important personalities. People like Philemon Wright, founder of the first permanent settlement in the Ottawa Valley, and his wife Abigail Wyman Wright, the first businesswoman in the area; John Scott, the first mayor of Bytown; Robert Bell, the founder of the Ottawa Citizen; Nicholas Sparks, rich property owner in Ottawa’s Centretown, and many others. Impressive funerary monuments such as the memorial of E.B. Eddy, one of Canada’s largest industrialists, reveal the wealth of many of the pioneering Anglophone families of the 19th century.

GUIDE: Rick Henderson is author of Walking in the Footsteps of Philemon Wright who recently discovered the remains of Wright’s Tavern in Hull. He is a 4th great-grandson of Philemon Wright, a 3rd great step-grandson of Nicholas Sparks and 2nd great-grandson of Andrew Leamy.

This tour will be conducted in English with French translation available at all times.

Heritage Ottawa Members: $5  /  Non-Members: $10  ( Payable by cash at start of the tour )