A 20-minute drive from the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, this village–dubbed “Canada’s prettiest town”–looks like an enchanted land of doll houses. Shops with pastel Victorian facades make the main street appear as if it were plucked from a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. In residential areas, lush trees span into leafy umbrellas, and sculptured shrubbery enhances elegant homes.
But this town of 13,000 was once the end destination in a life-and-death struggle. More than a hundred years ago, illegals by the score — all guilty of “self-theft” — took refuge in the perfect hamlet from the greatest imperfection of the 19th Century: slavery.
Towns in Ontario often were the final stop of the Underground Railroad, a network of activists and safe houses assisting runaways in their journey north toward freedom.
Not enough is written about the slaves who fled to Canada, says Wilma Morrison, who runs the Norval Johnson Heritage Library in Niagara Falls, Ontario.
“A lot of books about the Underground Railroad stop at Lake Erie on the U.S. side,” she said. “It’s as if all these people just jumped in the lake.”
Her Niagara Freedom Trail tour indicates otherwise. It begins in the Nathaniel Dett British Methodist Episcopal Church in Niagara Falls, where she and volunteers work to educate the community about its abolitionist past and maintain the thousand-volume library of history books by and about blacks.
Morrison, who is a retired school audio-visual tester, is fourth-generation African-Canadian, the descendant of at least one escaped slave.
As the mighty falls and the carnival of tourist attractions around it rage nearby, the modest wooden church is quietly tucked, almost unnoticed, into a blue-collar neighborhood. Built in 1836 on land donated by farmer Oliver Parnall, it was named after Dett, a black Niagara Falls composer.
Parnall was one of 40,000 former slaves who fled to Canada and one of the thousands who settled in the southwestern Ontario towns of St. Catharines, Ft. Erie, Niagara Falls and Niagara-on-the-Lake, which was 10 percent black in the early 1800s, Morrison says.
She speaks proudly of people, such as Parnall, who after years of being bought and sold like used cars went on to become successful citizens of Ontario. Another she talks about, Burr Plato, escaped slavery in Virginia, went to Niagara Falls, bought a home and served on the town council.
Such stories also are told at the Griffin House, about 50 miles west of the Niagara Falls in Ancaster, Ontario. The large house, recently opened to the public by the Hamilton Region Conservation Authority, was the home of Enerals Griffin, a black born in Virginia; his wife, Priscilla; and their baby son, James. They moved in in 1834 and, as artifacts dug up by archaeologists indicate, enjoyed a comfortable life.
After the Civil War, 70 percent of the ex-slaves and their descendants in southern Ontario returned to the United States to search for newly freed relatives. Blacks who stayed on in Niagara-on-the-Lake intermarried with whites and melted into the town’s social fabric.
The heritage of the region would be different had it not been for Sir John Graves Simcoe, lieutenant governor of Upper Canada. In 1793, he pushed through the legislature a law barring expansion of slavery into the area. One stop on Morrison’s Freedom Trail tour is the Parliament Oak School in Niagara-on-the-Lake. On a hot day, more than 200 years ago, those lawmakers left assembly rooms and convened in a park where the modern elementary school now stands. A marble mural on the side of the school depicts that session in which, after fierce debate, a compromise was reached and the legislation passed.
Another tour stop, the Negro Burial Ground at Mississauga Street in Niagara-on-the-Lake, is testimony to the black presence in the town in the 1800s. Today, it’s a small patch of land with evergreen trees; souvenir hunters have carted off all but two tombstones. In 1831, a small interracial church was started there. The church is long gone, but a plaque recalls its existence.
Fifteen miles west of Niagara-on-the-Lake, the larger town of St. Catharines was once the home of Harriet Tubman, the chief conductor of the Underground Railroad.
After escaping slavery, Tubman made 19 dangerous trips back to the South to lead out 300 slaves, including her family. Canada became her haven after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 allowed slave catchers to seize and return to their owners any runaways caught in the free territories of the United States.
In St. Catharines, Tubman rented a house on North Street as a boarding house for runaway slaves. The British Methodist Church on Geneva Street was her headquarters for the seven years she lived in Canada. Today, the gray stucco building stands as a salute to the woman slaves called Moses.
Not far away is the monument to Anthony Burns, both a victim and a victor in the wake of the Fugitive Slave Act. He escaped servitude in Virginia only to be arrested in Boston and sent back. Massachusetts abolitionists then bought his freedom, and he eventually became pastor of St. Catharines’ Geneva Street Zionist Baptist Church. A plaque marks his burial site in the city’s Victoria Lawn Cemetery.
South of Niagara Falls, Ft. Erie was another mecca for escaped slaves. The town’s Bernie Hall, with its great white columns, reputedly was a secret safe house for runaways hiding from bounty hunters.
Once settled in Ft. Erie, blacks found paying jobs with lumber, shipping and farming operations. A community called “Little Africa” emerged after 1840 and grew to a population of 200.
When the lumber industry was supplanted toward the end of the century by a demand for coal, residents left, but they’re remembered with a plaque at Miller’s Creek Marina off Niagara Parkway.
For many fugitives, the last hard bid for freedom was the swim to Ft. Erie across the Niagara River.
Burr Plato beat the troubled water to freedom and arrived, it’s said, with only a few biscuits in his pockets. Oliver Parnall didn’t even have biscuits.
Visitors can look across the water to the dreary gray skyline of Buffalo and imagine how terrifying the cold water must have seemed to freedom seekers and how wonderful the land on the other side must have felt.
Though just a small place marked by a rock, it’s a tribute to all who have managed to escape from impossible situations and prevail with spirits not drowned.
DETAILS ON ONTARIO’S NIAGARA
Getting there: Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, is about 525 miles from Chicago–a 9- to 10-hour drive. Buffalo is the nearest major airport, but Toronto is also nearby. Round-trip excursion fares to either city are usually in the $200-$300 range, though special sale prices can be even lower.
Freedom Trail: For more information about the Niagara Freedom Trail, call Nathaniel Dett British Methodist Episcopal Church, 905-358-9957, or Ontario Tourism, 800-ONTARIO. Most sites on the trail are free; some charge a few dollars admission or request a donation. Groups wishing to follow the trail can hire a trained guide for a little more than $100 U.S. a day. Individuals and couples are urged to stop at the church in Niagara Falls, Ontario, to see an orientation video.
The Niagara Tourist Council publishes a book, “Niagara’s Freedom Trail,” that includes maps and a historical narrative. It costs $10. Call 800-263-2988 or 905-984-3626.
Griffin House: For more information, call the Hamilton Region Conservation Authority at 905-648-4427. Groups tours can be arranged by calling Fieldcote Memorial Park and Museum at 905-648-8144.
