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The Forgotten History of Wellington County: Queen’s Bush Settlers and their Legacies

By Raphaela Pavlakos

The archives are full of ghosts—or at least that is what it felt like wading through dusty files and wrinkled tomes in the Wellington County Museum and Archives in Fergus, Ontario. One of fifteen Black settlements in Ontario, Queen’s Bush was established in the 1830s and dispersed by the 1860s. Over 1,500 Black people lived in the Queen’s Bush. The first group of settlers, both formerly-enslaved and free Black people from the United States, arrived in 1833 and began dividing up the land and clearing it. They knew they were squatting illegally on the land, but it was not yet surveyed, so they could not purchase it. The land was finally surveyed in 1843. An influx of immigration spurred the government to open up the Clergy reserves of land they had sectioned off for settlers to purchase. About 66,000 acres of the Queen’s Bush were surveyed and mapped. The government planned on giving the settlers of the Queen’s Bush priority, offering the land to them first before opening up to other settlers, but the land that was made profitable by the hard work of the Queen’s Bush residents was being sold to them for exorbitant prices—very few could afford to keep living there, even with the instalment payment plan, and most left for places like Guelph, Owen Sound, and Hamilton.

Since the 1860s, the site of the Queen’s Bush settlement has been divided into different regions within Wellington County, like Fergus, Yatton, and Glenallen, and comprised of many commercial farms and Mennonite residences (Krassoc). Like other historical Black communities in Canada, evidence of this once thriving Black community of over 1,500 residents is thin or destroyed. For Black life and Black history, the archive is a tabula rasa, another colonized space erased and replaced with Black shadows. My task, here, is to catch a glimpse of Black life from the past in the long-forgotten Black settlement in the Queen’s Bush, Wellington County through attending to the ways that “landscaping blackness out of this country,” as Katherine McKittrick notes, “coincides with intentions to put blackness out of sight” (96). If the archives were not where I would find the information I needed about the Queen’s Bush, I would have to use some other archive—the archive of the land.

Historical site plaque, African British Methodist Episcopal Church and Cemetery

About a twenty-minute drive from the Wellington County Museum and Archives, there is a cemetery; a small  square of yellowed  grass  bordered by a  copse  of dense trees  was  inlaid  within another farm. A small blue plaque marks this resting place as the African British Methodist-Episcopal Cemetery. It consisted of a neat row of about a dozen Cemetery disintegrating headstones. Some stones were in pieces, and over the years restoration attempts were made. While the intention was well-meaning, in practice these attempts did more harm. Iron bars bolted to some stones held them together, but the bolts obscurred the names, overlayed with orange blooms of rust.

African BME Church cemetery with roughly fourteen headstones in varying stages of deterioration

This was once the site of the American Methodist-Episcopal church which later became the African British Methodist Episcopal church. The land originally belonged to Reverend Samuel H. Brown, a resident of the Queen’s Bush who donated his property to build the church, and was also the past of the church. The African BME Church was an important facet of the Queen’s Bush. It was a place to congregate, learn, commune, and create both fellowship and friendship. At one point, the African BME had a parish size of over 50 families (Voice of the Fugitive). The last service was held around 1918, but the building was left abandoned for several decades before it was torn down. 

“The ‘Colored’ Church on the 4th of Peel Township, Wellington Country.” (Wellington County Museum and Archives)

Because information is so sparse on the Queen’s Bush, there is only one book about the settlement by Linda Brown-Kubisch, called The Queen’s Bush Settlement: Black Pioneers, 1839-1865. Parsing through this book was helpful in putting events into context. I examined the cover: a neat cemetery in front of a mottled blue and white sky. It was the cemetery I visited and payed my respects at, but it was not the cemetery of Black settlers, the cemetery on Reverend Brown’s land where the African BME church once stood. Brown-Kubisch’s book on “Black pioneers” that settled and built the Queen’s Bush had another cemetery on its cover, one that was about a kilometer away from the African BME. cemetery. This cemetery was also from the time of the Queen’s Bush settlement, but it was a cemetery for white, American Missionaries.

Photo of the American Missionary Cemetery pictured beside Brown-Kubisch’s book

If the African B.M.E. cemetery only has about a dozen headstones, where are the rest of the residents of the Queen’s Bush laid to rest? According to Brown-Kubisch, the Black pioneers who shaped and transformed this region are probably in unmarked graves under what are now commercial farms. There is no blue plaque or collective memorial to remember the vibrant Black community in the Queen’s Bush, their courage, sacrifices, and hard work, but ultimately, to remind us of their contributions to the past, present, and future of Wellington County. If we do not remember the Queen’s Bush settlement and all its Black residents, who will?

Works Cited

“A.M.E. Conference for the Canada District.” The Voice of the Fugitive. 12 August 1852, pp. 1.

“Provincial Address—Of the Colored Inhabitants of Hamilton to His Excellency, the Earl of Elgin.” Guelph Herald, 2 November 1847.

