Paul Berton: A tale of two Hamilton tombstones: Why do we spend so much on the dead?
It is perhaps the tallest monument in the Hamilton Cemetery, and certainly the most impressive.
Clearly visible from afar and towering over the other tombstones, it is hard to miss, its gothic spire modelled on those rising above a European cathedral.
When it was installed at Hamilton 160 years ago, it would have cost a small fortune.
Alas, it turned out to be a lousy investment.
Today, the few names inscribed on it have been rendered nearly unreadable by the elements and acid rain.
Worse, the entire structure is crumbling, and may soon topple.
And the final insult? Nobody really knows who's buried underneath.
The family plot, established with such promise 150 years ago, is fading into obscurity.
This is a tale of two extravagant tombstones, the wealthy families who erected them, and their fate in a modern world.
Who were these people and how could they afford such opulent memorials? Why was one used by generations and the other ignored shortly after the first burial?
What is it about humans that compel us to spend so much on the dead? What makes us feel the need to leave a marker? What becomes of the best laid plans?
And where will we be in eternity?
The man who erected the gothic monument clearly hoped it would be a meeting place for relatives - dead and alive - for generations, and would keep his family name front and centre for centuries.
He was John Young Bown, a wealthy doctor, prominent politician and prosperous farmer in Brantford. Born in England, he served in both the Ontario legislature and Canada's parliament.
When Bown bought the plot in 1857, it had room for at least eight, probably 16, and likely many more.
In fact, just a stone's throw away in the same cemetery, a plot with a monument just as ornate and almost as tall contains the remains of more than 40 people, descendants of the Meakins family, famous in Hamilton for more than a century as makers of fine paint brushes. The company was sold in 1970 and endures today as Crown-Meakins of Montreal.
Descendants have crowded into the Meakins family plot since 1867, their names still clearly engraved in granite.
And they continue to get their money's worth. It was a one-time cost way back in the 1860s, so when Bill Meakins and his wife Anne Marie were interred there in 2017, they paid only the burial costs; they got the land for free, as did all the other descendants.
It's a pretty full house," says Jane Riddell, whose maiden name is Meakins.
She and her husband are likely to be buried in Burlington, but she still visits the family plot in Hamilton. Every time my sister and I go we place everyone again, refresh our memories."
The Bowns, on the other hand, reaped none of those benefits. Bown would have paid roughly the same amount for his plot, and likely even more for the monument, but few family members took advantage of it.
It is not certain whether even he is buried there.
Why he spent so much money for a plot and monument that was ignored so soon thereafter is a mystery.
I know he was extremely upset about his mother's death and I wonder if this was an expression of that," says Judith Chidlow, a Bown descendant living in British Columbia who studies the family genealogy.
It is quite possible that Bown's mother, Mary Russell Bown, who was born in England in 1818 and died in Hamilton in 1856, is alone in the expansive vault below.
The other names - now barely legible in the flaking sandstone - are John's brothers, Samuel Hasell Bown, who died in Chicago in 1856, and Walter R. Bown, who died in Michigan in 1903, but it is unclear when those names were added or if their bodies were transported to Hamilton and interred there.
They were scattered all over the place," says Chidlow of the family members. It was that kind of time."
Another brother, Edwin, a Brantford doctor, may be in the vault, but, like John Young Bown himself, there is no inscription.
The only other name on the disintegrating monument (though there is room for plenty more) is Rachel Campbell Ferrie, the wife of John Young Bown, who died in 1857 at age 33. But she is only memorialized there. Her remains lie in the Ferrie plot nearby, along with several dozen of her relatives, including Colin Campbell Ferrie, the first mayor of Hamilton.
The first Ferrie buried there was Adam Ferrie in 1857; the last was Elsie Morison MacPherson, 100 years later, in 1967. Like the Meakins, the Ferries got their money's worth.
Meanwhile, both Ferrie and Meakins seem to have chosen better tombstone material. The Meakins' monument may not be quite as imposing as Bown's, but it has weathered the ages far better.
