The Bennett’s Lane Cemetery is the oldest Roman Catholic cemetery in Harbour Grace. The oldest known gravestone can be traced to 1802, though there were burials here in the late eighteenth century. Most notably, Father Patrick Phelan is buried at Bennett’s Lane Cemetery, Harbour Grace. Phelan, a Franciscan or Friar Minor, headed the Harbour Grace mission under Bishop James O’Donel (O’Donnell), travelling around Conception Bay to deliver mass to its Catholics. Although the date of his arrival is unknown, Phelan was in Harbour Grace by 1794, making two visitations to his parish annually. In September 1799, Phelan drowned off Grates Cove, his boat capsizing along with its crew. Phelan’s body was recovered and interred at the only Catholic cemetery in Harbour Grace. Rev. Thomas Ewer (Yore), who oversaw the construction of Harbour Grace’s first church – a wooden structure with a 100-foot steeple – was also said to be buried at Bennett’s Lane Cemetery in 1833. By 1856, the cemetery was no longer used. On January 10, 2006, the Bennett’s Lane Roman Catholic Cemetery was designated a Municipal Heritage Site by the Town of Harbour Grace. With headstones almost completely eroded by time and weather, this ancient burial ground still commands respect and an air of reverence. Huge markers reveal weathered, elaborate homages to those interred in the cemetery grounds, but today they stand precariously among the uneven ground. The size of the headstones and their shapes and designs reveal the importance placed on this cemetery by the Roman Catholic community of nineteenth century.