Brown-Kubisch, Linda. The Queen’s Bush Settlement : Black Pioneers, 1839-1865. Dundurn Press, 2004.

Krassoc. “Queen’s Bush Settlement.” Fadedgenes: A Chronicle of the People of the Methodist Church in Canada, https://krassoc.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/queens-bush-settlement/

McKittrick, Katherine. “Nothing’s Shocking: Black Canada.” Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle, U of Minnesota P, 2006, pp. 91–119.

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Hidden Histories: Sophia Pooley and Canadian Slavery

By Heather Escoffery

Canadians have a habit of making connections to the United States when describing our own history. One of the most insidious uses of this kind of comparison is apparent when exploring the institution of slavery in the Americas. Most Canadians’ knowledge of the history of slavery relates to Canada’s role as the “North Star” for Black people escaping slavery through the Underground Railroad. Focusing on Canada as sanctuary for enslaved Black people results in Canada’s own history of slavery is often undermined or downplayed. Queen’s Bush resident Sophia Burthen Pooley, and her first-person slave narrative, helps sheds light on the violent reality many Black people faced as enslaved subjects in early Canada.

Originally from New York, Sophia Pooley (née Burthen) “was stolen from [her] parents when [she] was seven years old” (Drew 192). She was brought to Canada and sold to the Mohawk chieftain Joseph Brant, whom she lived with for five years until she was again sold to a white man named Samuel Hatt. She lived another seven years in slavery to Hatt until some “white [neighbours] said [she] was free, and put [her] up to running away” (194). After escaping bondage, she married Robert Pooley, but he eventually left, and by the time she was in her 90s, Sophia was living in Queen’s Bush where “plenty of people [… helped her] a good deal” (195). Sophia’s story challenges a lot of preconceived notions regarding Canada’s relationship with slavery, and by investigating the ways in which her narrative undoes the separation that Canada tries to achieve by positioning itself in comparison to the United States, it is easy to see how we often minimize our unpleasant and prejudice past to maintain a virtuous reputation.

Sophia Pooley’s first-person narrative-the only Canadian slave narrative-was transcribed in Benjamin Drew’s The Refugee (1856)

Canadian history tend to gloss over our treatment of Black people, especially when discussing Canada’s involvement with the institution of slavery. Published in 1869 (just 13 years after Sophia’s testimony and 35 years after slavery was abolished in the British colonies), W. M. Canniff’s History of the Settlement of Upper Canada commends early Canada for its restraint and good treatment of the people enslaved. He states that “the record of our country is so honorable upon the question of slavery, that the fact that slaves did once breathe among us, cast no stigma upon the maple leaf” (570). He goes on to say that “Canadians are almost ignorant of the fact that the “institution” of slavery existed in Canada” and that the “principles which guided the settlers of the country were of too noble a nature to accept the monstrous system of human bondage” (570).

This historical revision of Canadian slavery diminishes the pain and hardship faced by Black people subjected to Canadian slavery and minimizes Canadian responsibility in its practice and so dismisses the historical Black experience of our country. In her 2004 book on the Queen’s Bush settlement, Linda Brown-Kubisch describes slavery in New France as “less abusive” than the United States: slaves received “relatively humane treatment, frequently adopting their owner’s surname and remaining with the family until their death” (2). While she does touch on the changes that stripped slaves of personhood when the British legal system overtook the French, Brown-Kubisch classifies Canada’s practices as the “relatively less brutal system of slavery” (4). This diminishing of the (violent) realities of slavery in early Canada, through comparisons with the peculiar institution in the “colonies further south,” in Canadian history is a long-established tradition (2).

A photograph of the back of an escaped slave named Peter (1863) galvanized public opinion against slavery in the United States.

Sophia’s story helps to combat this minimization, especially when reading about the evidence of violence presented in her testimony. When discussing her experience in slavery, Sophia mentions “a scar on [her] head from a wound [her master’s wife] gave [her] with a hatchet” and another “where she cut [her] with a knife” (Drew 149). Benjamin Drew (the biographer who recorded Sophia’s story) feels the need to add that “the scars spoken of were quite perceptible, but [he] saw many worse looking cicatrices” that were inflicted during the time she was enslaved (149). These undeniable indications of brutality and violence help combat the perception of Canadian slavery being humane and less abusive (which is often claimed in comparison to the U.S.’s history). Katherine McKittrick also notes that “black women were often purchased for sexual violence (113), which although is not noted in Sophia’s story, is another worrying possibility of her enslavement that demonstrates the atrocities done to Black women held in bondage in early Canada.

Examining Sophia Pooley’s story, and how her documented existence contradicts many common perceptions about Canadian history, helps to illuminate the experiences faced by Black people in Canada’s slave past; consequently, it also helps us recognize this continued minimization of the Black Canadian experience in our present through identifying how scholars continue to perpetuate a false narrative of Canadian tolerance.

