Commemoration efforts in Nation Valley began in late 1919. On December 13, a small ceremony was held at the home of Sergeant Merkley's parents and individual memorial tablets were presented to families of the fallen. In August 1920, both the Winchester Press and Chesterville Record reported that a harvest dinner would be held to raise money for the Soldiers' Memorial Fund.
By February 1922, progress was being made on the Nation Valley Cenotaph; the Record reported that a group of men went to Winchester to take care of business related to the project. It is likely that they went to Stubbs & Gibson's monument business, which was commissioned to create the memorial. Made of black and grey Egyptian granite, the cenotaph stands over six feet tall. Small maple leaves adorn the corners of each side, and a wreath of maple leaves is displayed on the cap of the stone. The lettering was completed by Mr. Gibbs of Winchester.
On the morning of August 23, hundreds of people gathered on the lawn of the Nation Valley Public School at 12725 River Road to witness the unveiling of the cenotaph. The school was a meaningful site for the memorial, as all four soldiers were educated there. The ceremony was performed by Reverend William Brown, the Methodist minister from Chesterville.
In the fall of 2014, the North Dundas Township Council discovered that the land where the monument was located was privately owned by the Munro family. A few years after the school closed in 1966, the school board sold the land to them. To ensure that the public would always have access to the cenotaph, the Munro family worked with the Township and the Chesterville Legion to have it moved to Veterans Memorial Park on Queen Street East, where Chesterville's own war memorial was (and still is) located.
