A Story That Starts in Quebec and Ends in Ontario, Vol 12 No. 5 November 1998 Dialogue 37: The Story of the Plaques.
How did three cast-iron plaques that were once fixed to the base of General James Wolfe's monument on the Plains of Abraham (Quebec City) end up in the basement of the Brockville Museum? Doug Grant, a Brockville resident, history buff, and a teacher at South Grenville District High School, told "the Recorder and Times" that the Brockville and District Historical Society was approached in 1980 or '81 by Coosey Price, a retired Quebec businessman, who had acquired the plaques which were headed for melt-down at a scrap yard in Quebec city.
One of the plaques tells the story of the monument to Wolfe. First, Wolfe's soldiers rolled a stone over the spot where he died. It disappeared. A second memorial was placed in 1832. It was broken. A third memorial was set up in 1849 by the British Army stationed in Canada. (This is the pillar photographed in 1859, appearing in "Vanishing Canada" by Rick Butler.) This pillar was broken. It was replaced by a fourth memorial reproducing the third column and preserving its crowning piece, with two inscriptions, set up by the National Battlefields Commission in 1913. That fourth monument still stands, 85 years later, opposite the Musée du Québec.
The English-only plaques were taken off the Wolfe monument and replaced with bilingual text in the early 1980's. According to a representative from the National Battlefields Commission in Quebec City, the text is now in French and English and Wolfe's name is not given the same prominence. The plaques, each one weighing 150 lbs., were moved recently from the basement of the Brockville Museum to the Brockville Legion building, thanks to the initiative taken by Ed Dickenson, and with the help of Alf's Cartage. On behalf of the Legion, Mr. Dickenson wrote to Jack Granatstein, CEO of the Canadian War Museum, asking if they might be displayed in Ottawa. Mr Granatstein said he would be delighted to receive them but that they could not be displayed until the museum gets new quarters.
