Brock's Monument - History

History

Brock died by gunshot wound to the chest on the morning of October 13, 1812, leading a charge of British regulars and Canadian militia up the Heights to regain the Redan Battery, earlier captured by American infantry forces under Captain John Wool. One of Brock's aides-de-camp, John Macdonell was also mortally wounded while attempting to lead a subsequent abortive charge when his mount was shot from beneath him and fell on him. The combined British, Canadian, and First Nations forces eventually won a resounding victory under the command of Major-General Roger Hale Sheaffe.

Brock and his aide were initially buried in the north-east corner of Fort George in nearby Niagara-on-the-Lake, then called Newark. This corner has come to be known as Brock's Bastion and is immortalised as such by a small stone bearing that inscription. A campaign began among prominent Upper Canadians to honour Brock, whose dramatic death provided a rallying point during and after the war as a symbol of Canadian independence from the United States. This led to the erection of the first Brock's Monument, a 135-foot (41.1m) Tuscan column with a viewing platform at the top. Construction began in 1823, and the monument was inaugurated October 13, 1824.

On April 17, 1840, an explosive charge did serious and irreparable damage to the monument although it failed to bring it down. The attack was presumed to have been orchestrated by Benjamin Lett, an anti-British agitator and participant in the 1837 Rebellion although a subsequent Assize failed to confirm this. Brock and Macdonell's remains were removed after the monument's disassemblage and reinterred in the Queenston cemetery of the Hamilton family.