199 Cemeteries to See Before You Die by Loren Rhoads

Author:Loren Rhoads [RHOADS, LOREN]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hachette Books
Published: 2017-10-03T00:00:00+00:00

The epitaph reads, “United in life, reunited in death.”

98 Drummond Hill Cemetery

6110 Lundy’s Lane, Niagara Falls, Ontario

https://www.niagarafalls.ca/city-hall/municipal-works/cemetery/locations-and-histories/drummond-hill.aspx

In the final year of the 18th century, a pioneer graveyard opened atop the hill beside the First Presbyterian Church on Lundy’s Lane. Buried in the churchyard were British settlers who farmed the fertile land near Niagara Falls.

John Burch was one of the earliest Loyalist pioneers in the area. In 1786, he was one of the first to harness the Niagara River by erecting saw and grist mills. His headstone, the oldest surviving in the churchyard, dates back to 1797. Initially buried on his own farm, Burch was reburied here in 1799.

To this day, the Niagara River forms a natural boundary between the United States and Canada. This proved too close for comfort during the War of 1812, when American troops invaded in an attempt to annex Ontario.

When American officers commandeered Laura Secord’s home, she overheard them plotting an attack on the British outpost at DeCew’s Falls. Laura walked nearly 20 miles alone through woods and swamps to warn the British. A monument erected by the Ontario Historical Society marks her grave.

The bloodiest battle of the war, which Canadians consider their Gettysburg, took place on July 25, 1814, in the churchyard of the First Presbyterian Church. American forces repeatedly attacked Lieutenant General Gordon Drummond’s men, who held the hilltop after six hours of fighting. Both sides suffered casualties estimated at 800 men each. In the end, the Americans claimed victory but withdrew to nearby Fort Erie, which they abandoned in November that year. The American invasion of Canada was over, but if the battle had gone differently, Ontario would now be an American state.

Drummond’s men were left with the task of burying the 1600 dead men in trenches in the old cemetery. The Battle of Drummond Hill monument, which marks some of these graves, includes an obelisk, a pair of cannons, and a British flag.

Also buried in the four-acre graveyard is Karel Soucek, a daredevil who successfully went over Niagara Falls in a barrel in 1984. His monument is decorated with his portrait amid a stylized cascade of water. It quotes him as saying, “It is better for a person to take a chance at life… than to live in that gray twilight and know not victory nor defeat.”

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