Alfred, the horse that carried General Sir Isaac Brock into battle at Detroit and Queenston Heights during the War of 1812, is a famous warhorse in Canadian history. The ten year old stallion, had been a gift from Governor-General, Sir James Craig to Brock who was known as a kind and careful master.
The Alfred Memorial was created by sculptor Ralph Sketch in 1976 and presented to the Niagara Parks Commission by Mr. and Mrs. Stewart G. Bennett. It consists of glass case enclosing the bronze statue of Brock’s horse Alfred and sits atop a stone base. Alfred Memorial is located next to the memorial marking the spot where General Brock was killed.
The plaque on the memorial states that early on the morning of October 3, 1812, General Brock tethered Alfred in the village of Queenston and lead a charge on foot to repel the invading enemy. Brock was shot through the chest by an American sharpshooter. Brock's aide-de-camp, Colonel Macdonell, took command and rode Alfred to lead another charge where Macdonell was mortally wounded and Alfred was killed.
However, the horse's whereabouts during the battle is debated. Macdonell, wounded in three or four places on his own horse, fell to the ground and was trampled by his horse. Brock’s other aide-de-camp, Major John Glegg, arranged Brock’s funeral and listed the late General’s horse Alfred was fully caparisoned and led by four grooms in the procession on October 16, 1812.
The Lizars sisters, In the Days of the Canada Company (1897), claim Brock rode Alfred on the fatal day at Queenston, where the horse was shot in the back and the wound never healed. Years later, Alfred become the property of Reverend Francis Campbell who brought Alfred to Goderich into the Huron Tract in 1834, where the horse spent his old age in the hills of Goderich Square.
