Harvey Station, New Brunswick - Cenotaph

In memory of
Private
ALFRED STEPHEN HUNTER
Service Number: 108298
September 28, 1894 - June 2, 1916

When a recruit signed up for the Canadian Expeditionary Force in WW I he filled in an attestation paper that indicated his willingness to serve in the military and provided such information as date of birth, next of kin, height, weight, complexion, occupation, etc. As such these papers are of genealogical importance. The links below are to a scanned copy of the attestion papers of Alfred Hunter completed on 10 April 1915, in Medicine Hat, Alberta.

Newspaper obituary
Copied from newspaper obituary - 1916:
Harvey Station, N.B., June 21 -- Private Alfred S. Hunter, son of Mr Jas. A. Hunter, of Harvey Station, has been killed in action according to an official telegram received here last night by the father of the gallant soldier. He was a member of the 3rd Mounted Rifles, acting as infantry, having enlisted in that unit in the West.

Private Hunter was a young man of sterling habits, a graduate of the Provincial Normal School at Fredericton and went West in 1913, having secured a first-class teacher's license. He taught school in the West for about a year and enlisted for active service soon after the outbreak of the war. He was 22 years of age and is the first Harvey Station man to fall in the world war. Much sympathy is expressed for the bereaved family whose only surviving son is also in khaki, Private Charles W. Hunter being a member of the 104th Battalion at Sussex. Coun. S. B. Hunter of Harvey Station is an uncle of Private Hunter.

Cemetery:
No known grave.
Commemorated on the MENIN GATE (YPRES) MEMORIAL, Belgium .

Menin Gate Memorial

Medium sized pop-up image of Gate
691 X 499, 150 dpi, 115 k

Names Listed on Menin Gate Memorial

Medium sized pop-up image of Names
502 X 699, 150 dpi, 41 k

The Menin Gate Memorial is situated at the eastern side of the town of Ypres (now Ieper) in the Province of West Flanders, on the road to Menin and Courtrai. It bears the names of 55,000 men who were lost without trace during the defence of the Ypres Salient in the First World War.

Designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield and erected by the Imperial (now Commonwealth) War Graves Commission, it consists of a "Hall of Memory", 36.6 metres long by 20.1 metres wide. In the centre are broad staircases leading to the ramparts which overlook the moat, and to pillared loggias which run the whole length of the structure. On the inner walls of the Hall, on the side of the staircases and on the walls of the loggias, panels of Portland stone bear the names of the dead, inscribed by regiment and corps.

Carved in stone above the central arch are the words:

TO THE ARMIES OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE WHO STOOD HERE FROM 1914 TO 1918 AND TO THOSE OF THEIR DEAD WHO HAVE NO KNOWN GRAVE.

Over the two staircases leading from the main Hall is the inscription:

HERE ARE RECORDED NAMES OF OFFICERS AND MEN WHO FELL IN YPRES SALIENT BUT TO WHOM THE FORTUNE OF WAR DENIED THE KNOWN AND HONOURED BURIAL GIVEN TO THEIR COMRADES IN DEATH.

The dead are remembered to this day in a simple ceremony that takes place every evening at 8:00 p.m. All traffic through the gateway in either direction is halted, and two buglers (on special occasions four) move to the centre of the Hall and sound the Last Post. Two silver trumpets for use in the ceremony are a gift to the Ypres Last Post Committee by an officer of the Royal Canadian Artillery, who served with the 10th Battery, of St. Catharines, Ontario, in Ypres in April 1915.

Grave Reference:
Panel 30 and 32.

Entry last updated 6 September 2008
Please contact Tim Patterson (tim.patterson@carleton.ca)
to provide additional data, or to correct any errors.