Agassiz, Harrison Mills & Deroche Cemeteries Burial Index
Valley View Cemetery – Agassiz
GPS 49.260980, -121.817085
Valley View Cemetery, which is located at 5065 Cemetery Road, was established at the turn of the 20th century. The cemetery is approximately 4.0 hectares (10 acres) in size and has more than 1,300 burials. It is owned and managed by the District of Kent.
Between 1963 and 1972 Sons of Freedom Doukhobor’s used the cemetery. They had established a shanty settlement near the Federal Mountain Prison in Agassiz. There are 32 Doukhobor’s interred in Valley View.
Source: District of Kent
Agassiz, Harrison Mills & Deroche Cemeteries Burial Index
Agassiz Old Cemetery (Kent Municipal Cemetery)
GPS 49.236935, -121.802521
Old Agassiz Cemetery, which is decommissioned, is located on Limbert Road atop the eastern flank of a steep hill known as Cemetery Mountain. The first burials recorded were in 1900: Edgar Spry MANLEY (1884-1900); and Roderick McGilvery (1846-1900). The last burial occurred 30 years after the closure of the cemetery in 1946: Norman McGill (1913-1976).
Source: District of Kent
Agassiz, Harrison Mills & Deroche Cemeteries Burial Index
Pretty Family Cemetery – Harrison Mills
GPS 49.282648, -121.948243
The Pretty Family Cemetery is located approximately 4 kilometers north of Highway 7 at 15500 Morris Valley Road. The earliest of the sixteen burials in the cemetery is for Charles himself in 1940. The most recent marker is 2012.
The original homestead, 640 acres, was acquired by Charles Fenn Pretty near Harrison Mills in 1893. Mr. Pretty used the vast fish supply for his cannery located in New Westminster. As the timber industry become increasingly important to British Columbia, Charles Pretty began to sell timber. In 1908, he founded Pretty’s Timber Exchange. The house which Charles Fenn Pretty built on his homestead in 1903 still stands today. The house was originally used as a weekend fishing and hunting getaway for the Pretty family and friends. Today, Fenn Lodge is run as the Sasquatch Crossing Eco Lodge bed and breakfast.
Sources: Wikipedia; Sasquatch Crossing Eco Lodge website
Agassiz, Harrison Mills & Deroche Cemeteries Burial Index
Roman Catholic – Deroche
GPS 49.191321, -122.070311
The Roman Catholics established a church as early as 1890, long before any other denomination. What is believed to be the second church was built on what is now the Lougheed Highway at Cooper Road with a cemetery next to it.
This cemetery is decommissioned and abandoned with no maintenance for many years. There is no path to the cemetery and while it is only about 4 meters off the north side of the highway it is not possible to see it from the road due to the heavy growth of bush and blackberries. You can gain entrance to the cemetery by bushwhacking between the Lions Club and Deroche Gas Bar roadside signs.
The oldest remaining burial evident is for Mary Louise Beaulieu 1894 with the most recent 1936. Some graves were disinterred and the remains moved to the Hatzic cemetery when the highway was widened. Only 12 burials can be identified today, why they were not moved with the others is not known.
Sources: Sleigh, Daphne, Discovering Deroche: from Nicomen to Lake Errock, 1983
Mission Community Archives
Agassiz, Harrison Mills & Deroche Cemeteries Burial Index
Yeomans Protestant Cemetery – Deroche
The Protestant Cemetery is a small plot at the edge of a wooded slope on land originally owned by George Yeomans east of Brooks about 2km east of Deroche. Only one gravestone is evident with two burials of Yeomans children, John 1891 and Blanche 1899.
Sources: Sleigh, Daphne, Discovering Deroche: from Nicomen to Lake Errock, 1983
Mission Community Archives
Agassiz, Harrison Mills & Deroche Cemeteries Burial Index
For more information please, contact President Pat Confrey.
Updated: 2019/11/15
