Over 400 bodies are known to be buried under a parking lot in Hamilton Ontario. Richard Beasley, an early settler, is one of those buried there.Christ Church Cathedral now plans to dig up the graves, identify them, and re-bury them so that they can build a 12-storey condo.
“It’s time that we stopped parking on top of those people,” said the Very Rev. Peter Wall, rector of Christ’s Church Cathedral, in a presentation to councillors Wednesday. “They need to be released from asphalt hell.”
The graveyard opened in 1832 and 20 years later it was closed. Many headstones were moved at that time but the bodies were left behind. The Cathedral has gathered and saved 24 tombstones which they are storing in the church basement.
From a personal viewpoint, many of my Peer ancestors as well as my Burkholder ancestors died in the Hamilton area in the early to mid 1800s. I am hopeful their remains will be found and identified.
Continue reading the full story at Hamilton church aims to dig up hundreds of graves from ‘asphalt hell’ for condo tower
Credit: Image of Christ Church Cathedral in Public Domain found on Wikipedia
Hi Lorine! I'm from Hamilton and am sad to learn about this. We Hamiltonians were not aware of this at all. I took a few photos of the very small United Empire Loyalists grave site last weekend, that's located right behind the church, on the right side. Looks to be some of the Beasley family interred there. Coincidently I lived in the Beasley neighborhood when I was a child. I am related to you somehow as we have a lot of the same ancestors, so yes, there's more than likely that there are some of our relatives!
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