Commemoration of the dead, respect for memory and love of family and homeland were powerful forces in the lives of pioneer settlers. At the time of death, the erection of a marker was an important part of the passage from life on earth and a reminder to those left to mourn.
The very earliest burial markers were made of wood, probably with carved or painted lettering on the surface to note the name of the deceased. Wood as a material was readily available, easily cut and carved so the signage was usually produced by a family member, friend or neighbour. Many of them were erected before 1830, on small family and isolated country cemeteries, where there was little money of time available to be spent on anything but the most basic symbol of respect. Often designed in the form of a simple cross, few remain today – many were replaced with stone markers as this material gradually became available, while the vast majority have disappeared over time from the ravages of weather.
Beginning in the last decade of the eighteenth century and lasting for almost a hundred years, the largest collection of markers found in the Hamilton area are of a particular type, material and style that distinguishes them so easily from twentieth century monuments. This original and most common style of marker is basically a rectangular stone slab, with variations in shape and design occurring almost entirely in the upper section of the gravestone.
The style was brought to Canada from the older cultures of England and continental Europe, but also from the neighbouring United States. The existence of such vast numbers of this form in older cemeteries today reflects the overwhelming preference for this particular type, likely for practical, economic and aesthetic reasons. The stone slab, although heavy, could be transported by a man with a horse and cart, the price was not exorbitant and its size allowed for personal design and engraving.
The most common type of stone employed was a soft variety of white or creamy-white marble which weathers fairly rapidly and unevenly. Its granular structure, when weakened by water, causes it to become fragile and break, piece by piece. The result is a rough, pitted surface, which when it includes small lettering, is often illegible, if not completely erased. Marble monuments in the Hamilton area also suffer from the problem of airborne industrial chemicals, such as sulphur dioxide, which has hastened their deterioration during the last half century.
Sandstone and slate, finer and more closely grained than marble, are also to be found in early cemeteries, though the material was never as popular. Granite, a stone used almost exclusively for twentieth century three-dimensional monuments, because of its hardness and durability, was used only in rare occasions before 1850, as it was difficult to quarry, carve by hand, and thus costly.
Slab markers vary in size, most often three to four feet in height, but rarely wider than two or three feet and an inch or two in thickness. These slim white panels communicate fragility and in many of Hamilton’s pioneer cemeteries, they stand at awkward angles or now lie flat on the ground, covered in lichens, with vegetation growing through cracks and grass threatening their very existence. Almost all the city’s old rural cemeteries, no matter their size, contain a section that ends in vacant ground where the sod has grown over the oldest markers completely. Some stones have been removed from their original locations and placed in cement pads or in tightly packed avenues as a way of providing protection from the blades of the modern lawn mower.
No matter their age, almost all these gravestones are intricately decorated with epitaphs, descriptive inscriptions and a wide variety of decorative or funerary motifs. Few bear dates later than about 1880, so their great value to historians and genealogists lies in the information included in the inscriptions that have been so lovingly carved. For these are often the only “documents” of a pioneer’s existence, recorded before the days of civil registration, census returns and local histories.
…..to be continued
© The Waterdown-East Flamborough Heritage Society 2005, 2024.
