Context
By Edd Scorpio
23 May 2008
People sometimes ask why I shoot in cemeteries - inferring that it's creepy or morbid - but cemeteries are a window on the past and the doorway to your present. It is the resting place of history; how your city/town came to be, who built it, fought for it, succeeded and breathed life into it.
Perhaps because I was born on Remembrance Day (11/11) it is my lot to be a beacon between the past and present.
I live in Hamilton, Ontario (Canada)...the "City at the head of the lake", "Steeltown", "The Hammer"...home to the Neutral Indians (a confederation of Iroquois tribes)...location of battles during the War of 1812...the largest mafia funeral in Canada's history...connection to Jack The Ripper...main stop on the Vaudeville tour (Mae West, Marx Bros., etc.).
Hamilton Cemetery is the oldest municipally owned and operated cemetery not only in Hamilton but also in Canada.
It covers nearly 100 acres of land located on Burlington Heights (a 3.5 mile long high sand and gravel bar created during the last great ice age) - once used as a meeting place and burial ground by the indigenous peoples.
During the War of 1812, British forces used Burlington Heights as an encampment since it was a strategic point of defense against the invading American forces. Remnants of the military ramparts or earthworks can still be seen today within Dundurn Park and the Hamilton Cemetery. These first lines of defense are marked out with commemorative monuments in two areas of the cemetery. It is from this location - Burlington Heights - that the British forces walked, over night, to engage a surprise attack on the American forces at Stoney Creek.
In January 1847 a tract of land was purchased by Christ's Church from Sir Allan Napier MacNab for the purpose of establishing a burying ground. The first interment in Christ's Church Cemetery (CC) was that of George Pennington. The following year the City of Hamilton acquired its own tract of land and named it Burlington Heights Cemetery. On May 14th, 1850 the City conducted its first interment of William Hetherington in a single grave. In 1851 Church of the Ascension Cemetery (C of A) held its first service.
Some time between 1855 and 1865, the Cemetery Lodge and Chapel were built. The Cemetery Lodge, also known as the Gatehouse, was originally used as the residence of the cemetery caretaker. It retains many of its original architectural features, including: exterior limestone; stained-glass, arched windows (in the section of the building once used as the chapel); dark, wood paneling; and a fireproof room referred to as the vault. Presently, this building serves as the administrative office for the Hamilton Municipal Cemeteries.
Until the late 1800's, all three cemeteries were maintained by separate groups. Yet, financial problems plagued both Anglican churches, making it difficult for them to continue the upkeep and sale of land within their cemeteries. An agreement was signed between the authorities of the two churches and the City making these three cemeteries one.
The new amalgamated cemetery was called Hamilton Cemetery.
There are soldiers buried here from the American Civil War (including one Colonel William Winer Cooke, commanding officer under General Custer), the War of 1812, WW1, WW2, Korean War - up to present day. There are memorials to victims of the Cholera epidemics in the 1800's, the Spanish Flu Pandemic in the early 1900's, people who died on the Titanic, the Lusitania and the Empress Of Ireland.
With the advent of the internet there can be much learned by looking up the stories that rest in the cemetery. Even just walking through and appreciating the people whose lives affected yours by building the society you live in.
Laurence Binyon (1869-1943) wrote a famous poem during WW1 called "For The Fallen" that contains a paragraph that is often quoted, and well remembered:
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
