Above the downtown of Hamilton, Ontario, is the East Mountain. Holding secrets that far predate the city’s popular history through buildings and skyscrapers.
This article explores a deep-rooted history and chilling legend of the Burkholder settlement. A site now hidden by modernism.
From the 1794 arrival of the Pennsylvania Dutch, who carved a life out of the harsh wilderness. To the eerie “Death Lights” that once served as a grim forerunner for the community.
The story of the Burkholder family and their cemetery is a fascinating mix of resilience and folklore. It is a place offering a window into the survival, tragedy, and hauntings of Hamilton’s earliest settlers.
by Ghost Guide Daniel
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Settlement | First Grave Tragedy | Death Lights
*Hear the darker history of Hamilton with our Hamilton’s Dark History Tours limited dates*
Hamilton’s East Mountain & Burkholder Cemetery
On Hamilton escarpment lies a site steeped in history, but you wouldn’t know it.
Burkholder Cemetery and the surrounding settlement represent the beginning of the “East Mountain” community. And hold some darker history for Hamilton.
Arrival of the Burkholder’s in 1794
In 1794, Jacob Burkholder and his family arrived in the area, marking the first white settlement on the East Mountain.
Though they were part of the Pennsylvania Dutch migration, they were notably not Amish. A common mistake about the family.
Interesting … their beginnings were nearly their end.
The family’s first winter was so brutal they were on the brink of starvation. Thankfully saved by the Horning family on the “Central/West Mountain”. Led by Peter Horning, a Loyalist who had settled near what is now Upper James and Upper Horning Streets.
This was six years before Burkholder arrived.
This survival led to comfort. Which allowed the family to thrive. Leading to the birth of the first Burkholder baby born during that same treacherous winter.
Tragic Accident & the First Grave
Burkholder Cemetery’s origin starts with a bizarre and tragic accident. Happening to Jacob’s son, Joseph Burkholder.
While gathering nuts from the forest. Joseph climbed the roof of the family’s log house to spread them out for drying.
As if tragedy was fated, Joseph slipped and fell. Just so happened a grazing cow was moving below. So, instead of hitting soft grass or soil, he landed back-first directly onto the cow.
Hitting mid-back first, it folded his body draped over the animal and breaking Joseph’s back. Killing him instantly.
Joseph became the first body buried in the Burkholder settlement.
Losing his original resting place. A spot originally thought to be across Mohawk Road. In a spot where the school & apartments are today. Then they moved him across the street, establishing the current cemetery & church site at 465 Mohawk Road.
They reburied him near the current church site. However, the exact location of his headstone is lost to time.
Dark Years on the Mountain with Sickness & Death
Between 1832 and 1854, Hamilton was overwhelmed by the Cholera epidemic. An era in the city which claimed over 400 lives. That’s about 3% of Hamilton’s population at the time.
And the Burkholder gates became a site of grim discoveries. Legend says desperate families didn’t know how to handle their deceased. They dropped bodies at cemetery gates.
Historical records suggest these victims were never buried in Burkholder Cemetery. As, at the time, the only official Cholera mass grave was in the Hamilton Cemetery.
Even more unsettling in the local legend … in a rush to dispose of bodies during the height of the plague, some people were buried while still breathing.
Not proven, however one woman from that era was quoted as saying…
“It was worse than thought. They almost put the bodies into the ground while they were still breathing.”
Death Lights of Burkholder Cemetery
By 1850, the first church and school were erected. That “Little White Church” was eventually replaced by the current (modern) structure in the 1950s.
It was during this century of history that the legend of the Death Lights, or “Will O’ the Wisp” was noted.
The Phenomenon
Often explained scientifically as methane gas rising from decaying matter in marshes, these ghostly lights appeared as shimmering orbs floating in the air.
In 1936, the phenomenon was mentioned in the Hamilton Spectator newspaper. Reported on as a “Queer Light” flying over Burkholder Church.
Now, some may hear “decaying matter” and assume death in the graveyard. However, this wasn’t believed by the masses to be true. As local lore states, there are no natural gases seeping from underground.
Yet, the light appeared over the church at night. Growing brighter as it drifted toward a random nearby home. They believed wherever the light rested, a death then happened inside that house within one day’s time.
A Rare Canadian Haunting
In his book Haunted Cemeteries, author Edrick Thay highlights Burkholder as a premier site for the supernatural.
Holding a rare distinction in Canadian folklore, often compared only to Drummond Hill Cemetery in Niagara Falls.
Drummond Hill being unique in ghostly energy as the site of a bloody battle in the War of 1812. Where 250 men violently died.
While the original log houses of the Burkholder settlement are gone. Thankfully this hidden history lives on, ironically … through its ghosts.
*Hear the darker history of Hamilton with our Hamilton’s Dark History Tours limited dates*