Works Cited

Brown-Kubisch, Linda. The Queen’s Bush Settlement Black Pioneers, 1839-1865. Dundurn, 2004.

Canniff, W M. History of the Settlement of Upper Canada (Ontario,) with Special Reference to The Bay Quinte. Dudley & Burns, 1869.

Drew, Benjamin. A North-side View of Slavery: The Refugee: Or, The Narratives of Fugitive. J.P. Jewett and Company, 1856.

McRae, Matthew. “An Announcement of the Sale of Enslaved People. It Appeared in the Quebec Gazette in May 1785.” Canadian Museum of Human Rights, 2020.

McKittrick, Katherine. “Nothing’s Shocking: Black Canada.” Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle, U of Minnesota P, 2006, pp. 91–119.

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Colonial Administrative Hindrance and the Dispersal of the Queen’s Bush Settlement

By Heather Escoffery

“Map of southwestern Canada West in the 1840s, showing the location of the Queen’s Bush settlement and other major Black communities” from Linda Brown-Kubish’s The Queen’s Bush Settlement: Black Pioneers, 1839-65 (Dundurn, 2004)

Just north of Waterloo, straddling the Townships of Wellesley and Peel, a stretch of unclaimed government land would become home to a thriving group of 19th century Black settlers who demonstrated strength and community during harsh physical and social conditions. Known as the Queen’s Bush, this area was considered Crown Land, meaning it was not surveyed for sale; however, as increasing numbers of people escaping American slavery and other newly immigrated individuals came to Canada looking for opportunity, Queen’s Bush provided an open environment to establish a home and new life.

Residents who came to the area immediately began building dwellings and clearing land; while considered squatters, many hoped for future prosperity and the eventual ownership of the land they worked. For most, these dreams proved unrealized, as changing social conditions in the United States and the colonial Canadian government’s unwillingness to compromise with Queen’s Bush residents led to many people leaving for better opportunities elsewhere; however, during the time that the Queen’s Bush settlement flourished, it provided an example of a Black community that was able to blur social divisions and establish a deep sense of community.

Due to there being no intention behind settling the area with any particular group, the Queen’s Bush community was able to encourage greater interactions between black and white residents when compared to other settlements that sponsored the immigration of Black individuals. This is partly due to the random nature of their homesteads, as many people settled on the first piece of unclaimed land they came across, resulting in black and white homesteads being mingled together (Drew 216). As a result, unlike planned communities such as Oro Township, Queen’s Bush was not as segregated physically when first being settled. Along with the harsh winter conditions and lack of readily available supplies, this spatial integration led to residents depending on one another for assistance (Drew 217).

Some residents discussed this neighbourly reliance; for example, like John Little, a Black man who escaped slavery in the U.S. South, who described protecting himself and his wife from wildlife in the early days of the settlement: “we saw four bears in the cherry-trees eating the fruit. My wife went for my gun, called some neighbours, and we killed all four” (Drew 217; emphasis added). The close spatial proximity between black and white settlers resulted in less social segregation, as eventual schools in the area admitted both black and white students (which was unusual as the school system was becoming increasingly segregated due to legislation intended to allow separate schools for religious reasons) (Stamp 26).

Additionally, it was not uncommon to encounter interracial families in the settlement, like Peter E. and Elizabeth Susand, Levi and Elizabeth Jones, and Reverend Jacob Libertus and his wife Hannah (Brown-Kubisch 139). All of these factors allowed black and white settlers to prosper together; however, even though the Queen’s Bush settlement was established with these more tolerant tendencies, it can not be said that it was without discrimination or racist sentiments, especially after the interference of the government led to a shift in the demographics and social openness of the Queen’s Bush.

Increasing immigration led to greater interest in Crown Land, so in 1843 surveyors were sent out to divide Queen’s Bush for eventual sale (Brown-Kubisch 65). Although residents had petitioned the government to make accommodations that would enable them to buy the land that they had spent so much effort to clear and farm, these petitions were ignored or dismissed by government officials. In one case, Queen’s Bush residents asked that they might purchase the land in “installments” rather than in one lumpsum of “cash” or that the lots be divided into smaller sections, both of which would allow many residents to afford their land claims (Brown-Kubisch 236-237). However, this petition was ignored, along with others, and while many residents did not immediately lose their homes, predatory and discriminatory practices began to emerge as Queen’s Bush land became increasingly valuable.

The once close community began to crumble: the increased interest in the now cleared and farmable land in Queen’s Bush brought land agents who targeted Black families with lies and intimidation to get residents to flee or undersell their property. A Black man named John Francis described the agents’ behavior as ruining “a great many poor people here in the bush” and that he himself was intimidated into selling “two cows and a steer, to make the payment that [he] might hold the land” (Drew 196). Some white arrivals interested in the valuable land took it upon themselves to bully Black families into selling or fleeing (Brown-Kubisch 97-98). These increasing tensions and the rise in land prices lead to a mass exodus of the Black community out of Queen’s Bush between the 1850s and 1860s.

