This webpage is a selection of posts to the Rootsweb aus-vic-ne (north east) mailing list with information on the Granite Flat Cemetery. These posts are presented here with the permission of the main contributor David Weatherill.
David is a cemetery historian and can be contacted at David
[AVNE] GRANITE FLAT CEMETERY - 29/9/2008 05:46:50
D. Weatherill
Good Morning;
One more small cemetery located in the area. research is still ongoing into the cemetery. Any further help would be greatly appreciated.
David
GRANITE FLAT CEMETERY
Granite Flat, also known as Snowy Creek, is located off the Omeo Highway seven miles out of Mitta Mitta. All that is left of the town is an
old Catholic church built in 1878 and the cemetery. The church had been renovated in the early 1980s by the State Rivers and Water Commission
as a tourist attraction.
Granite Flat started as a gold mining village from the late 1850s and by the 1890s the population had dwindled. At its peak the population
was about 500 people that fell very quickly to about 100 people. Gold was mined via alluvial work and the largest gold mine in the town was
the Mammoth Mine that started operations in 1885.
In January 1873 the Granite Flat (Snowy Creek) School No 1186, opened with an enrollment of 28 pupils. The school started in a rented
building and 1877 a wooden building was built to be used as the school including 3 rooms for the teacher. The school closed in 1893 but was
reopened in 1936 on a part time basis with State School Callaghans Creek. It was finally closed on 31 December 1940. In the 1939 bushfires
just about all of the buildings in the town were destroyed. During the time of operations of the school the enrollment rose to 40 pupils.
The Granite Flat Cemetery is located adjacent to the old Catholic Church just off the Omeo Highway and, from information obtained about the
cemetery, the first burial was in April 1863. The land, of five acres, for the cemetery was reserved in 1872 (VGG 1872/1660) as a crown reserve.
Over the years there have been Trustees appointed to be responsible for the cemetery. There were burials in the cemetery up to 1954. There
is currently a Cemetery Trust responsible for the cemetery.
In the cemetery files held by the GSV is a small file on the cemetery. In 1980 the headstones in the cemetery were transcribed by Mrs A. Summerill
with the dates ranging from 22 April 1863 to 5 April 1954. Mrs Summerill noted that there were seven headstones in the cemetery with data on them as follows.
Three headstones for Carmody-
- Catherine, Daniel and Margaret Carmody.
- Margaret Carmody.
- Thomas and Margaret Carmody.
One headstone for Murphy- Johanna and James Murphy.
One headstone for Parker - Thomas, John Robert and Monica Helen Parker.
One headstone for McNamara - Thomas McNamara.
One headstone for Petersen- Metz Petersen and also his four children.
One headstone for Crawford - Michael, Mary, and Catherine Crawford
and Johanna Murphy.
The first recorded burial in the cemetery was Thomas Parker, native of Galway, Ireland, who died, aged 33 years, on 22 April 1863. The last
recorded burial was for James Murphy, aged 89 years, who died on 5 April 1954.
The Department of Human Services Cemetery file noted in July, 1983 that no burials had taken place in the cemetery for many years with the last
burial being for the previous secretary of the Granite Flat Cemetery Trust.
David Weatherill
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[AVNE] GRANITE FLAT CEMETERY - Extra - 29/9/2008 07:08:20
D. Weatherill
Hi Again;
One piece of data I left out of my original message regarding the Granite Flat (Snowy River) Cemetery.
In the old cemetery file on the cemetery was the following in a letter of 25 July 1955 from the Secretary of the Cemetery Trust to the Minister of Health.
* "There are more than eighty graves in the cemetery".
* "Successive bush fires have burnt all the fencing and stock now roam the graves."
This is the only reference to burials in the cemetery. I can find nothing to indicate where this number of graves (or burials) came from.
regards,
David Weatherill
Last updated on 01 September 2021
