Exhumation of 1812 war hero stirs controversy
U.S. general Zebulon Pike was killed when retreating British and Canadian troops intentionally blew up a munitions depot during the American capture of York(present-day Toronto) in April 1813.
His remains were taken by ship across Lake Ontario and buried at a military cemetery in Sackets Harbor, N.Y.
But a subsequent re-burial and lingering confusion over the exact location of the general's grave has prompted Pike family descendants — including math professor David Pike from Newfoundland's Memorial University — to seek the exhumation of some bones to conduct DNA testing.
Pointing to an inconclusive analysis by a U.S. army archeologist in 2003, members of the Pike Family Association want to identify the true resting place of their namesake war hero and carry out a landmark genealogy project tracing the dead general's genetic links to modern-day Pikes around the world.
In an open letter sent last month to the citizens of Sackets Harbor, PFA vice-president Stu Pike urged approval of the exhumation request to kick-start a tourism bonanza for the town and help launch a proposed PBS documentary about the family's quest to positively identify General Pike's remains.
But Sackets Harbor Mayor Eric Constance has expressed resistance to the plan, saying townsfolk question the appropriateness of digging up such an important war hero, one commemorated in the naming of the 19th-century navy corvette USS General Pike and Louisiana's Fort Pike.