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My wife and I took our children down to Trout River from Ottawa yesterday,and spent a pleasant day wandering amidst the colourful foliage, which I suspect was at its peak. We stopped at the Trout River site, spent some time in the Elgin cemetery, and generally had a great day. Temperature was 25C,skies blue, wonderful day all round. We picked up some perfect apples and a couple of of superior apple pies at Blair's Orchard in Franklin on the way home, and came home through Valleyfield and Hawkesbury. We stopped on Route 138 at the Trout River bridge, and encountered one of the MacDonald brothers who now own the farm the includes the land once owned by Thomas Marshall (as shown on the concession map in the Book). He was kind enough to guide us to the old Marshall burial plot, located about 50 m off the road through an impenetrable bramble plantation. Fortunately, he introduced us to his neighbour, who let us pass through the back of his garden, so we managed to get access to the plot without fouling our clothes with burdocks and thistles. I enclose some photos I took yesterday and one I gleaned from the web. site.jpg shows the overgrown nature of the burial site. My daughter Elizabeth is standing at the bottom edge of Thomas and Jannet's gravestone.
stone.jpg shows the stone itself. It is almost entirely buried in the soil,overgrown with brambles and covered with lichen and dirt. The inscription is readable, though. fromroad.jpg shows the site as seen from the road Hwy 138). You can see why we were happy to go through the rear of the neighbouring property. The location of the burial plot is at N45 02.660 W74 16.497 or (dd mm.mmmformat, WGS 84 datum) or in UTM 18 T 5571014988131 thomasmarshall.bmp is a file from a web site that shows the inscription entirely. You probably already have it. school.jpg shows the Marshall school at Trout River. Mr. MacDonald's father attended it. It is now used as a storage shed, and not much even for that. It is perhaps a hundred metres away, south on 138, right next to the road. Its coordinates are N45 02.552 W74 16.544 (18 T 557041 4987930 in UTM). My wife Janey, and my children, Beth and Trevor are in the picture as well. I don't have the topo sheet here, but I think the datum may not have been updated to WGS84 but the coordinates should be within a few metres even on older topo maps. For a digital version of the map showing that area, see http://toporama.cits.rncan.gc.ca/images/b50k/03/031g01.gif
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