Historic Sites of Manitoba: Brandon Indian Residential School Cemetery (RM of Cornwallis)

In this small cemetery in the Rural Municipality of Cornwallis are the graves of people who were students at the Brandon Indian Residential School. A commemorative monument contains the names of 11 people known to be buried here but it is believed there are other unmarked graves inside and outside a chain link fence at the site.

Another cemetery, near the Assiniboine River, contains earlier burials from the school.

Brandon Indian Residential School Cemetery

Brandon Indian Residential School Cemetery (September 2014)
Source: Gordon Goldsborough

Commemorative monument in the cemetery

Commemorative monument in the cemetery (September 2014)
Source: Gordon Goldsborough

Site Location (lat/long): N49.87356, W99.99074
denoted by symbol on the map above

Names on the Monument

Name

Age

Community

Death Date

Roderic Beardy

?

Cross Lake

16 April 1949

George Byrd

?

?

Before 1929

John Kirkness

?

?

10 June 1957

Cornelius Linklater

10

?

10 December 1928

Ewart Monias

28

Nelson House

18 August 1942

Rebecca Spence

17

?

14 June 1931

Angus Sunkawasky [Sunkawasti]

9

?

9 January 1932

Mary Sutherland

15

Morson, Ontario

30 November 1932

Henry Swanson

15

?

2 August 1940

Lydia Wesley

7

?

21 April 1931

Sam Young Skunk

15

Lac Seul, Ontario

26 September 1932

See also:

A Cup of Cold Water: Alfred Kirkness and the Brandon Residential School Cemeteries by Anne Lindsay, Clare Cook, and David Cuthbert
Manitoba History, Number 78, Summer 2015

Investigation of unmarked graves and burial grounds at the Brandon Indian Residential School by Katherine Lyndsay Nichols, MA thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Manitoba, 2015.

Historic Sites of Manitoba: Brandon Indian Residential School (RM of Cornwallis)

Historic Sites of Manitoba: Brandon Indian Residential School Cemetery (RM of Cornwallis)

Historic Sites of Manitoba: Brandon Old Indian Residential School Cemetery (Brandon)

Historic Sites of Manitoba: Birtle Indian Residential School (Birtle, Municipality of Prairie View)

Historic Sites of Manitoba: Elkhorn Indian Residential School (Elkhorn, RM of Wallace-Woodworth)

Historic Sites of Manitoba: MacKay Indian Residential School (Opaskwayak Cree Nation)

Historic Sites of Manitoba: Portage la Prairie Indian Residential School (Crescent Road West, Portage la Prairie)

Historic Sites of Manitoba: Pine Creek Indian Residential School / Camperville Indian Residential School (Pine Creek First Nation)

Historic Sites of Manitoba: Norway House Indian Residential School (Norway School)

Historic Sites of Manitoba: Julia Clark School (611 Academy Road, Winnipeg)

Historic Sites of Manitoba: Residential School Totem Pole (Assiniboine Park, Winnipeg)

Historic Sites of Manitoba: Rupert’s Land Indian Industrial School / St. Paul’s Industrial School (Middlechurch, RM of West St. Paul)

Sources:

Death registrations, Manitoba Vital Statistics.

“Social activities and recent events in school circles,” Brandon Sun, 4 October 1932, page 5.

“Social activities and recent events in school circles,” Brandon Sun, 6 December 1932, page 7.

We thank Jack Dodds, Tom Mitchell, Katherine Nichols, and Anne Lindsay for providing information used here.

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Page revised: 11 June 2021

Historic Sites of Manitoba

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