The Region of Queens council voted at its regular meeting Jan. 16 to accept a request from lodge members, to relocate the cannon from in front of the lodge to Milton’s Tupper Park.
Larry Truelove has been a member of Milton’s Prince of Wales Lodge for more than 50 years. He was also on Milton’s village commission for about six years.
A few years ago, there was monument by the cemetery in Milton with the names of those who have died in the war. Only, it was hidden by brush. Truelove says he made a motion to have it moved to Tupper Park.
The motion passed, and the monument stands in the park on the west side of the Mersey River.
“I do the Remembrance Day ceremony every year here in Milton,” says Truelove.
The ceremony moves from the hall in Milton to the cenotaph.
“This cannon is laying over in front of the lodge, and it has no Masonic significance whatsoever, so I decided it might be nice if we had it down in the park to compliment the monument and the flagpole.”
Lodge members accepted the proposal.
Cannon history
Bill Cox, also a member of the Prince of Wales Lodge No. 29, talked to lodge members and collected information about the cannon from lodge members.
According to collected information, a vessel capsized close to the present-day Milford House Inn in the 1850s. Two cannons were salvaged. One was place at the corner of School and West Streets and the other at the corner of Main and Bridge in Milton, read Inglis.
As time passed, the cannon on the lodge’s property became submerged and disappeared.
“In the early 1900s, to permit the building of a lodge hall, the ground was excavated and the cannon was resurrected and placed upon a wooden platform near the boundary of Masonic property and Bridge Street,” said Inglis.
Time took its toll again, when the cannon lost its platform and became partially submerged, with its muzzle pointing up.
“It remained in this fashion for many years and became a baseline marker for surveyors,” said Inglis.
The cannon was put on a cement base in the late 1980s, and the cannon’s muzzle faced down Main Street.
Eventually, people noticed it was pointing at the Milton Baptist Church, and the cannon was shifted to point to an island adjacent to Tupper Park.
Lodge members felt the cannon had no historical attachment with the lodge would be better suited for the park, said Cox in a phone interview following the council meeting.