By 1864, only a few Black families were left in the Wellesley and Peel Townships, and the Queen’s Bush settlement became a quiet farming community of mostly white settlers. However, the memories and written histories of the Queen’s Bush reveal that even with racial prejudice, an indifferent or actively hostile government, and the continuing erasure of Black narratives in Canadian history, Black lives that prospered and worked together existed and carved a space in the Canadian landscape.

Works Cited

Benjamin Drew. A North-side View of Slavery: The Refugee: Or, The Narratives of Fugitive. J.P. Jewett and Company, 1856.

Brown-Kubisch, Linda. The Queen’s Bush Settlement Black Pioneers, 1839-1865. Natural Heritage Books, 2004.

Colton, Joseph Hutchins, Colton’s Canada West or Upper Canada, 1855. Digital Archive, Toronto Public Library, Toronto. https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca, Nov 2020.

Stamp, Robert. The Historical Background to Separate Schools in Ontario. Ontario Department of Education, Toronto. 1985.

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The Historical Importance of Music in the Black Community


By Addison Smith, Brendan Roberts, and Jared Bekoe. 

Like most towns and cities in Ontario, Guelph has a has a long history of Black cultural contributions and achievements that have been obscured and neglected. Today it often requires deliberate research and exploration of our archives to uncover these untold and yet significant stories. Though this city has a wide range of topics related to Black history in need of greater exploration, the prevalence of music in Guelph’s Black community and its importance to their social cohesion and cultural achievement is one such topic which can be traced through written and visual evidence buried in our archives. Music was of particular importance to the Black community as a means of communal and familial bonding, but also an important means of subverting racism and gaining access to spaces and resources which might otherwise be denied. By accessing the Guelph and Wellington County archives we were able to track the successes of members of two black families, the Jewells and the Lawsons (who may both be descended from a single family who lived in the Queen’s Bush Settlement), who lived in Guelph in the first half of the twentieth century. Both of these families contained members who were extremely musically talented and mobilized these talents to combat the racism of the time.

Figure 1: “The Jewell Children.” From left to right: Melba, Percy, Ted and Pat. 1942. 

The Jewell family is the first such family we will use to explore the role of music as means to empower black youth and families. In 1925, Percy Cornelius Jewell, a CPR employee, married Ida Brooks, and while living in Guelph the couple had four children: Percy, Ted, Melba, and Pat (figure 1). Although little could be found about the younger Percy, the other three Jewell children all found moderate success as a result of musical prowess. Melba and Pat formed two thirds of trio known as the “Fabulous PJ’s” (figure 2) performing alongside the white Patti-Jo Patriquin and releasing at least one album together. Ted, however, went a different route and played as part of the musical accompaniment of several shows at Guelph’s Capitol Theatre, including the August 1950 musical “Up in Central Park,” before studying music at the University of Toronto and going on to graduate from the Royal Conservatory of Music. The Lawson brothers, Herbert and Elwood, also turn up in various records, often in connection to their musical talents. According to records, Herbert “Herbie” Lawson was a very talented pianist who performed in the Guelph area throughout the twentieth century. His brother Elwood joined the Salvation Army band at the age of 8, going on to sing frequently as part of the Salvation Army Songster Brigade and at Guelph’s BME Church. Most impressive though is that despite losing two fingers at young age, he became a well-known pianist and horn player, allegedly playing the piano with one hand and the horn with the other (“The Artisans” 2).

Figure 2: “Fabulous Pj’s” From left to right: Melba and Patricia Jewell and Patti-Jo Patriquin. Circa 1965.

Through the stories of these families, it is clear to see that musical talent was an extremely important asset for Black people. Modern research has indicated that the development of musical skills from a young age can have profound impacts on performance in school and in life (Hallam 69); however, most relevant to these stories and the time period was the access that musical ability granted to what could have been considered “whites only spaces.” Ted Jewell attained post-secondary education and eventually would be named Chancellor of Huntington University. For Melba and Pat Jewell, while their band would have allowed them to tour and generate revenue for themselves, being part of a mixed-race band may have allowed an even greater level of access. Elwood Lawson was a member of the Salvation Army bands for more than half a century, in which time he doubtlessly made many connections and friends as part of group’s integrated mission to serve the disenfranchised and poor. Ultimately, Black people could use their musical gifts, abilities, talents, and skills to gain access to facilities, services, employment, and other opportunities that may otherwise have been unreachable to them.  For these Guelph residents, music represented a crucial way for them to develop a talent which would in turn allow them to enter spaces previously closed to Blacks and to subvert some of the racism of this period.

