7. St. Mary's Basilica
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This Hymn, called “Abide With Me,” along with “O God, Our Help in Ages Past” was reportedly sung at the service for the unknown dead.
“In Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Father Driscoll was saying Mass when the explosion destroyed the stained glass windows on both sides of the church. No one was injured. Father Driscoll ended the service and walked calmly to the sacristy. It was noted that the one window which escaped was the Pelican window. A moment after the explosion, St. Mary’s looked like an old Gothic ruin.” (See: Archibald MacMechan, The Halifax Explosion, December 6th, 1917. (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1978), p. 19.)
The most recent estimates put the list of known dead at 1 952. This list includes many, if not all, of those buried unidentified on the 17th of December 1917. The Book of Remembrance is on display in the Halifax Explosion exhibit at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. Or, see a digital version online at the Nova Scotia Archives website: https://novascotia.ca/archives/remembrance/
For more information on the Titanic disaster, see the Titanic and Halifax Wrecked exhibits at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic to learn about Robert MacIlreith and his mortuary bag system.
The actual number of unidentified dead was closer to 250. Troops continued removing remains from the devastated area until the 11th of January, 1918. Some people are still unaccounted for.
“It is not by the hand of the almighty these unfortunate human beings have suffered, but by the mistakes of others.” The archbishop is quoted in Janet Kitz, Shattered City: the Halifax Explosion and the Road to Recovery, (Halifax, NS: Nimbus, 2008), p. 108.
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While the events depicted in this walk are true, and we have endeavoured to represent them as factually as possible, it is important to note that the characters are fictional. As such, small details about their personal lives may not be accurate. These characters have been created from the remembrances of real people, and drawn from the communities present in Halifax in December of 1917.
