On Saturday, May 15, 1905, an article appeared in that day’s Hamilton Spectator under the headline, “Speaking of the Dead : An Afternoon With Those Who Rest From Their Labours.”
In the article, the reporter recorded his impressions of the Hamilton Cemetery at the end of York street after a visit on a beautiful spring day.
Reflecting the general pride that the citizens of Hamilton felt regarding the cemetery, the grounds were kept in immaculate condition in particular for the mourners visiting the grave sites of departed loved ones.
As the reporter put it in describing that mourners “reach out beyond time’s quickly vanishing space and touch the loves of spirit forms in the great beyond, and as they do, the memory of the dead makes better men and women of us all. And we like to be made better: we like to believe in that purer spirit world, hoping our kin and friends are there: and thinking of this, we drop a tear for the dead and plant flowers on their graves.”
The month of May was one of the busiest times of the year at the Hamilton Cemetery. The workmen were beginning to clip the grass and plant fresh, green sod on graves put in over the winter.
In the spring, especially as the warm weather returned, York street would be the location of a steady procession of what the reporter described as “mourning-draped women and sable-clothed little ones,” who would be carrying little spades, rakes and potted flowers to decorate the graves of their departed loved ones.
While at the cemetery, the reporter noticed “many a sad scene – no, not sad but tender.” The grave mounds would be raked very carefully, “as if the noise might disturb the sleeper. The tones are hushed and softened. The mother’s voice, which in the home has sometimes been irritable and harsh, has become sweet and melodious , and the little one who has tried her patience so, and on so many occasions, is awed and wonders why this change. It sees the flowers planted on the mound and sees it watered too, with tears from mother’s eyes as with dropping head she bends.
“It feels the mist gathering in its own bright eyes, and a great, holy quiet comes over them both – mother and child. And who will dare to say that a loving husband’s, tender father’s, spirit is not hovering near them? ‘Who loves not the memory of his dead loves not his God,’ is a truism, daily proven within the cemetery limits.”
The northwest corner of the cemetery was the location Potter’s Field, where there were no gravestones. A numbered pine board provided the only identification from most of the graves of Hamilton’s unfortunate poor. The names for the graves could only be obtained through application at the superintendent’s office.
A few of the graves in Potters’ Field did have a few simple name stones, such as the one which read, “Mary. Mother’s Girl. Aged 8 Years.” The Spectator man speculated that Mary “was taken and mother’s aching grief-stricken heart lives in the memory of her smile, her cheerful willingness, her kindly spirit, and to her still, though in the spirit world, she is mother’s girl.”
There was another marker in Potter’s Field, a large, impressive stone, with just a Christian name engraved on it. The reporter speculated that “she was polluted and thought herself despised. She loved, with guilty love, a soldier of the British army, and followed him. And the soldier? He had some manhood about him. Above her grave, he reared the monument which bears alone her Christian name.”
One other grave in Potter’s Field was marked. On the soil of a recently filled-in mound, the children of the grave’s occupant had gathered little pebbles and formed letters with them in the fresh soil. The stones formed the words, “At Rest, Mother.” The reporter noted that it was “a fleeting memorial, but how much it meant to them, whose tenderest earthly friend lies buried there.”
During the spring afternoon spent at the cemetery, the reporter witnessed two burials.
One, in Potter’s Field, had neither mourners nor priest in attendance. A curious group of bystanders watched while a pine shell was unloaded from a hearse and lowered into a freshly-dug grave.
When asked who was being buried, the driver of the hearse replied, “A House of Refuge case. Had the hearse out and used it because it was dirty. If it had been clean, I’d have used the wagon instead.”
At the other end of the cemetery, there was another burial. This one was complete with a long line of carriages and a host of mourners. After the minister completed a beautiful graveside prayer for the dead, the old grave-diggers went to work filling up the hole, while many of the mourners stood around, weeping.
There were many interesting gravestones in Hamilton Cemetery, especially the one which marked the final resting place of Alexander Burnfield and George Knight, the engineer and fireman of the locomotive involved in the Desjardins canal accident of March, 1857.
That monument featured a model of a locomotive placed on top, with the following inscription carved into the side:
“Life’s railway’s o’er, each station’s past;
In death, we’re stopped and cease at last;
Farewell, dear friends, and cease to weep;
In Christ, we’re safe, in Him we sleep.”
Two large family vaults, for the Watkins and Tuckett families, were cut right into the embankments which cut across the cemetery grounds. These embankments were actually earthworks constructed during the War of 1812, and were used as shelters from which the British sallied forth to fight at the Battle of Stoney Creek.
In 1905, the Hamilton Cemetery was a popular spot, which one could visit for the purpose of prayer and meditation, especially concerning loved ones at rest there.
The cemetery was also a spot where one could get a feeling for the local history of the city.
Finally, the Hamilton Cemetery was the final resting spot for mortals from all levels of Hamilton society, whether rich or poor, now all equal in death.
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