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| 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.
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| EAST WILLIAMSBURG |
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| WOODLANDS |
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| MOULINETTE |
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| MILLE ROCHES |
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| AULTSVILLE |
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| FARRAN POINT |
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| WALES |
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| 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.
