Chapter 4 of Underground,
“Robbed,” is now posted! You can read it
and previous chapters at www.cmgbooks.com/5.html. Don’t forget to come back and leave your
comments!
Notes on the Chapter:
The Upper Cemetery of Kingston no longer exists. It has been transformed into McBurney Park ,
affectionately known by Kingstonians as “Skeleton Park .” For many years, it was Kingston ’s largest multidenominational graveyard.
After the decision to turn it into a
park was made in the 1880s, many (though certainly not all) of the bodies were
moved to the newer Cataraqui cemetery.
The current dimensions of McBurney
Park are not the
dimensions of the original cemetery, which was considerably larger than the modern
green space.
Some readers may question the accuracy of Renquest’s
description of the post-resurrectionist cemetery, which smacks of a zombie
story. At this time, I can only offer
the reassurance that the word (and the idea of) zombies has been in use in
western society since 1819, and Renquest’s description is not anachronistic or
inaccurate. I promise all will be explained;
check back soon!
Resources:
For more
information on Skeleton
Park , check out this 2011
article published in the Queen’s Journal: http://queensjournal.ca/story/2011-10-27/features/skeleton-park-earns-its-name/
Readers may also be interested in the Kingston
Historical Society’s “Chronology of the History of Kingston ,” which has a little information about
Ronan’s school as well as the cemetery. It is available at www.kingstonhistoricalsociety.ca/chronology.html.
Acknowledgements:
As ever, thanks to Jennifer Dunn for her help in navigating historic
Kingston . Her patience with my cartographical impairment
is much appreciated!
My gratitude, also, to the folks at effective editing for
their help in ensuring that most of the grammar and plot bugs were ironed out.
I hope you enjoy the chapter, and look forward to reading
your comments and feedback!