A Haunting at Gawler's Pioneer Park. 

  Pioneer Park was in the original town plan for Gawler designed by Colonel William Light. The first recorded burial, Ellen Fielding, was in 1847. The cemetery saw a steady influx of deaths over the next 20 years until it was deemed unfit for service because it was too close to the town centre.

A year after opening, in 1847, a visiting journalist stated of the cemetery:

 “The Gawler Town Cemetery is still a disgrace to any civilized community. It not only is unfenced, and thus at the mercy of pigs and every other description of intrusive beast, but drays and horsemen make a thoroughfare in precincts which even the untutored savage holds tabooed!”

The intersection of Cowan Street with Murray Street was a small hill prior to 1870. It was eventually cut away to make the slope easier to navigate, which saw many burials along the western boundary of the cemetery being relocated to other areas within the grounds, and others relocated to Willaston Cemetery which was opened in 1866 to replace the Gawler Cemetery.

Many Gawler pioneer family members were buried in the cemetery, with 471 recorded burials in the short time it was used, and many of those burials are still present under the mound today. In 1933, the cemetery was declared parkland. A dedication service was held in October 1936, in which the cemetery was renamed Pioneer Park.

There have been reports of ghosts witnessed on the hill over the years, with one witness describing a man in old Victorian mourning clothing standing on the hill, looking out towards Cowan Street, while the witness watched the man from across the road, he faded away from sight.

Written and researched by Allen Tiller for the 'Haunted Gawler' talk at the Gawler National Trust Museum © 2023