Black history in Hamilton: A tour
The history of the local Black experience is revealed in sources found in the Hamilton Public Library's Local History and Archives, but there are other places you can visit to learn about those who came here to escape slavery and begin new lives in the mid-19th century.
1) Canfield settlement
Forty minutes south of Hamilton in Haldimand County, north of Dunnville, lies the hamlet of Canfield.
Beginning around 1837 it was a rural destination for Black settlers fleeing slavery in the U.S. By 1851 there were 137 Black residents in Canfield.
In a cemetery just east of where Hwy. 56 meets Hwy. 3, a heritage plaque on a two-metre high boulder pays homage to the settlement.
Five minutes north of the cemetery, off Hwy. 56, is Indiana Road East, Canfield historian Sylvia Weaver says back then this road was an Indigenous footpath in the woods, and used by runaway slaves as the only passable route from Niagara to the Grand River.
What is not accessible to the public, but likely soon will be, is a small overgrown cemetery that was long ago abandoned, where the remains of Black settlers lie.
Most of the dead are relatives of Stepney Street and his wife Lucy Canada, a couple who arrived from the U.S. in Canfield in 1847, and who raised 13 children and built a log cabin that served as home and church.
(The couple are the great-great grandparents of Aileen Duncan, the current administrator of Stewart Memorial Church in Hamilton.)
The last burial was William Barnes, a barber, vocalist and grandson of two escaped slaves, who died in 1943 at 83. Another who lies here, is Caroline Stewart, whose aunt was Harriet Tubman, a legendary figure in the history of the Underground Railroad.
Twelve years ago, The Spectator's Paul Wilson found the Street family cemetery, and wrote of gravestones among oak and hickory trees knocked from their pedestals, and casket-sized depressions in the ground.
A farmer who owned the property dismissed its importance: Nobody cared about these things until now. It wasn't even in the deed and now they're making a fuss about it. These heritage guys started all the problems."
Plans are in the works for Haldimand County to purchase the land and work with provincial officials to refurbish it as a historic burial site. According to Duncan, that could happen as soon as this summer.
This summer is also when Weaver, who has lived in Canfield nearly 60 years, hopes to publish a book about the history of Black settlers there.
She says her research suggests Black and white residents in the hamlet supported and respected each other.
It's a positive story," she says. The freedom seekers are part of Haldimand's forgotten history."
2) Stewart Memorial Church
For generations the spiritual heartbeat of Hamilton's Black community, Stewart Memorial at 114 John St. N., between Cannon and Wilson streets, was born from the labour of runaway slaves and descendants who dug the building's basement by hand.
Former organist Kathleen Brooks, who still plays there on occasion, once said that when hymns fill the room, you can feel the presence of the old Black souls; the warriors who came through here."
The congregation's roots go back to 1835, and a log cabin on Cathcart Street that served as the church. Later they moved to a wooden building on Rebecca Street, before fire destroyed it.
When the John Street North building opened in 1879, it was called St. Paul's African Methodist Episcopal Church. The name was changed in 1937 to honour former Rev. Claude Stewart. The building has been designated by the province as a heritage site.
In the mid-1800s, Black worshippers tried attending mainstream churches but were shunned in a variety of ways.
A pew tax" helped keep them away, says church historian Evelyn Auchinvole: if you were not wealthy enough to buy a brass name plate marking your family pew, you sat at the back of the room, if at all.
Hamilton Olympian Ray Lewis, who was baptized in Stewart Memorial in 1910, told The Spectator years ago how discrimination was also overt: In the early days, we weren't too welcome in white churches. If you went up to one, they'd ask if you were a stranger in town, and then tell you there was a nice church around the corner where you'd meet friends."
The diversity of church congregations in the city has changed since those days, but when it comes to Stewart Memorial, one thing never has, suggests Auchinvole.
It was known to people in Hamilton and the wider area of African descent as a place of safety. They knew if they could get to Stewart Memorial Church, they would find support and succour, and it continues to stand in that way to this day."
3) Little Africa"
Starting in the late 1830s, an area on the Mountain along present-day Concession Street between Upper Wentworth and Garth streets grew as a Black settlement.
Historian Adrienne Shadd writes that initially at least seven Black families bought land from a man named William Bridge Green, who owned 100 acres on the Mountain; some of these families subdivided the land and sold it to other Black families.
By 1865 more than 200 Black residents lived in the neighbourhood. Eventually it was dubbed Little Africa," although Shadd says it wasn't Blacks who coined the name, but rather a Hamilton Spectator columnist long after members of the community had dispersed in the early 1900s to other areas of the city and province, or returned to the U.S.
A heritage plaque describing the settlement hangs on the outside wall of the public library branch at 565 Concession St., just east of Upper Wentworth.
The Mountain back then felt isolated, connected to the lower city by two privately-owned horse and buggy toll roads.
And while the community offered a fresh start for those escaping slavery, freedom was far from absolute: Black children were not permitted to attend white Mountain schools.
There was a second mid-19th century Black settlement, in the lower city, that some called the Bottoms," in the area of Caroline, Hess and James streets.
Today perhaps the best physical monument to these communities is Griffin House in Ancaster: a farmhouse built in 1827 that was purchased in 1834 by escaped slave Enerals Griffin.
The 18-hectare property at 733 Mineral Springs Rd., near where it meets Sulphur Springs Road, was designated a national historic site in 2008. Last December, the three levels of government pledged to pay nearly $1 million to renovate the house and enhance access for the public to ultimately visit.
Jon Wells is a Hamilton-based reporter and feature writer for The Spectator. Reach him via email: jwells@thespec.com