Why this man wants Niagara-on-the-Lake to pay $59K to restore headstones at burial ground for Black settlers

James Russell is on a quest to restore 19 headstones buried at the Negro Burial Ground — a cemetery in Niagara-on-the-Lake that dates back almost 200 years —  and have the small Ontario town foot the $59,000 bill.

The Toronto filmmaker said 28 burial sites and 19 buried headstones were detected at the cemetery in May with the help of ground-penetrating radar.

The cemetery was the burial site for mostly early Black settlers. It's not immediately clear how the headstones were buried, but Russell is adamant they could not have sunken to their current depth without human intervention. 

He is pointing fingers at Niagara-on-the-Lake (NOTL) employees who he said were responsible for maintaining the site.

"Even if the town's employees laid down these headstones … There's no way in hell that those headstones managed to sink a foot and a half deep," Russell told CBC Hamilton. 

"I believe they buried them because it was easier to cut the grass. That's why the Negro Burial Ground is just one grassy field. Because I believe that the town buried the headstones, I'm insisting that they pay for unearthing and restoring them."

CBC Hamilton has contacted the town, but a communications person said no member of the senior management team was available to speak.

After driving through Niagara-on-the-Lake for several years, starting in 1985, and noticing a yard with two headstones beside a small plaza on Mississauga Street, Russell decided it was time to address what he knew was more than a plain patch of grass.

"Each time I pass, I say, 'Really somebody needs to address this issue,' and finally, last November, that somebody had to be me," Russell told CBC Hamilton last June.

In November 2021, Russell applied to the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake for permission to use ground-penetrating radar to determine how many people were buried at the cemetery and where they were located.

According to Russell, no records were kept of names on stones and there was no mapping of those that had fallen over.

Following the discovery of the burial sites and headstones, Russell filed a complaint with the Bereavement Authority of Ontario (BAO) in December, asking that the BAO "compel the town of NOTL to unearth, restore and remount the headstones."

In the complaint, Russell reiterated it's his belief the town's employees buried the headstones, in violation of the Funeral, Burial and Cremation Services Act, and Canada's Criminal Code.

The BAO is the governing body for all cemeteries and funeral parlors in the province. Its deputy registrar, Michael D'Mello, responded to Russell's complaint on Jan. 6.