Beemer, Sara Galbraith (Calder)

  • Peter Hanlon, “BEEMER, SARA GALBRAITH (Calder),” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 14, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. See full biography at: https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/beemer_sara_galbraith_14E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Philanthropist; b. 19 Aug. 1846 in Hamilton, Upper Canada, daughter of Levi Beemer, a jeweller and watchmaker, and Ann Eliza Gage; m. 22 Dec. 1869 John Calder (d. 1901) in Buffalo, N.Y., and they had seven sons and two daughters; d. 16 March 1914 in Hamilton.
    • Educated in Hamilton, Sara Beemer married John Calder, a clothier, whose prominence helped give her the opportunity to become involved in the organized movements and philanthropies of her Anglo-Canadian culture. She was a granddaughter of James Gage, the War of 1812 veteran who owned the homestead at Stoney Creek that had been occupied by the Americans in a major battle on 6 June 1813, and she had grown up under the influence of the heroic view of loyalism. A founding member of the Wentworth Historical Society in 1889, she opposed the recommendation of an all-male committee that the battle be commemorated by the erection of a monument on Smith’s Knoll, where the British had successfully stormed the Americans’ artillery. The knoll, situated across the road from the Gage property, lacked the prominence of the hill to the rear of the homestead. Mrs Calder envisioned building on this hill a monument whose size and visibility would awaken the Canadian historical consciousness and communicate the aspirations of the imperial ideal.
    • As first president of the society’s ladies’ committee, formed in May 1895, Calder proved her administrative capacity in November when she organized a week-long exhibition which raised over $1,000 for a history museum in Hamilton. This profit became the committee’s ace in the dispute over the location of the memorial. Calder and some of her associates, convinced that the men were short-sighted in their choice of sites for both the monument and the museum, took control of the money. Their action caused such friction that the ladies’ committee, at Calder’s urging, dissociated from the parent society and incorporated itself in May 1899 as the Women’s Wentworth Historical Society. 
    • Assured that the federal grant would be revoted, she invited Lady Grey, wife of Governor General Lord Grey, to turn the first sod on her society’s site in May. In February 1910 Calder purchased an additional 13 acres of the original Gage patent, adding them to the park. By November 1911 the $5,000 had been spent and work on the monument there ceased. When Calder requested another grant, the militia department, which had already erected monuments on the battlefields of Châteauguay, Crysler’s Farm, and Lundy’s Lane, decided to complete the work as a government project. Title to the monument, however, remained with the WWHS. On 6 June 1913, the centenary of Stoney Creek, a magnificent stone tower was unveiled before an estimated crowd of 8,000 people. The ideological impact of the tower was reinforced by the inscription on the monument, which claimed the battle had been “the decisive engagement” of the war and the turning-point in the defence of “British liberty of which Canada is the inheritor.”
  • Second Great Granddaughter of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=4684
  • Find A Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56878320/sara_galbreaith-calder/photo