MEMORIALS TO SAMUEL LOUNT AND PETER MATTHEWS

In the Necropolis, 200 Winchester St. at Sumach St. east of Parliament St., facing the Don Valley Parkway, Toronto

A fifteen-foot column rises over the grave, severed to show that the lives of these two martyrs, Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews, were cut off. It is at the western end of the Toronto Necropolis and can be viewed from Sumach St. They were executed 12 April 1838 for their part in the Rebellion of 1837. Matthews was a Pickering area farmer. Lount was a blacksmith who also farmed at Holland Landing. His wife, Elizabeth Lount, sought his freedom from the gallows, and helped with the mass petition calling for clemency, that was circulated throughout Upper Canada.

Originally the executed men were buried in the Strangers’ Burying Ground at the northwest corner of Bloor and Yonge Streets. Years later, on 28 November 1859, friends and sympathizers, including William Lyon Mackenzie, removed their bodies and both were buried in a common grave and the marker placed in position is still present. On 28 June 1893 the present column of granite with a motif of maple leaves was unveiled, “erected by their friends and sympathizers”. One hundred years later on 28 June 1993 friends and family of Peter Matthews and Samuel Lount gathered to honour their memory and placed a new plaque correcting a genealogical error on the original stone.