PopGoesTheNews.com >> The mausoleum, built of heavy stone and set into an embankment on the north side of St. James Cemetary in Toronto, is overgrown with weeds and covered with fallen branches. The cracked door to the tomb has old, mouldy cobwebs on the hinged side and crudely-applied caulking just above the twisted, rusted padlock that keeps the morbidly curious out. A semi-circle opening with rusted metal bars and more cobwebs sits above the door, which is partially blocked by an overgrown conifer. On the roof of the tomb, placed in the earth, is a filthy plain stone block in which the name “Howland” is carved.After more than a century sitting in the city’s oldest public cemetery, where it overlooks the Rosedale Valley, the poor condition of the mausoleum (see photos below) is not surprising – until you realize who is entombed inside and that the federal government is supposed to be taking care of it.
The mausoleum is the final resting place of Sir William Pearce Howland, one of the Fathers of Confederation; the nation’s former receiver general and minister of finance; Ontario’s second lieutenant governor; a member of the Privy Council; and a Companion of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath. He died in 1907 at the age of 95, leaving behind several children, including two sons who had served as mayor of Toronto – William Holmes Howland and Oliver Aiken Howland.
Howland’s resting place is marked with a plaque installed by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, which reads, in part: “This grave is marked and maintained in perpetuity by the Government of Canada.” But its condition is much worse than other monuments to the former politician in the city. Several miles west, on Old Dundas Road, sits the beautifully restored Lambton House and another federal plaque honouring Howland.
It reads: “A prominent businessman and philanthropist, Howland was a leading Reform politician and a Father of Confederation. Founder of Lambton Mills, he was elected to the provincial legislature in 1858. He served in the Great Coalition government of 1864, which achieved the federal union, and attended the 1866 London Conference, where the text of the British North America Act was finalized. Elected to the first federal parliament, he resigned in 1868 to become the second lieutenant governor of Ontario. The remainder of his life was devoted to business and charitable works.”
Lambton House, which operated as a hotel and tavern for 140 years after it was built in 1847, is the only remaining public landmark of Lambton Mills on the Humber River. Howland, who settled in the area in 1830 after arriving from the United States (he became a naturalized British subject in 1841), operated the Lambton Mills before getting into politics.Howland is also memorialized with a plaque at the southeast corner of Dundas Street West and Confederation Parkway installed by the Archeological and Historic Sites Board of Ontario .
In 1867, Howland took part in the London Conference, where 16 men – including Sir John A. Macdonald, drafted a text of the British North America Act inside the Westminster Palace Hotel. It was there that the name “Canada” was chosen for the new dominion.
“His resting place should get a little more respect than this,” said someone who passed by it on Sunday afternoon. “At least cut the weeds, plant some flowers or something. And put a better lock on it. Can you imagine what vandals could do?”
