Opened in 1850 to give the city's radicals a resting place
The Toronto Necropolis
Toronto's Necropolis cemetery in Cabbagetown holds the reburied remains of 1837 Rebellion figures William Lyon Mackenzie and Samuel Lount, alongside generations of the city's dead.
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The Toronto Necropolis opened in 1850 on the edge of the Don River in what is now Cabbagetown, established as a non-denominational alternative to the city's church-run burial grounds, several of which were being closed and relocated as the growing city expanded around them. Its name, from the Greek for "city of the dead," reflected a Victorian trend toward landscaped, park-like cemeteries designed for visiting as much as burial.
A rebel's resting place
The Necropolis holds the reburied remains of several figures connected to the 1837 Rebellion in Upper Canada, including William Lyon Mackenzie, the rebellion's leader and Toronto's first mayor, and Samuel Lount, one of two rebels executed for treason after the uprising failed. Their presence has made the cemetery a point of interest for Canadian political history well beyond its role as a working burial ground, and it remains an active cemetery and a quiet green space within Cabbagetown today.
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