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Tombstone Tales from Ontario Cemeteries
By Harvey Medland
Bound within these pages are characters from Ontario’s past including:
> The Queen of Romania’s Woodstock lover
> The mother who silenced a fire’s roar with a fairy tale
> A kindly ghost from Algonquin Park
> A tiger hunter in the wilds of Guelph
> The reverend who challenged the mob at Chatham’s Exchange
> The Tolpuddle Five who did Tasmanian time
> A miner whose exit from the barber’s chair was “Highlight of the Month”
FORMAT: Digital Download (PDF – scanned from original)
PUBLISHER: The Ontario Historical Society
YEAR: 2000
ISBN: 0919352332
PAGES: 236 (Note: Any blank pages have been deliberately omitted.)
View sample of ebook (opens a PDF)
Acknowledgments
In the Beginning
Southwestern Ontario
Map of Southwestern Ontario
Thomas Talbot: “Set on the Dogs!”
Simon Girty: The “White Savage”
Frank Akeroyd: The Northern Indiana Disaster
Reverend William King: The Friend of the Slave
The Tolpuddle Martyrs: To Canada Incognito
The Donnelly Massacre: Violence and Vigilantes
The Victoria Disaster: Many Shared the Blame
South-Central Ontario
Map of South-Central Ontario
Pennsylvania German Migration: Perils on the Trail
“Trees of Life”: The Blacksmith’s Creation
The Elders: Sweet “116”
The Crosshill Cryptogram: A Puzzle Solved
William Winer Cooke: Custer’s Executioner
The Asia: A Struggle for Survival
Mary Robbins: “Brutally Murdered?”
Joseph Boyle: King of the Klondike and Saviour of Romania
George Muir Hendrie: Sporting Son
Millicent Milroy: A Duke’s Secret
Niagara Peninsula
Map of the Niagara Peninsula
William Hamilton Merritt: From “Ditch” to Canal
McArthur & McArthur: Lock 6 Disaster
Samuel Zimmerman: The Incredible Con
Reverent Anthony Burns: Cause of Boston Slave Riots
Central Ontario
Map of Central Ontario
Matthias Sanders: The Battle of York
John Ridout vs. Samuel Jarvis: Killed by a “Blight”
Keturah Howell: Work of Love
David Williams: The Homesteader’s Hazard
Cholera: Blame “the English”
The Murder of Robert Moodie: “The Mackenzie Rebellion”
Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews: Hanged for a Cause
The Unheralded Mothers: Sixty-one Grandchildren
Mary Thomson: Home in the Bush
Matthew Hancock: “Carried the King’s Colours”
The Fenian Raids: Birth of Canadian Patriotism
The Humber Railway Disaster: “I Forgot”
Alice Eastwood: Curator of Botany
John Bowser: The Empire State Building
East-Central Ontario
Map of East-Central Ontario
The Moore Family Feud: Napanee Rivalry
Riel Rebellion: The Insubordinate Williams
Joseph Scriven: “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”
Samuel Greene and John McGann: Fingerspelling
Eliza Grimason: Prime Minister’s Friend
Thomas MacLeod: Antarctic Adventures
Eastern Ontario
Map of Eastern Ontario
Scottish Migration: “MacCanada”
Wilson vs. Lyon: Ontario’s Last Duel
John and Sophia Cameron: Identification Crisis
McGuigan Cemetery Restoration: Rideau Canal Malaria Victims
Mahlon Locke: “Toe Twister”
West-Central Ontario
Map of West-Central Ontario
William “Tiger” Dunlop: The Brilliant Buffoon
The Stranger: “Murdered!”
Morden and Granger Families: The Nipissing Road Epidemic
Emile Huard: Logger Burial Tradition
Priceville Reclamation: Black Cemetery Recognized
Northern Ontario
Map of Northern Ontario
Susan: Decline of the “Country Wife”
Dr. Hume and Colonel Prince: Pirates!
Morris Perkus: Unfortunate Russians
Walter Walsh: Reading Camp Mishap
The Great Forest Fires Porcupine Fire: Even “Big Bob”
Matheson Fire: No Matter What the Consequences
The Great Fire of 1922: Trolleys to the Rescue
Chronology
Index
About the Author
As published:
Harvey Medland was a teacher and counsellor at Toronto’s Jarvis Collegiate for 31 years. To celebrate the school’s 175th anniversary he wrote Minerva’s Diary, a History of Jarvis Collegiate Institute.
His 25-year interest in gravestones has taken him to cemeteries from Newfoundland to the Yukon and as far north as Resolute. The Ontario Historical Society first saw his slide show presentation, “Tombstone Tales,” when he was invited to be a speaker at the workshop, “The Heritage of Ontario Cemeteries,” in 1990. He has continued to be a speaker at that workshop series and has been a volunteer with the organizer since that time. In addition he has photographed several of the markers appearing in this book.
The author’s photographs have appeared in Seasons magazine as well as Ontario, a Loving Look and Canadian Book of the Road. An avid bird watcher, he has sighted nearly 4,000 species on six continents.