Minnesota Spirit Quest - St John's Cemetery
In 1851 land for this cemetery was donated by early settler Abraham Lambert. Dedicated in 1855, Saint John's Cemetery is the second oldest cemetery in Minnesota. It is located one block east of the church on Little Canada Road. Over one hundred members of pioneer families are buried in the oldest section near the entrance gate. The life-sized Crucifixion scene facing the gate provides the backdrop for the annual Memorial Day Mass in the cemetery.
If you saw his original gravestone, you wouldn’t know why the man buried beneath it was so important to the small city where it resides. “Benjamin, the first resident of St. Paul,” reads the small marker, which has lodged since 1876 – the year Benjamin Gervais died – in St. John’s Cemetery in Little Canada. Until recently, the soft stone was nearly tipping over at its place beside the grave of Gervais’ son, Bazille, believed to be the first white child born in St. Paul. It was also missing a description of the man’s ties to Little Canada, the city the French Canadian founded in 1844 after hearing about a pretty lake there, said Kathy Hanson, president of the Little Canada Historical Society. And Benjamin Gervais is no longer believed to have been the first resident of St. Paul, though he would be close.
The cemetery is open every day from 8:00 am until Sunset. Please be respectful of the graves in the cemetery and only seek this cache during daylight hours.
This is a simple two-stage multi. In order to find the second stage, you will need to first go to the posted coordinates where you should find the monument shown in one of the pictures. To the left is a marker for "E.L." Put the birth date and death date in the form MMDDYYYY. The birth date will then be ABCDEFGH and the death date will be STUVWXYZ.
Stage 2 is located at N ZB CY.FDV W GV CB.YBX.
