Pompey Jackson may be the oldest person buried at Ross Bay Cemetery

Pompey Jackson is thought to be the oldest person buried at Ross Bay Cemetery (Site No. G42 W18).  On October 3,1873 the British Daily Colonist carried a brief notice of his death “Old Jackson, a colored man, aged 111 years, died near the Royal Oak yesterday (October 2, 1873). He was born in Virginia in 1762. His death in 1873, age 111 indicates that if he was one of the settlers who arrived in 1858 he would have been about 96 at that time. There is indication that Jackson had been farming almost to the end. A year before his death, the Colonist reported on the civil case of Pompey Jackson vs. C. King involving a dispute about the ownership of a cow.