You can barely read the names," says Robin McKee, a local historian and author who conducts tours of the cemetery, of the Bown monument. People always ask about that one. Rain and acid rain are washing away the sandstone. You can see it building up at the base."
The mystery of why the Bown plot came to be abandoned, and why there are so few records regarding it is unlikely to ever be solved. Unlike the Ferrie and Meakins plots, the so-called lot card" for the Bown site was lost long ago.
Record-keeping then wasn't what it is now," says John Perrotta, Hamilton's superintendent of cemeteries.
Ground penetrating radar would be needed to determine how many bodies besides Mary's, if any, are buried there. Nor is it likely, he says, that anyone else can make use now of the unoccupied spaces there.
There is a vault beneath the tombstone, says McKee, and it must have been impressively reinforced to have propped up such a large monument: I would love to go down into that vault," says McKee, who has been inside other crypts at the cemetery, some of which are still in use.
If more than a generation has passed, however, the cemetery office must determine who can use the plots. The city won't inter just any old descendent without approval from the family. And in many cases, they don't have a contact.
The more down the line you go, especially with lots like this, it becomes really challenging to determine who has rights," says Perrotta. It's a complicated and long process."
Such issues raise many questions: is it all worth it?
Do tombstones need to be permanent? Are they more than just a place for immediate relatives to mourn or others to connect with the past? Are they important signposts in our evolution as a community?
What is their place in history - and in a modern world?
Are tombstones simply monuments in death - like so many others in life - to the power and privilege of those who erect them?
Or do they connect us with our past and guide us in future? After all, cemeteries are important public spaces, fascinating heritage sites and useful community gathering areas.
Finally, is a cemetery plot really a good use of urban land in a world where it is increasingly scarce? Can we even afford these things? Are they a social service, or a luxury?
Local taxpayers, remember, subsidize the ongoing maintenance costs of many public cemeteries in Ontario, including the Hamilton Cemetery.
In the 1990s, after too many municipalities were forced to assume responsibility for old and abandoned private cemeteries, the province required new cemeteries to put up a $100,000 deposit.
And while maintenance fees in recent years have been steadily rising as part of burial costs, who really knows if they will cover all eventualities? We are talking about eternity, after all.
Cremations are steadily on the rise, but ashes and urns still take up space. Are cemetery skyscrapers in our future? The idea has certainly been discussed.
In some European and Asian cities, meanwhile, it is simply impossible to reserve a place in perpetuity.
Some plots around the world are rented by the decade, with forgotten bodies eventually removed and the remains placed in a communal burial ground. In others, old graves are dug deeper and new ones placed above them, so that some graves are storeys deep.
The end is never as dignified as we might like - and nothing, as they say, lasts forever.
Paul Berton is editor-in-chief at The Hamilton Spectator. pberton@thespec.com
Of tombs - and graverobbers ...
Hamilton Cemetery on York Boulevard has its fair share of ornate burial vaults.
It's one of the reasons it's popular with filmmakers.
Some, such as the Col. Robert Land Jr. vault, which has room for more than three dozen, is still in use, and visited regularly by relatives.
It was built sometime between 1847, when Christ Church Cathedral bought the property from Sir Allan MacNab for a graveyard, and 1871, when it became part of the Hamilton Cemetery. Robert Land Sr., the first in a line of distinguished military men all named Robert Land, died in 1818, so his body would have been interred in the vault much later. The last interment there was in 1985.
The elaborate and ornate Stinson family vault, on the other hand, was sealed after a grisly invasion in 2013.
Nighttime intruders broke into the crypt, opened the coffins and disturbed the remains, though it is not clear what, if anything, was taken. Brothers Ebenezer and Thomas Brock Stinson built the crypt overlooking Cootes Paradise sometime between 1858 and 1871. It contains 16 niches for coffins, and is topped by an outside plot that can accommodate nine graves, though only two are occupied. - PB