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Minstrelsy’s Repression of Black Music and Musicians in Guelph

By Bailey Lodge, Irene Spiridanov, and Dakota Urban

While researching Black music culture in Guelph’s archives, we were startled by the lack of information on Black music and musicians and the abundance of information of white musicians imitating black music. This post will discuss the absence-presence of Black musicians in the local archives through examining minstrelsy, specifically minstrel music. We seek to explain why a seemingly insignificant children’s antique toy, a “Black Minstrel Doll,” in the Guelph Museum Archive exposes a hidden narrative of anti-Black racism that denigrated Black culture and people. Through this presence of the “Black Minstrel Doll” and other archival documents of minstrelsy, we suggest that Guelph white audiences’ enjoyment of Black song and dance came at the erasure of “authentic” Black music created and performed by Black musicians. Overall, we seek to express through the use of various readings and local archive materials what the Minstrel Doll has to say about the historical appreciation and celebration of Black culture and music in Canada.

(Black Minstrel Doll, 1904)

The Guelph Civic Museum dates the “Black Minstrel Doll” (image above) to the the turn of the twentieth century. The small antique figurine has a black painted bisque face and hands, a bright red painted mouth, and brown glass eyes. The wooden doll holds a white and brown guitar. Moreover, there is a music box inside its body frame. The doll is dressed in traditional minstrel clothing: “Padded white shirt, brown corded velvet jacket with gold braid trim. Red, white, and blue trousers.” The “Black Minstrel Doll” found in the Guelph Civic Museum was among many toys and dolls created  for children that referenced North American enjoyment of minstrel show. Modelled after the minstrels popular near the end of the nineteenth century, the “Negro Dude” was part of Schoenhut’s “Humpty- Dumpty Circus Set.” Similar to the “Black Minstrel Doll,” the “Negro Dude” is dated to circa. 1904. The dating of the “Black Minstrel Doll” to 1904 in the Guelph Civic Museum is due to a photograph of the Bond family, which features a young white girl holding the doll.


Bond and Stone Children’s Garden Party,  1904. 

What we can see from the doll’s appearance in the archives is that there was some sort of white interest in black culture and music in Guelph. While the “Black Minstrel Doll” may seem an innocuous possession of a young white girl, it references and recalls a long practised tradition of blackface minstrel shows. Minstrelsy can be defined as the “white imitation of Black music” (Womack 85); this cultural form takes from and reframes authentic Black music. Minstrelsy was inspired by songs sung by slaves on southern  plantations (“Minstrel Show”).  However, these slave songs once translated by white musicians were turned into cheery and comedic songs valorizing and romanticizing plantation life. These minstrel songs of “happy go-lucky slaves” convey the Black experience of slavery as joyful and content; thus, “enact[ing] racial stereotypes” (“Minstrel Show”) of Black people as simple, lazy, and foolish, as seen through a white-supremacist lens.

Richard Hughes communicates better what minstrelsy is and the idyllic representation of plantation life it attempts to create (1). Hughes explains that minstrel shows have been practised and performed by white people for comedic enjoyment in the United States (and Canada) since the early nineteenth century century. Minstrel songs performed included ‘Massa’s in de cold cold ground,” which described a slave mourning his master (1). The depiction of a slave being sad over their master’s death portrays slavery as a benevolent, familial institution for Black people. This is just one of the multiple reasons why minstrelsy is offensive. Other examples include the exaggerated features painted on performers’ faces. For example, Hughes describes their mouths painted red to look like they had eaten copious amounts of watermelon slices (1). Similarly, the “Black Minstrel Doll’s” mouth is painted bright red.

We know minstrelsy was practiced in Guelph from our retrieval of various ephemeral documents of minstrelsy in this city. They provide ample proof of white enjoyment of blackface minstrel shows found in the Guelph Museums Archive. One example is a photograph of “The City Jazz Club” standing on City Hall’s steps. The photo’s description mentions they are dressed in “Minstrel Carnival Costumes”; some of the members have their faces painted entirely black, while others wear masks (1927). The doll and the photograph provide evidence of the circulation of minstrel shows and its racist depiction of Black culture and people; even though plantation slavery was not practiced in Canada, the archival evidence of minstrel shows as a form of entertainment for adults and children suggests an acceptance of the anti-Black racial ideologies depicted in and by blackface minstrelsy’s representation of slavery.

Guelph Jazz Band on City Hall, 1927

As explained by Phanual Antwi and David Chariandy  in their introduction to Writing Black Canadas, there is an ongoing and immensely distributed myth that Canada is a “racism-free space” and “white space,” devoid of Black people entirely (32). From the findings of our research on Black culture and music, Guelph is no exception to these false claims. However, the abundance of blackface minstrelsy in the archives reminds us that Canada may be more influenced by the United States than one would like to believe. The Black Minstrel Doll represents just one of Guelph’s connection to larger engagement with minstrel shows as entertainment. Therefore, it signifies how black music and people were represented in a demeaning and degrading manner through and by white culture.

