![]() Beyond a creek, just east of the Queen’s Rangers’ camp, was the knoll on which the canvas house was re-erected. We even know that a favourite cat, white with grey spots, came with them. On July 29th, Katherine, her sister Sophia and brother Francis, with their parents left Niagara/Newark, (the canvas house dismantled and packed), and moved across the lake. The canvas house was to be Katherine’s home for most of her short life. The comfort I derive from these apartments was extremely great when I lay in, because being in a manner separate from the rest of the house it was very quiet. I have taken the canvas house we brought from England for my own apartment it makes two very comfortable and remarkable warm private rooms it is boarded outside to prevent snow lying on it. I was, the greatest part of the winter, in daily expectation of being confined. Simcoe wrote in February of that year we learn that Katherine was not born at Navy Hall, the residence of the Simcoes. She was born on January 16th, 1793 at Niagara/Newark, now Niagara-on-the-Lake. ![]() Simcoe, is the first recorded burial in the Old Garrison Burying Ground. Katherine, the seventh child and sixth daughter of Lieutenant Governor and Mrs. Let me, then, help you to the history of at least a few of these graves. And what of all the markers that do not survive? Over the past several years I have spent a good deal of time at the Burying Ground researching its story, reviving the memory of its dead. For years there has been no one to speak their mute testimony. Most of the markers that survive in the Victoria Square Park have been worn smooth by the elements. Your dalesmen, then, do in each others thoughts If every English churchyard were like ours. The stone-cutters, ‘tis true, might beg their bread In fact, as Wordsworth illustrates in the dialogue between Leonard and the Priest from his poem "The Brothers," sometimes even markers were unnecessary. They would be remembered as individuals, not just names on stones. The difference of course, at least in rural settlements, was that the dead were still thought of as part of the community. Even as late as the 19th century, graveyards were favourite places for Sunday outings and picnics. It was a custom in the early days of Christianity, and indeed in pre-Christian times, to eat a meal at the burial place of a loved one on the anniversary of their death. I wonder how many of those who use this park today realize they are continuing an age-old tradition as they stroll along its shady walks, or enjoy their lunches at the picnic tables? Do they sometimes pause and think of those who lie buried beneath their feet? I like to think they do. In 1935 the terrace was dismantled and the stones and fragments stored at Fort York where they remained until the early 1950s when they were placed in their present position at the base of the cenotaph. The wooden markers rotted away completely, while many of the stone ones were left as broken fragments. Over the years the memorial terrace deteriorated due both to vandalism, and the effects of weather. We actually know the position of each grave thanks to a plan of the site which was made before the removal of the markers. When the park was created in 1886, all the legible grave markers, both wood and stone, were moved to a specially created memorial terrace on the western side of the lot, and additional earth was added around the now unmarked grave mounds to level the surface of the ground, but the graves themselves were not disturbed. A cluster of mostly illegible grave markers at the foot of the cenotaph in the centre of the park is the only above ground indication of the site. The burying ground, opened under Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe in 1793 or 1794, is a rectangle of land (approximately 300 feet by 125 feet) oriented to true compass east, set diagonally across the modern park. Victoria Square Memorial Park, at the corner of Portland and Wellington West (just east of Bathurst), contains within its boundaries the oldest surviving European burying ground in historic Toronto. 94), and is reproduced on the Fort York website courtesy of the York Pioneer and Historical Society. This article first appeared in The York Pioneer, 1999 (vol.
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