June 13^th, 1833

The young man stood up straight, back pressed firmly against that of his rival. Every muscle was taut. He gazed sternly across the fields of McLaren Farm. Early morning sunlight poured over the banks of the Tay River, casting a warm orange glow upon his face. Robert Lyon exhaled a deep breath that he hadn’t been aware he was holding and waited for the count to begin. Tension hung thick in the air. The tension of a finger on a trigger. The tension between two angry men who had taken things much too far – too far to be undone. Was this justice finally served? Or was it revenge? The line between the two had become rather vague as of late.

“One.”

Robert Lyon took a step and began marching away from his opponent in long paces.

“Two…three…”

He knew Elizabeth loved him, not John. Never John.

“Four…five.”

John only wanted her out of spite. Just another prize to be won.

“Six…seven.”

Oh, his arrogance! To make such a scandalous scene in front of the whole town. All of Perth watching!

“Eight…nine…”

No, Elizabeth was worth so much more. She would not be claimed by John Wilson. Not today. Elizabeth belonged to him.

It was the longest second. He prayed silently that his courage, not anger, would guide his hand.

“TEN, FIRE!”

Robert Lyon whirled around, raised his pistol and pointed it directly at Wilson’s heart. Two shots broke the stillness of the morning and echoed across the Scotch Line. Two clouds of smoke burst into the air, drifted eastward and then dispersed into the sky. The men fired almost simultaneously, but only one bullet met its mark. Only one rival remained standing. Robert Lyon slumped down in the grass. It was damp with morning dew and increasingly his warm blood. John Wilson’s bullet had slipped past Lyon’s duelling arm, embedding itself deep into his chest. The wound would soon prove to be fatal. He was down before he could mutter his love’s name one last time.

“He shot him over a girl?” I said. “That’s stupid.”

My dad nodded and shrugged like the news didn’t surprise him. “Sure, men have always fought over women,” he replied. “Think about it… Helen of Troy ring any bells: the face that launched a thousand ships?”

I shook my head, “yeah, still…that doesn’t make it any less stupid.”

My dad laughed and conceded, “Agreed”!

My family had moved to Perth Ontario at the beginning of summer. I hadn’t started school and I didn’t know anyone yet, so most of my days were spent with my dad, unpacking boxes and exploring our new town. That was what brought us to Last Duel Park beside The Old Burying Ground, a historic cemetery whose residents stretched throughout the history of Perth: Politicians, judges and military heroes, but most significantly, it was home to the grave of Robert Lyon.

As we left we noticed a blue iron plaque with silver writing. It told the story of the last fatal duel held in Upper Canada, fought on these very grounds. It was a fascinating story with a bit of a mystery that my Dad and I would end up completely captured by. We wanted to know the whole story, though we didn’t find Robert Lyon’s grave that day. 

Summer 1833

Elizabeth Hughes was widely courted by the men in the small town of Perth. Established as a military settlement after the war of 1812, the population was still only a few hundred people, so she was considered a diamond in the rough – a rare find, to be sought after and treasured once attained. A young English beauty, no more than 20 years old and a local school teacher, her position put her in the public eye and sparked the interest of several young men.

Henry Le Lievre was a military veteran who settled in Perth after the war. He had a reputation as a bold man with a boorish nature. His interest in Elizabeth Hughes was a secret to no one who had eyes to see. Despite his military honours and rugged confidence, Elizabeth found his ways too abrasive for her taste.

Then there was John Wilson, an impressive law clerk who studied under the reputable James Boulton. Like Elizabeth, he was once a teacher and was respected locally for his well-mannered demeanor and intelligence. And though Elizabeth found him to be clever and kind, she did not reciprocate his romantic gestures. The spark just wasn’t there.

Finally, there was Robert Lyon. Another up-and-coming lawyer studying under Thomas Radenhurst – James Boulton’s fiercest legal adversary. Wilson and Lyon were casually acquainted through their chosen profession, and both were smitten with Elizabeth Hughes, but that was where their similarities ended. Robert Lyon was several years younger than Wilson. Cocky and arrogant, Lyon had a confident glow about him that many young women in town found appealing.

