The St. Catharines Museum announced its artifact of the week, a Military General Service Medal, on June 19.
The medal was issued to Sergeant Angus Cooke I, who lived in Grantham Township, a former incorporated and now geographic township on the Niagara Peninsula in Upper Canada (now Ontario) from 1831-60.
Cooke was awarded for his service with the British government during the Napoleonic Wars before retiring in 1831 with 25 years of service. He acquired 82 acres of land to farm in what is today the northwest end of St. Catharines (then Grantham Township), Ont.
Cooke died in 1860 at age 72 and is buried in the Hosteller-Muir Cemetery in Port Weller, a community in St. Catharines.
A campaign medal, the Military General Service Medal was approved in 1847 and issued to officers and men of the British Army in 1848.