Yesterday Geordie and I spent the day adventuring our way to Port Stanley and back. We visited five different cemeteries and explored the frozen Lake Erie in the town. It was incredible amounts of fun! We stumbled upon a bunch of really interesting things which we researched once we got home. We were able to do a lot of learning. Whiiiich is my favourite and, therefore, I was thrilled!
This church, St. Thomas Church in St. Thomas, was built in 1824. It's not used for regular services anymore and it was locked but we peaked in the windows and it was awesome inside. Instead of the regular rows, there were cubicle style pews, a prisoners' balcony behind the preacher's pulpit which was a small wooden, railed platform up a twisty set of stairs, and multiple heavy stone plaques hanging on the walls. Gorgeous.
The monument below was built for the Chisholm family by their last surviving family member, Robert Bruce Chisholm. We just thought it was extremely extravagant and cool-looking. However, upon further investigation we discovered that there is a book written about the family who were apparently placed under an Irish Curse by an old Irish woman whose son had died on the father, William Chrisholm's, lumber schooner. The Irish Curse stipulates that all of the immediate family will die within 7 years. Between 1828 and 1835, William, his wife, and five of his children perished. I want to read the book.
Our next stop was another cemetery, this one was on the way to Port Stanley again, still around St. Thomas. Here we discovered that there is an organization somewhat related to the Freemasons called the Independent Organization of Odd Fellows. We looked this up after finding the monument in the picture above that Geordie is standing next to. There were tonnes of stones in this graveyard with the Odd Fellows symbol, three chain links linked together, so we think the group must have been pretty prominent in the area. There were also a bunch of stones with trains on the sides like this one. They were all of grown/middle-aged men so we think they must have been railroad workers.
Next we went to Port Stanley itself. It was beautiful. A lot of the lake was still frozen and everything was covered in snow. We climbed along the rocks in one area, walked out on the beach and onto the frozen lake/frozen piles of sand and ice on the beach side of the town, explored a few streets, and went up on the hill and ate peanut brittle while we looked at all the different cottages. A huge number of the buildings are covered in painted murals. It's an absolutely beautiful place.
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| This is where I set the timer on the camera, ran to be in the picture, stepped off the rock, and fell up to my waist in snow. As you can see, we thought this was quite funny. Because it was. It was hilarious. Below is the hole I made. |
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| Inspecting fossils in the rocks. They were covered in them. |
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| This snow looked like feathers |
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| Murals |
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| The beach |
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| Giant ice/sand piles |
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| Looking out from the ice/sand hills |
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| Looking back from them |
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| A patch of ice we found that looked like a mosaic. It was really cool and very pretty. |
This was another cemetery we stopped at on our way to Sparta. They had taken all of the old stones and put them together in a walled courtyard guarded by a stone lion. We found our oldest stone yet here. Phebe Hubbs died in 1817. Almost 200 years ago!
We didn't get to spend much time in Sparta besides visiting a Quaker cemetery but there were tonnes of old buildings and an old, red brick school house that people own and live in. Amazing.
All in all, a fantastic end to a fantastic six days.
