FIRST - Burial in Pleasant Street Cemetery - Kamloops, BC - First of its Kind on Waymarking.com

Pleasant Street Cemetery celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2000. This was the second cemetery in Kamloops. There are approximately 6,700 interments. In the older section most are upright and the first burial was George Hirst on May 28, 1900.

George Hirst worked for the Canadian Pacific Railroad, and while working he was thrown from his horse and struck his head. He died soon after while being transported to Kamloops by train.

He lay in an unmarked grave until recently. Now a memorial stone has been placed marking his gravesite.

The cemetery is located within the Thompson-Nicola Regional District. There are specific areas designated for veterans and infants.

George Hirst

    was born in England in 1865 and immigrated to Canada sometime before the turn of the twentieth century. Little is known about his life in Canada until the spring of the year 1900, when he was working as a watchman for the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) west of the Rockies. His job was to ensure that no sparks spread by passing railway engines burned the wooden bridges and trestles or set fire to the dry brush along the line. While working in the vicinity of Notch Hill, eighty kilometres northeast of Kamloops, George was thrown off his horse and struck his head. He died on a train carrying him to Kamloops, but for some reason, no death certificate was ever issued and the accident escaped mention in the local press.

Following his burial, George's ghost was said to have wandered the Pleasant Street Cemetery, attempting to draw attention to his plight. The accounts of his activities, as often occurs in the oral tradition, have been lost over time, but the legend of the Man Forgotten and the haunting of the Pleasant Street Cemetery have persisted. Interestingly, over one hundred years after his death, George's great-granddaughter in England contacted the Kamloops Museum & Archives to find out where her ancestor was buried. (At the time of his death, the CPR would have notified his next of kin.) It was thus discovered that George Hirst's body was laid unrecorded in the first plot of the Pleasant Street Cemetery. George may now rest in peace, for a memorial stone marks his gravesite and a plaque marking the hundredth anniversary of the cemetery pays tribute to its first occupant.
From Spirits of the West: (Google Books)