Two adults and one youth have been charged with mischief after two crosses were ripped off headstones in a historic graveyard in south-end Halifax over the weekend.

Raymond Coolen, who lives near Holy Cross Cemetery at the corner of South Park and South streets, saw three young men drinking near Our Lady of Sorrows Chapel on the grounds of the cemetery.

He said that one of the men was holding a cross, which had been broken off a granite headstone dating to 1900.

"One of them did have a cross in his hand, so what he was going to do with that, I have no idea — that could have been in the windshield of somebody's car, it could have been smashed across somebody else's headstone," Coolen said Monday.

Coolen said he followed the men out of the cemetery and called police, who arrested them a short time later.

A 17-year-old and two 20-year-old men have been charged with mischief.

The oldest Catholic cemetery in Halifax, the burial ground opened in 1843.

Robert Thomson, a volunteer caretaker who has spent hundreds of hours restoring it, reacted angrily to the damage.

"This is hallowed ground," he said Monday. "I think I'd be very tempted, if I were to catch someone in the act, to have a fervent desire to knock them into next Wednesday."

Rob Nash was worried when he heard about the vandalism because four generations of the Nash family are buried in the cemetery.

"Personally, I'm relieved that there's been no damage to my family's area, but I do feel for any that have been violated," Nash said.

The Catholic Cemeteries Commission maintains the site, but the Holy Cross Cemetery Trust has undertaken a restoration project.

According to the cemetery's website, an estimated 25,000 people, many of Irish descent, are buried in the graveyard.