As far as music created by actual local black musicians, it appears that while the documents of minstrel shows are quite abundant, documents of black music and musical acts are impressively difficult to find in the Guelph Archives. Perhaps, this represents the erasure of “authentic” black music by a white parody of black music. However, the Guelph Museum archives do include some documentation of black musicians, including Patricia and Melba Jewell, who were in a trio girl band “The Fabulous PJs”  in the the 1960s. Regardless, finding further information on their accomplishments, or that of other Guelph-based black musicians, proved to be difficult. This further strengthened our impression that black music was not as well celebrated as its satirized version. 

The Fabulous PJs, c. 1965

Black musicians and their accomplishments should be better documented; it should be as easy to find in the archives as blackface minstrelsy. Music Festivals like the Guelph District Multicultural Festival, which includes Afro-Centric dancing and music, and the Guelph Jazz Festival, which includes black artists, foreground the significance of black musical traditions. However, more engagement with these traditions in Guelph by local black musicians, such as the Patricia and Melba Jewell, would be another step to celebrate “authentic” forms black culture and music that can speak to and against the distortion of black culture and music in the minstrel show. Our final thought on blackface minstrelsy is that it aided in controlling and repressing Black culture and music. Minstrelsy absented Black musicians and musical traditions. The “Black Minstrel Doll” is a reminder that a child’s wooden doll can tell us much about the racial climate of Guelph and beyond. 

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Racial Segregation in Canadian Baseball

By  Joshua Paskinov, Maja Sabljak, and Matthew Schinwald

Widely known in the Guelph community for his brewery and mayoral standing from 1880-1882 in the city (Kidd), George Sleeman is a prominent figure in our discussion about the integration, representation, and continuity of black presence in the realm of sports and the Guelph locale. Having previously played for the Guelph Maple Leafs baseball club as a pitcher in 1863 (Kidd), Sleeman eventually became president of the team and established himself as a leading figure in the development of professional Canadian baseball, forming the first league in 1876 (The Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum).

In 1881, during Sleeman’s mayoral term, he scouted the talented black baseball player Bud Fowler to join their team. This was sixteen years after slavery was abolished in the United States and fifty-years after slavery was abolished in Canada (Ostroff ; Wickham). Although Fowler was an incredible baseball player, having earned many accomplishments early in his career, his trajectory in Canadian baseball was impeded by the colour of his skin. Despite Sleeman’s efforts, Fowler’s position within the Guelph Maple Leafs was denied after team members refused to play alongside a black baseball player (Humber 10). Following his departure from the Guelph Maple Leafs, Fowler moved onto play a number of games for a fellow Ontario team, the Petrolia Imperials (McKenna). Sleeman continued to vouch for Fowler, and signed Fowler once again to the Guelph Maple Leafs in 1885. Still, Fowler didn’t end up joining due to the discrimination he had previously faced by the team (Laing 70).

Pictured above is the 1896 Page Fence Giants black baseball team, in-part organized by Bud Fowler. (Bak, Detroit Athletic Co.)

In 1887, Fowler’s career in organized baseball was severed when the International League drew the baseball colour line – banning contracts for all Black players within their league (Humber 10). Although Black people were technically free during this time, many would find themselves heavily confined and restricted, especially in the realm of organized sport. In fact, the first game the Guelph Maple Leafs played was against the Ku Kux of Oneida, a New York team financially supported by a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan (Laing 70). Understandably, there was significant resistance to the racial integration of baseball. Baseball fields were cordoned off to black athletes, and white baseball leagues remained impermeable to racial integration for decades to come. Despite the prohibition of Black athletes from playing on whites-only teams, many engaged with independently organized black baseball leagues – including the Page Fence Giants, which Bud Fowler helped to establish (McKenna). Still, there were limited opportunities for Black players at the time, and organized baseball withheld the careers of many promising athletes.

Pictured above is the 1891 Guelph Maple Leafs team, featuring a black player among other team members. (Kidd, Dictionary of Canadian Biography, “Sleeman, George.”)

It’s important to remember Sleeman’s efforts, however, to scout, sign, and integrate Fowler into his team. He valued Fowler for his athletic talent and abilities, seeing beyond his race. Sleeman’s attempt to cross the colour line between whites and blacks is an important moment, as it allows us to trace racism and race relations in Guelph, Canada and beyond through the slow integration of Black people in the realm of organized sports. Perhaps it is Sleeman’s initiative that caused the Petrolia Imperials to position Fowler on their team shortly after his leave. Perhaps, it is Sleeman’s belief in racial integration that kept the Guelph Maple Leafs’ scouting and signing talented Black athletes, as evidenced in the photograph of a black player posing with his white teammates in 1891 (as pictured above). Although Sleeman and Fowler would never collaborate formally, they contested racial exclusion in sports and laid the foundations for integration for future athletes. They pioneered the acceptance of Black players into professional baseball, challenging the racial prejudices of white athletes and fans alike and mobilizing social change in Guelph and beyond. 

