By Leo J. Deveau - January 20, 2007

At the southeast corner of Spring Garden Road and Barrington Street in Halifax, there is a cemetery that city residents know as the "Old Burying Grounds."

With over 1,000 gravestones remaining intact, dating from the grounds’ opening in the early 1750s to its close in 1831, the cemetery – belonging to St. Paul’s Anglican Church – is one of the oldest settler burial sites in North America – the other being at Annapolis Royal. Like many cemeteries, the Old Burying Grounds is a place where, if the dead could speak, listeners would be humbled by the life stories now at rest.

There is a gravestone that you will not find; nor is the name of the person listed in the official register of those who were buried in the Old Burying Grounds. However, historical records do confirm a very unique burial took place on those grounds in August of 1762. Let’s take a brief step back to those times.

Further south on Barrington, at South Street, there is an assortment of office buildings and apartments. But early in 1760, that specific area was outside the tow’s southern palisade walls. And not too far from the south gates, there once stood a large barn whose owner, John Murphy, a farmer of Irish Catholic descent, had offered it as a place of worship to a Roman Catholic missionary.

But Halifax in 1760 was not a place for Roman Catholic missionaries. In essence, the town was a British military outpost where the Anglican faith maintained its authority. Nevertheless, being an outpost, such an authority also had to compete with the most common and successful enterprises in Halifax at the time, namely brothels and the selling of rum!

It was into this world that the British powers had invited a Roman Catholic missionary. After having travelled a few days over land and by river from the ancient Mi’kmaq settlement known as Merigomish Island, located at the northeast part of mainland Nova Scotia, he arrived and was greeted at the gates of the town’s northern palisade walls. The missionary was the Abbé Pierre Antoine Simon Maillard.

The invitation Maillard had accepted came from the British Governor, Charles Lawrence, who had requested his consideration to come to Halifax to act as a British agent to conduct peace treaty negotiations with the various Mi’kmaq Communities. Lawrence had long heard about Maillard and the respect the missionary had amongst the Mi’kmaq. Maillard was a 24-year veteran of missionary life with the , from Isle Royale (present day Cape Breton), to Isle St. Jean (P.E.I.), and Bear River (southwest Nova Scotia); and had served many Acadians who had been on the move in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick due to the Deportation orders of 1755, or who had escaped from Louisbourg after its fall in 1758. Maillard was a missionary in the Spiritan Order and a native of the French village of Chartres, home of the famed Chartres Cathedral and the labyrinth floor it contained.

Since his arrival at Fortress Louisbourg in 1735 at the age of 25, Maillard had walked his own labyrinth during his many years of missionary service – service that would outlive three popes, one British crown, and two French kings.

During that time, he had also been captured once by the British at the first siege of Fortress Louisbourg in 1745. He was sent to Boston, then deported back to France, only to arrive back on the Chebucto shore with the ill-fated Duc d’Anville fleet in 1746, a fleet that had lost ships and men due to storms and disease.

After arriving at Chebucto, he had made his way back to a missionary post at Isle de la Sainte Famille (Island of the Holy Family) or Chapel Island, near the French garrison of Port Toulouse (modern day St. Peter’s, Cape Breton). It was there that Maillard organized a cadre of literate lay catechists, the nujialasutma’tijik (literally, "those who pray"). And it was during this time that he also began his work on the famous hieroglyphic texts of prayers and services for the Mi’kmaq people.

It was in the worst winter recorded at the time, in late 1759, after 24 years of working as a missionary, and experiencing much hardship and witnessing too much bloodshed, that Maillard entered the final chapter of his life and accepted Governor Lawrence’s invitation to come to Halifax and conduct peace treaty work for the British. But for Maillard, his decision to come to Halifax was also in the service of the Mi’kmaq people he loved and had served. And the treaties he eventually secured would endure into the 21st century, becoming the legal basis for many important Mi’kmaq land claims.

After arriving at the northern gates of Halifax, and conducting many treaty negotiations, Maillard died two and a half years later at the age of 52, in August of 1762, completing 27 years of dedicated missionary life. He was buried in the Old Burying Grounds with full official honours, with British, Mi’kmaq and Acadian peoples in attendance at the first ecumenical service in North America.

Maillard gave all his belongings away, including his extensive library of books – some of which are now held at King’s College and at the New Brunswick Public Archives. There is, as yet, no gravestone that marks his place or the memory of his important service to the peoples of the province of Nova Scotia.