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| From Cuffay's obituary, The Mercury Thursday 4 August 1870 |
Campbell Street Primary School was built on the burial ground in 1926, following the 1923 removal of the remains of those buried there to the paupers’ section of the Cornelian Bay Cemetery. Just inside the fence of the school is a single stone dedicated to their memory. The Government of Tasmania erected this monument in April 2000. It reads.
Trinity Burial Ground
Prisoners Burial Ground
Dedicated to the memory
of over 5000
Free Settlers and Bond Convicts
buried in these grounds
between 1831 & 1872
Beneath these words is a poem by Linus W Miller, an American convict. This poem was published in 1844 in the Colonial Times. Cuffay it seems still awaits the memorial predicted in The Mercury over 130 years ago.
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| Trinity Burial Ground Memorial - Photo Mark Gregory 2011 |
Miller's poem reads:
I sought the grave of my friend,
Amid the slumb'ring dead;
In the yard where outcast men,
Are doom'd to lay their head.
Where the wrong'd and injur'd lie—
Neglected, and forgot :
And the raven's mournful cry—
Alone bewails their lot.
Where the felon finds at last,
An end to sin and crime ;
His weary pilgrimage pass'd,
And sorrow heal'd in Time.
Where the Free and Bond both sleep,
In earth's cold dismal cell :
And the Gaoler Death will keep,
And tend his pris'ners well.
I sought in vain for the place—
Where they had made his bed :
The sexton had left no trace
Of the forgotten dead !
Stranger ! would'st thou wish to hear—
Why I thus sought that grave ?
To mingle a comrade's tear,
With ashes of the brave.
'Twas to bid him sweetly rest,
Though in a foreign land ;
And plant a rose upon his breast—
Cull'd by a comrade's hand.
To erect a humble stone—
In honor of the brave,—
With this inscription thereon,
"This is a Patriot's grave."
Beneath the poem on the monument are these words:
Poetry by Linus W Miller Published in the Colonial Times
State Prisoner from Canada Hobart Town, June 26, 1844
This humble stone monument designed by Brian Rieusset
Was erected erected by the State Government of Tasmania in April 2000