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The Struggle for Education in the Queen’s Bush Settlement

Rooda Lee, Scott Parker, Elizabeth Broderick

The formation of the Queen’s Bush settlement is a hidden story in Canadian history; however, detailed accounts of the Black settlement in Wellington County have been told by local historians, Jerry Prager and Linda Brown-Kubisch, in recent years. First, historians believe the settlement formed some time in the early 19th century, around the year 1820 (Ontario Heritage Trust). The settlement itself encompassed a 12 by 8 mile section of land located between the Waterloo County and Lake Huron area, more specifically, in the area which would become Woolwich in later years (Thorning). It was largely composed by fugitive slaves and free Blacks who fled the United States. Census data suggests that at its height roughly 1,500 Black pioneers settled in Queen’s Bush. In The Queen’s Bush Settlement, Brown-Kubisch argues that these “Black pioneers” had little to no expertise in surviving in such a forbidding climate and landscape; however, they were able to create a thriving, independent and self-reliant community (32).  The Queen’s Bush settlement was not a rare occurrence either; black settlements such as the Oro settlement, Owen Sound, and Collingwood also provided a space for Black Canadians, former slaves and free Blacks, to make homes and build communities in Ontario (Rickards 17).

This image shows a family outside of their home within the Queen’s Bush Settlement. The photo was taken around 1920. Source: Waterloo County House of Industry and Refuge

John Little experienced the many hardships of slavery before successfully escaping to Canada. Little was subject to the harsh violence of slavery: he was sold and separated from his wife and regularly beaten and tortured by his owner after he tried to escape. After escaping and reuniting with his wife, the Littles runaway to Ohio to seek freedom and from there they made their way to Queen’s Bush. Due to white owners fear that Black literacy would threaten the slave system, laws were passed forbidding slaves to learn to read or write. John Little states, “I was never sent to school a day in my life, and never knew a letter until quite late in life” (198). Little’s lack of education exemplifies the constraining of Black education as a method to suppress Black agency and rebellion. He says, “but being a slave, I did not know my age; I did not know anything” (199). Education was essential to how the Littles imagined a future of freedom and independence for their children in Queen’s Bush: in Mrs. Little’s testimony, she states, “one little girl is all that is spared to me… I intend to have well educated, if the Lord lets us” (233). The Littles’ slave testimonies reveal the efforts of former slaves to obtain education, which they viewed as an essential means of achieving racial equality and equal access in Canada.

The Littles understood that the education of African Canadian children was central to the social development of Blacks in Canada. However, Black settlers in early Canada faced a number of obstacles limiting and denying black students access to state-run schools. As Awad Ibrahim and Ali A. Abdi write, “In the country’s early days, many Canadian towns and villages did not have public school, and….towns that did have schools often refused to let black children attend. This was the case especially in Nova Scotia and Ontario, which passed laws to keep black children in separate schools” (4). Wanting to educate their children, Black parents across Upper and Lower Canada fought to create their own schools and train their own teacher. They opposed the “under-funded, poorly equipped, inadequately staffed and segregated schools” that were available to Black children, “demanding that their children receive educational opportunities equal to everyone else’s, and that they be allow to send their children wherever the saw fit” (4).

Black pioneers in the Queen’s Bush held a deep commitment to education. American missionaries travelled to the settlement to provide educational and vocational training that could help Black pioneers to live independent and self-reliant lives. In her discussion of education and the Queen’s Bush Settlement, Linda Brown-Kubish concludes that while Black leaders “urged them to obtain an education and to be industrious and thrifty, in order to prove to whites that Blacks were their equals….Blacks quickly realized that this alone did not guarantee assimilation into white society; nor did it eradicate discrimination and resentment” (23). Educational discrimination guaranteed white supremacy and subordination of Blacks in Canada in the present and persists into the present.

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Bud Fowler: A Forgotten Baseball Legend

By Linden McKellar-Harries, Jessica Papadopoulous, and Gurleen Sohal

The 1800s were times of major difficulty for Black people as they struggled to live their daily lives in a society that was not willing to accept them as equals and afford them the respect and opportunities they deserved. There were countless obstacles and barriers facing Black people in the United States and Canada; racial discrimination and segregation were evident in almost every aspect of society, including professional sports.

Racism in Baseball

The history of baseball in North America is one filled with racism. From bans on people of colour playing at all to the inability to stay signed with a singular team due to harassment and unfair regulations in place (Hill), it should come as no surprise that the minor leagues were more of a battlefield for black people than simply a sport. Even here in Guelph, baseball was so tightly woven with race that there is a record of games played by the local Guelph Maple Leafs team in the 1870s against the Ku Klux of Oneida Castle, a team sponsored by the Ku Klux Klan (Laing 70-71). In such a racially-intolerant atmosphere, a Black person gaining footing and making their presence known is something to take pride in, which is why Bud Fowler is such an important name not only to Guelph, but also to the transitional Civil Rights Movement.

