Remembering Loyalist history

CRYSLER – In a quiet but moving ceremony on Sept. 7, a Loyalist burial site plaque was dedicated near the entrance of St. John’s Anglican Cemetery by the Rev. Jonathan Askwith, rector of St. Clare’s Anglican Church in North Dundas.

The placing of the plaque was the result of a collaboration between members of the St. John’s Anglican Cemetery Board and members of the St. Lawrence Branch, United Empire Loyalist Association of Canada. The plaque was installed by SLB member Michael Eamer, U.E. with assistance from Lorna Armstrong.

This historic cemetery is the burial site of Colonel John Crysler, UEL who served during the Revolutionary War with Butler’s Rangers. Following the cessation of hostilities and the defeat of the British, Crysler became a loyalist refugee eventually settling along the St. Lawrence front and then in the village of Crysler that now bears his name. He and other members of his family were very involved in the social, cultural, political and religious life of their new home communities.

Lorna Armstrong, a member of the cemetery committee, gave a short but informative address on the role played by the Crysler family, noting the land for Saint John’s Anglican Church and cemetery was purchased from one of Colonel Crysler’s sons.  Another son John Pliny Crysler donated the land for the construction of Holy Trinity Anglican in nearby Chesterville.

A beautiful stained-glass window, now located in the Crysler Hall in Upper Canada Village, had been donated to Saint John’s Anglican Church in his memory by his wife following his death 1852.  Darlene Fawcett-Montgomer, U.E, gave a brief outline of the loyalist burial site program noting this was the sixth plaque to be dedicated in Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry including one at Trinity Anglican Church in Cornwall.

Askwith then dedicated and blessed the installation of the plaque by these words: “Gracious God, we remember before you those who were loyal to the Crown in times of conflict, and whose earthly remains rest in this hallowed place. We ask that their life and witness may be to us an example of steadfastness and loyalty, and we dedicate this plaque to their memory, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Amen.

Those in attendance were able to gather afterwards to socialize and learn about Saint John’s Anglican Church and the cemetery where burials date from the early 1800s. People learned of vandalism that desecrated the church and of its subsequent demolition. They visited the memorial to its memory near where the church had proudly stood and served its community for decades.