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Thursday, November 09, 2017

Upper Canada Pioneer Memorial

The Upper Canada Pioneer Memorial occupies a place just southwest of Upper Canada Village on the south side of County Road 2, east of Morrisburg, Ontario.




JAMES SMART
1887-1957

VICE CHAIRMAN OF THE ONTARIO
ST. LAWRENCE DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION

WHO CREATED THIS CEMETERY AND WHO DEVOTED
THE LAST FOUR YEARS OF HIS LIFE TO THE
PRESERVATION OF THE ANCIENT HERITAGE
OF THIS ST. LAWRENCE VALLEY

O GOD WE HAVE HEARD WITH OUR EARS AND
OUR FATHERS HAVE DECLARED UNTO US THE
WONDROUS THINGS THOU DIDST IN THEIR
DAY AND IN THE OLD TIME BEFORE THEN.



During the preliminary work on the St. Lawrence Seaway project, which, in 1959, culminated in the flooding that required many communities that had to be moved, tombstones from those communities' cemeteries were removed and placed on the walls of the Pioneer Memorial. The memorial has a central square with three rectangular extensions. The tombtones have been mounted on the inner walls organized by community and the specific cemeteries they came from. Though the memorial has a simplicity to its layout the order of the photographs here may not convey any sense as to where they are located within the memorial.









EAST WILLIAMSBURG
WOODLANDS


MOULINETTE

MILLE ROCHES


















AULTSVILLE

FARRAN POINT


WALES

DICKINSON'S LANDING


























This garden is erected to commemorate the pioneer founders of Ontario who settled the upper St. Lawrence Valley.

Selected gravestones from cemeterieis in the eight communities submerged in 1958 beneat the St. Lawrence are set in walls of brick and stone from vanished pioneer buildings. Of th names not found upon these walls their best memorial is the country they lived to build.

Oh God of Bethel by whose hand they people still are fed who, through this weary pilgrimage hast all our fathers led.

Our vows, our prayers, we now present before they throne of grance God of our fathers be the God of their succeeding race.