Uncovering History

So far my team and I have been working in the cemetery for all of three days. In those three days, I have realized a few things.

This is a brilliant concept as a summer student position because as history students, we learn history very theoretically. Most of our days are spend reading sources and then speaking about them in a classroom setting. Nothing is applied and all of our research is manipulated to fit our thesis. Working at Woodland, and researching the broad range of people buried here, we cannot manipulate their information and we have no thesis. Our goal is to rediscover those that are lost to history, and to bring them to the attention of the public. I am hoping that it will become a very rewarding experience, and I have already seen inclinations that it will be. On Monday, we worked for the first time to uncover some stones that were only showing small bits at the surface. Imagine our surprise when 10 minutes into cleaning the moss off, we have uncovered a good 25 stones that had been completely underground. These were people that had previously been buried at either St. Paul’s Cathedral or Western Fair Grounds, and moved here to Woodland in 1879. Often, the grave markers are not even on top of the actually bodies. Likely, the four of us students are the first to see those stones since the early 1900’s. It is an amazing feeling, like we are uncovering history.

The other aspect of the job (other then restoring the stones) is to research those that they belong too. The first stage of the summer is gearing towards Canada 150 and the development of a walking tour through the cemetery grounds. We began preliminary research on some names that interested us last week, and have a good start. My ‘job’ was to research a politician named John Walker. So far, from what I have found, he seems to have been a very interesting presence in the city. Historically, there was a big contest in politics between Walker and a man named John Carling. While Carling is remembered quite well by history, Walker is virtually lost, with very little research having been done on the man. What is known is that Walker had multiple connections to the oil fields and was once the Vice President of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Also known, is the competition between Carling and Walker to become the federal representative of London. In 1874, Walker contested the election and ended up winning the vote by approximately sixty ballots. Carling, in turn, re-contested the election. In the end, the competition ended with Walker being unseated in 1875. Very dramatic, but very interesting. Walker’s wife is also buried at Woodland, but did not pass away until the 1930’s. She also has an interesting past, with her father being the founder of Hespeler, Ontario (near Waterloo).

Overall, it has been an informative first three days here at Woodland, and I am very excited to see where the summer takes us.