The town of Perth was simmering in the growing bitterness that bloomed between John Wilson and Robert Lyon. There was of course natural competition between the young rival lawyers, who would often encounter each other while running errands in Bytown. Their trade had them sharing similar social circles, who would often meet in local taverns to swap stories and anecdotes about their profession. But as of late, the friendly nods and good-natured banter gave way to a deep-rooted contention. Sharp words exchanged in a courthouse was one thing, but both men vying for the hand of Elizabeth Hughes would ignite a burning fervour that could only be satisfied by her affection, and they would stop at nothing to win it.

I slammed my laptop closed loud enough to catch my Dad’s attention. “What did you find”? He asked.

“Well, I mean, this whole story is like a big, epic movie: scandals, romance, action…. it’s pretty wild!” I exclaimed, adding “and Elizabeth Hughes must have been a real hottie!”

My dad sipped his coffee and smirked. “Maybe, but poor old Robert would have been better off letting her go” Dad replied. “He might have had a happier ending ….and who is this Le Lievre guy that keeps coming up?” 

We decided that the following day we would go back to the cemetery and look for answers, and for the grave of Robert Lyon. 

June 1833

John Wilson was particularly livid that afternoon. He loved Elizabeth, loved her with all of his very being. Now this smug scoundrel of a man had gone and insulted her good name. A shiver of fury rolled down his spine and he cringed thinking about the scene. Robert Lyon’s crude degrading insults towards Elizabeth kept repeating in his head. Vulgarities and laughter directed towards a good woman. It was all too much.

He forced himself to put one foot in front of the other, as he marched down the beaten road towards the Perth Courthouse. That day, he was determined to show Lyon what Elizabeth meant to him. He would not stand by and watch Elizabeth be defamed behind her back, while being charmed to her face. People were talking now. Rumours swirled about town. As his outrage grew, John Wilson decided that a public confrontation would be the most honourable way to settle this indignity.

Perth was unusually busy that afternoon and the steps of the courthouse were bustling. Wilson approached Lyon who was walking in the crowd with his friend Henry Le Lievre and he stopped them abruptly. This was the time to fight for Elizabeth’s good name, to defend her honour, to earn her admiration, and to try to be the man who deserved her love.

His voice came out forcefully, much louder than he intended, but John Wilson began to scold Robert Lyon right there on the steps of the courthouse, in front of everyone. As the argument escalated, heads spun around to watch the quarrel. Words were first uttered, then yelled and finally grew to profanities shouted carelessly.

As tempers flared between the two men, Wilson didn’t notice Lyon’s fists were clenched into little balls of rage shaking by his side. He didn’t notice the subtle shift in Robert Lyon’s feet before he lunged forward, punching him hard on the side of his face. The blow knocked Wilson to the ground.

Red drops dribbled from his nose as he looked up, sputtering in disbelief. His ears were still ringing when his vision finally cleared. Le Lievre was leaning over Robert Lyon’s shoulder speaking in a hushed voice: mocking, teasing or maybe… conspiring? Wilson stood up tall and straight and glared at Lyon with all the hatred in his heart. Robert Lyon glowered back, spoke loud and clear for all to hear and said:

“I challenge you to a duel!”

The consequence of those words would be written into history.

 “I keep getting mixed information about Robert Lyon” I told my Dad with a bit of frustration. “Some people say it was Wilson who challenged him to the duel?”

As we walked through the rows of graves, I noted how different the tombstones seemed to be. Some were simple, worn down by time and completely unreadable. Others had whole family plots, gated off like royalty with huge elaborate headstones. I wondered what Roberts Lyon’s would look like.

“Yeah, I’m getting that,” Dad agreed. “I watched a video that suggested Wilson told Elizabeth what a jerk Robert was, and that caused her to break up with him. Then he challenged Wilson to a duel in a fit of anger.”

