Hamilton Cemetery


Hamilton Cemetery on York Boulevard in Hamilton, Ontario is the oldest, public burial ground in the city of Hamilton. It is located on Burlington Heights, a high sand- and gravel isthmus that separates Hamilton's harbor on the east from Cootes Paradise on the west.
Historically, the cemetery consists of three, separate burial grounds over 100 acres: Burlington Heights Cemetery, the Christ Church Grounds, and the Church of Ascension Grounds. It has been a contentious issue whether a flood, around the 1860s inundated the city, necessitating the re-collecting of gravestones to be amassed in one place. From 1850 until 1892, each burial ground was administered separately, but by the beginning of the 1890s, the church wardens were encountering difficulty paying for the maintenance-and upkeep of their areas of the grounds. In 1892, an agreement with the City of Hamilton who assumed responsibility for all the grounds, which were renamed "Hamilton Cemetery".

Notables buried there

A large number of the mayors of Hamilton are buried/interred there, including:
A large number of the stones contain masonic symbols, as well as a number of carved tree-stumps. Several family vaults are also found here, including the Sanford Vault, the Tuckett vault, the Thomas C Watkins vault, the Col. Land Family Vault and the Stinson Family Mausoleum. Oddly, there is indication that these crypts are renovations of an existing stone building. Even more curious, is that these crypts are half-buried in a mound of earth.

War Graves

The cemetery contains the war graves of 139 Commonwealth service personnel, 127 from World War I and 12 from World War II.