War of 1812 Ramparts in Hamilton Cemetery an unassuming relic of the only war fought on Canadian soil

War of 1812 Ramparts in Hamilton Cemetery. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.

November 2024

Burlington Heights is an elevated sand and gravel bar in the southern Ontario City of Hamilton, formed across the eastern end of the Dundas Valley by Glacial Lake Iroquois. Rising around 330 feet above the shoreline, it separates Hamilton Harbour from Cootes Paradise Marsh, and is now recognized as a National Historic Site of Canada.

Today, Burlington Heights provides a direct route from the north-west area of Hamilton the neighbouring city of Burlington, traveling along York Boulevard. On either side of York Boulevard are walking and cycling trails, parkland, the historic Dundurn Castle, former home of Sir Allan MacNab, a 19th Century lawyer, soldier, and and member of the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada, and the large Hamilton Cemetery; the final resting place for Hamiltonians since 1850.

During the War of 1812, Burlington Heights was part of the British fortifications in the defence of Upper Canada, modern-day southern Ontario, taking over the property owned by Richard Beasley in 1813. The barn on the property was fortified and converted into a Blockhouse, containing a barracks and storehouse.

It was the Burlington Heights garrison that beat back an American naval squadron on 29 July 1813. Around 500 American soldiers, under the command of Colonel Winfield Scott, came ashore and attempted to take the fortification, but the British soldiers and their allies were too firmly entrenched in their elevated positions. Instead, the Americans attacked the Town of York, current-day City of Toronto.

The month prior, British troops stationed at the Beasley fortifications launched a successful attack on a much larger American force at Stoney Creek, early on the morning of 6 June 1813. Under the command of General John Vincent and Sir John Harvey, this battle came to be known as the Battle of Stoney Creek, a major British victory over an American forces. The battle was supposed to have taken place at Burlington Heights, but the British took the Americans by surprise before they could launch an attack on the fort.

The Battle of Stoney Creek would prove to be a turning point in the war, and the Americans would never again advance so far from the Niagara area.

After the War of 1812, the fort was converted into a hospital for immigrants with contagious diseases. Beasley returned to his farm, retaining it until selling it to Sir Allan MacNab, who built Dundurn Castle, an 18,000-square-foot, forty room Italianate-style villa, where Beasley’s house once stood.

Very little of these fortifications remain today, a small section of the old fort’s ramparts can be found in the south end of Hamilton Cemetery, around 6-feet high and 330 feet in length. Looking like an ordinary, unassuming ridge or loaf-shaped mound around some gravestones, the ramparts were saved from being completely obliterated when a resolution passed by City Council in 1890 that the earthworks were to be preserved, due in large part to the work of the Wentworth Historical Society, the predecessor of the Head-of-the-Lake Historical Society. A small section of the ramparts was cut out to allow for a cemetery road to pass through, along with two family crypts that were built into the earthworks, spurring the preservation efforts.

There are many reminders and relics of the War of 1812 in the Niagara to Cornwall areas of southern Ontario that remain today. The ramparts of the former Burlington Heights fortification are one of the lesser known and unassuming remnants to be found.