We were starting to understand that history was not always so simple. Stories conflicted… parts were forgotten… people were forgotten. And looking around The Old Burying Ground, it seemed that some graves had also been forgotten. It made me wonder if your grave meant something in the afterlife. Were ghosts treated differently – or considered special –  because of how nice their grave was? Were the ghosts with small broken stones looked down upon by those with tall proud ones? I really hoped this wasn’t a practice that people carried on with after death.

Dad and I split up to look for Robert Lyon’s tombstone. I was still lost in the moral question of ghosts and graves, when I tripped over a tree root and fell to the ground. Looking up, I saw a plain, small whitish-grey tombstone with faded writing, barely legible. When I squinted my eyes, I saw it faintly: ROBERT LYON.

“Dad!”

June 13^th, 1833

Henry Le Lievre watched as the two men stood across from each other, guns poised to kill. This was finally happening! He licked his lips in horrid anticipation. One of them would die, which would mean one less competitor for Elizabeth’s attention. And he didn’t even have to do anything! He bit back a satisfied smirk that crept onto his face. Though he hoped his friend Robert would not be the one dying today, he wondered if perhaps his death would make things a great deal easier for him.

Shots rang out startling him back to reality. Henry Le Lievre bit his cheek, watching carefully as to not miss a moment. He swallowed back the bile rising in his throat as the sharp scent of gun powder burned his nostrils. When the smoke cleared, he saw both men, stunned but standing. The crack of the bullets snapped both Lyon and Wilson out of their trance, but neither of them were hit. Le Lievre grimaced. It seemed his plans had been foiled. He couldn’t allow this to happen.

Under the Code Duello, a set of rules governing the practice of dueling, should the first rally of shots fail to strike either man, the two should attempt to reconcile the conflict peaceably. Le Lievre knew this code well, so before a cordial resolution could be reached, he was in Lyon’s ear, grabbing his pistol to reload it. He was a military man, and he knew how to embolden bloodlust in others.

Lyon and Wilson seemed dazed but determined to continue. In the second round, they repeated the now familiar steps as they marched towards their fate.

“TEN, FIRE!”!

This time one shot found its mark. Le Lievre froze for a moment unsure of what had happened, then Robert Lyon crumbled to his knees and folded over with a thump. Wilson’s bullet had struck as intended this time, piercing Lyon’s lungs.  And as he lay in the grass, matted with his blood, the moment seemed to hold still and silent, where birds didn’t chirp, and the sun stopped rising. A moment frozen in time. Robert Lyon wouldn’t live to see morning.

His body was carried off the field and brought to the Radenhurst House (now the Inge-Va house), accompanied by a grim looking surgeon. He did not look hopeful. John Wilson was later put on trial in Brockville for the murder of Robert Lyon. He would be acquitted and two years later would marry Elizabeth Hughes as he had always hoped. They would have three children. John Wilson would go on to become a judge and a Member of Parliament.

Though little is known about what happened to Henry Le Lievre after the duel, it is said that he left Perth fearing being implicated in the murder of his friend. It was rumoured that he fled to Australia, never to return.

By the time I started school in the fall, Dad and I had dove deeply into the story of the Last Fatal Duel in Upper Canada. We had found Robert Lyon’s grave. We had researched the history of John Wilson who, for all his success, and winning Elizabeth in the end, seemed to be the victor. We even went to the Perth Museum and saw the actual duelling pistols used on that rainy June morning in 1833. They sat in a glass case, crossed, one over the other, with a single rose. “I guess the rose is for Elizabeth,” Dad remarked quietly. I liked that idea.

Then I thought about Robert Lyon and the smile slipped from my face. It seemed unfair that he would only be remembered for his death. History seemed very fickle. “I can’t help but think that maybe none of this would have happened if it wasn’t for Henry Le Lievre.” I told Dad quietly. “He seemed to be there egging Lyon on the whole way, right to the very end.” I sighed. “Then he just disappears?”

“Well, he lost his best friend, he lost the girl…I guess history is written by the victors, huh?” Dad laughed.

I rolled my eyes. “Proverbs Dad?…really?”