Sunday, July 31, 2016

Chinaman's Bend Cemetery, near Orange, NSW

While still searching for the resting place of my great-great grandmother, Harriet RILEY (nee LICET/ LYSAUGHT), a fellow Facebook genealogist suggested I try looking for her at the Chinaman's Bend Cemetery, just outside of Orange, near Lucknow.





Although I didn't have any luck finding a gravestone of my great-great grandmother's grave, there were quite a few spaces without gravestones. She may have been buried here but I still think she is buried in the Orange General Cemetery for the following reasons:

  • She died in 1868.
  • The Chinaman's Bend Cemetery appears to have had people buried there during the 1830s and 1840s and maybe into the 1850s.
  • The Orange General Cemetery was established in 1853 (15 years before Harriet died).


In my search for information about the Chinaman's Bend Cemetery, near Orange in NSW, I had trouble finding its exact location and information about the gravestones in this cemetery. When I visited the cemetery last week, I took photographs of all of the gravestones I could find (eight in total). They are included below in case they are of interest to any other family historians. Also, I've included a map of where the cemetery can be found.

To begin with, here is the entrance to the cemetery. You can see the boundary fence - the cemetery is very small. You could walk around the boundary of the cemetery in less than 10 minutes.



Location

Chinaman's Bend Cemetery (see red dot on map below) is on the Mitchell Highway, not too far from the Northern Distributor Rd turnoff.

Source: Googlemaps

Gravestones

Here is a selection of photographs I took on Sunday 24 July 2016. 




















Articles and other information about the Chinaman's Bend Cemetery

Skeletons in the closet at graveyards by Tracey Prisk, 14 May 2012
Half a word away: Chinaman's Bend Cemetery 
Orange Cemeteries: Chinaman's Bend Cemetery 
Chinaman's Bend Cemetery
Geoview: Chinaman's Bend Cemetery
Chinamans Bend Cemetery - Worldwide Cemeteries on Waymarking.com 
ExplorOz: Chinaman's Bend Cemetery 
 

It was a wee bit cold on the day I visited the cemetery (about 2°C) but I wasn't alone. I had a cheeky supervisor.