ERIK WHITE, "HERO'S TOMB MARKS 150TH ANNIVERSARY," NIAGARA FALLS REVIEW  (AUGUST 9, 2003).

Copyright Niagara Falls Review 2003

QUEENSTON - It's definitely hard to miss, poking out from the landscape like a toothpick in a sandwich, visible for kilometres in every direction.

But much like Niagara's other prominent features - the escarpment, the falls - Brock's Monument has blended into the geography, becoming part of the backdrop.

The Friends of Fort George feel it's time to pay the giant memorial some attention, particularly on its birthday. This Sunday, the group will mark the 150th anniversary of the groundbreaking for the monument.

"It's here, but I think a lot of locals don't know the history behind it," said Jennifer Romatowski, who's given tours at Queenston Heights Park for the past three summers.

"They go to Fort George and to Fort Erie, but Brock and MacDonnell's Monument tends to be unexplored."

MacDonnell being Lieutenant-Colonel John MacDonnell, Brock's aide- de-camp who died along with the general defending the heights on Oct. 13, 1812. Romatowski kind of has a soft spot for him.

"They all come for Brock and no one comes for MacDonnell, so I tend to push him a little bit," the Queen's University student said. "Sympathy for the forgotten soldier, you know."

Certainly, the scores of people who came out days after the battle for the burial of the two men weren't there for MacDonnell. Local historian Robert Malcolmson, who has written six books on the War of 1812, said the unborn nation came together in its grief.

"Isaac Brock was widely revered. He had what today we would call charisma. People were drawn to him. And the mourning for him was universal," he said.

"Thousands attended his burial at Fort George and this was in the days when there were no trains, the war was still on, but somehow they got there."

Just two years later, the colonial legislature pledged funds to erect a monument at Queenston Heights. Brock's brother Savery proposed a bronze statue of the general on horseback, but it proved too expensive.

Malcolmson said many of the young militiamen who served in the war grew up to be the "movers and shakers" of the 1820s, including Welland Canal founder William Hamilton Merritt, and pushed the monument as a memorial to the veterans as well as their commander.

"The War of 1812 turned out an upsurge in loyalty to Britain and this was a symbol of that, a symbol of patriotism," Malcolmson said.

Work on the first monument began in 1824, and a crypt was built for the two bodies, but again the project was scaled back because of budget constraints.

A lookout platform was built atop the 41-metre Tuscan column instead of a pricey statue. Malcolmson said Laura Secord applied to be the first warden of the monument, but didn't get the job.

Even then, tourists flocked to the site, climbing up its wooden steps for spectacular glimpses of the river gorge and picnicking in its grassy grounds, surprising considering much of Niagara was still thick with wilderness.

"It was a meeting place. The tradition was to go to Brock's monument," Malcolmson said. "It was the first tourist attraction in the area. There was really nothing like it anywhere in Canada."

But in 1840, the monument was destroyed by a terrorist bomb, believed to have been planted by Benjamin Lett, an Irish American who attempted to blow up a British steamship a few months later. A rally at the monument drew thousands, who vowed to build another.

A contest winner pitched an obelisk design similar to the Washington Monument, but by the time financing had been scraped together, it was discarded for the familiar 56-metre Corinthian column.

Merritt spoke at the groundbreaking in 1853, when MacDonnell and Brock were entombed once more after being temporarily buried in the Hamilton family cemetery in Queenston.

The monument officially opened in 1859 and, except for the 1929 lightning storm that lopped off Brock's arm and saw the entire statue replaced, it has lived out a quiet second life.

Romatowski estimates about 5,000 visitors tour the site every year, but only a few brave the 235 step spiral staircase to enjoy the same view as the general.

Sunday's festivities kick off about 11 a.m. and include period games, military and musical displays and model monument building. Later on, children can join re-creationists in foot and musket drills and Malcolmson will be on hand to give tours of the battlefield.

He said he hopes to introduce the public to a genuine national hero, and one, for a change, Canadians have no trouble bragging about.

"You always hear of the American symbols. They're drummed into us without stop," Malcolmson said. "But here we have a real British Canadian hero who was there at the beginning, and there's General Brock rising above the trees at Queenston to remind us of that."