In April 1850, John Clapp and his wife Sarah Smith Clapp sold the north part of Lot 8 in the 3rd Concession of Fredericksburgh Additional township to Baltus Shewman Sr. The west half of the lot had originally been granted by the Crown to Sarah's father, Comfort Smith in 1798 (the east half went to Andrew Loyst, who sold up to Comfort's son-in-law David Foote in 1802). Comfort Smith died in Fredericksburgh in 1824, leaving the west and east halves to his daughters Sarah Smith Clapp and Elizabeth Smith Foote, respectively. In the 1830s parts of the east half were sold on several times, with 1/4 eventually becoming John Clapp's.

The 1850 bargain and sale was registered as No 43 (Page 47) in the Fredericksburgh Additional Land Book 1 and it included a clause "Excepting from the above described premises a piece of ground occupied for a Burying Ground also a Sufficient Road to go to and from it."

The description of the north part of Lot 8 in it's entirety was "Commencing at the shore of Hay Bay at the limit Between Lots number Eight and nine thence South Thirty One Degrees East Seventy Chains and sixteen links Thence North Fifty nine degrees East fourteen chains and twenty five links more or less including three fourths of the width of the said Lot thence North thirty one degrees West Seventy Chains and Sixteen links to the waters of Hay Bay thence westerly along the waters Edge to the place of Beginning."

By the late 1990s when Don Hough was compiling his book 'Two Centuries in Hayburn' (published in 2000 by South Fredericksburgh Heritage, now Adolphustown-Fredericksburgh Heritage), the farm had been in the possession of James ‘Bud' Hawley (1934-2019) for some decades. Hawley was able to tell Hough that "he had been told that two people had been buried, and he can show the spot, but he does not know their names."