Halifax & the TITANIC:
Fairview Lawn Cemetery

When we arrived in Dartmouth (the city across the A Marie Mackay Bridge from Halifax) and checked into the Ramada, we found out that we were too early, so decided to go to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, and after that to the Fairview Cemetery. The Fairview Cemetery isn't what I thought it would be. I was excpeting a very small, run down, graveyard of a cemetary that only had TITANIC victims. However, when we arrived there I was amazed to find that it was huge! There were signs pointing to where the 121 TITANIC victims were burried, so we follwed them and were within sight of the graves within a minute.

Most of the graves were very small (about 60cm high, 30cm wide, and a depth of 20cm) with a rectangular chunck of stone acting as the base for all of them, and a trapezoid shaped (when looking at it from the side) piece set into the base. The ones like this read ________ ___________ Died April 15th, 1912. ____. (The first two blanks being the victim's name {if known} and the last being their body number. This number was given to them when they were brought aboard the Mackay-Bennett {one of the ships sent out the pick up bodies}. For example, if it was the eleventh body being brought aboard, it's number would be 11.) There were also larger graves that had been purchased by family members, Ismay, etc.

The J Dawson Grave: The famous 'J Dawson' grave at the Fairview Lawn Cemetery has been mistaken for fictional character 'Jack Dawson's' grave, ever since James Cameron's 'Titanic.' No, not Jack Dawson from James Cameron's "Titanic," so don't get your hopes up!! The grave marked J Dawson in the Fairview Lawn Cemetery is actually for John Dawson, a stoker on the TITANIC.

As I was walking up and down the rows of graves, an entire bus load of senior citizens suddenly arrived. I guess they were on some kind of trip or something. Anyway, two elderly women came over to the J Dawson grave. I overheard (or rather, purposely heard) one say to the other, "There's the J Dawson Grave." The other replied, "Oh my, he was the one in the movie," follwed by the first one saying, "yep." This just bugged the heck out of me! There's nothing that I hate more than people knowing false information about the TITANIC! I almost went over to them and told them that it wasn't Jack Dawson's grave, but didn't. I think it was the right decision, and yet I wish that I had.

TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT: None of the main characters from James Cameron's "Titanic" are real, they are all ficticious. The list of false characters in the movie is as follows:

Jack Dawson
Rose Dewitt Bukater
Caledon Hockley
Ruth Bukater
Old Rose
Tommy
Fabrizio
Brock Lovette
Nancy
Spicer Lovejoy
Trudy

Characters from the movie that were non-fiction are as follows:

All of the crew members
Thomas Andrews
Bruce Ismay
Margaret "Molly" Brown
John Jacob Astor & Wife
Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon & Wife
Countess of Rothes
Benjamin Guggenheim & Valet
etc.

Location: The cemetery is located in the North End of Halifax, near the intersection of Windsor Street and Kempt Road, overlooking the Bedford Basin.

Below are some pics that my family and I took while at the cemetery.

The A Marie Mackay Bridge, linking Halifax & Dartmouth. A sign pointing the direction to the TITANIC graves. A sign, explaining the history of the TITANIC graves. A line of graves. One of the 5 or so big stones that were purchased by family members. This one was purchased by Ismay.