Bud Fowler is the earliest known Black man to play in an organized professional baseball league (Ashwill). During his career, he joined previously all-white teams and for various seasons on 14 teams. Fowler’s baseball career was mainly focused within the United States: he was scouted for his talent and teams were willing to sign him because he was just that good (Hill). One of the most well-known teams that he had played for was the Iowa Keokuks (see picture below), but he continued to travel around the country and play for other professional teams as his career progressed (Ashwill), including a short stint on teams in Canada. There’s no question that Fowler was an incredibly talented baseball player, but unfortunately his journey was not an easy one. Even to this day, many people believe Jackie Robinson, a Black baseball player from 1940s, was the first ever non-white baseball player, with little to no knowledge of Bud Fowler. It’s for this reason we need to tell the untold story of Bud Fowler, a pioneer of baseball, whose presence and impact on the game was real, important, and hits closer to home than you might imagine.

A photograph of Bud Fowler surrounded by his white teammates of the Iowa Keokuks baseball team, 1885. Photograph retrieved from the National Baseball Hall of Fame Archives.

Bud Fowler in Guelph 

Though his career was mainly focused in the United States, Bud Fowler left his mark on local baseball in Guelph. In 1881, the Guelph Maple Leafs became the first ever Canadian baseball team to import players from the United States, one of whom was none other than Bud Fowler (Laing 71). In fact, Fowler was hand-picked by a Guelph businessman and mayor, George Sleeman, who admired his talents and thought he would be a great addition to the team (72-73). Unfortunately, upon his arrival to Guelph, Fowler’s white teammates saw nothing more than the colour of his skin and refused to play with him (71).

A photograph of the all-white Guelph Maple Leafs baseball team, 1874. Photograph retrieved from the Guelph Sports Hall of Fame Archives.

Despite this failed attempt at integrating an all-white team, the fact still remains that the Guelph Maple Leafs was an organization critical to the pioneering of racial integration in Canadian baseball. George Sleeman admired Fowler’s talent, offered Fowler an opportunity to play professionally, and pushed for his inclusion on the team. Sleeman is a great example of a white person with power and influence using his privilege for good; however, his openmindness was unfortunately not the norm at this point in history. Yet, the Guelph Maple Leafs was a leader in attempting to integrate its roster in 1881. The colour line in American baseball would continue to exist into the 1940s.

Some people even believe that it wasn’t his Guelph teammates who were racist towards him, but rather the other American players who were most adamant about racial segregation in baseball. But it is important to make sure we do not fall into the trap of ignoring Canada’s racist past by shifting racism and racists elsewhere. There is evidence of Guelph locals voicing their anger surrounding Fowler’s exclusion. An article from the Guelph Herald reads: “We regret that some members of the Maple Leafs are ill-natured enough to object to the colored pitcher Fowler” (Hill). It would be ignorant to push aside the racism Fowler faced in Guelph, but it would also be an oversight not to recognize the slowly budding presence of racial acceptance and integration in baseball that started right here in Guelph.

An Absent Presence 

By looking at the life of and difficulties experienced by Bud Fowler in Guelph and beyond, we note his absence in local memory. Fowler is a historical figure whose story brings attention to racial discrimination in baseball. Though Fowler’s name is one that is associated with many accomplishments, his brief involvement with the Guelph Maple Leafs is a story that has been overlooked. Fowler was a pioneer in the integration of baseball in both the United States and Canada, and his story is one that deserves to be known by everyone: he paved the way for many other Black baseball players and challenged racial segregation in baseball and society as a whole.

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Marisse Scott: A Game Changer in Nursing

By Drew Gover, Noelle Wakeman, and Amia Khosla

During the 1940s, the culture of “[n]ursing in Canada … represented the Victorian ideal of white femininity and respectability. The profession [therefore] was exclusively reserved for middle-class white women” (Reynolds 165). In Ontario and Nova Scotia, Civil Rights activists fought hard to remove barriers of discrimination restricting education and employment opportunities for Blacks. In 1947, Black activists, such as Pearleen Oliver, crusaded successfully for admission of Black women to nursing schools in Canada. Guelph’s St. Joseph’s Hospital played a pivotal role in ending systemic racism in the nursing profession by admitting Marisse Scott to its nursing school. However, Scott’s journey to becoming one of Canada’s first Black nurses was not an easy one: she experienced multiple incidents of racism and her successes were invalidated time and time again. Despite these injustices, Marisse Scott’s success at St. Joseph Hospital disrupted the exclusionary ideal of the nurse as a middle-class white woman. 

This image shows the Globe and Mail's article on Marisse Scott with a picture of her smiling on the right and tells her story on the left. This image is from 1947 and was found in the ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
This image shows the Globe and Mail’s article on Marisse Scott with a picture of her smiling on the right and tells her story on the left. This image is from 1947 and was found in the ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

After graduating from High School with Honours, Marisse Scott applied to nursing school in her hometown, Owen Sound.  Scott was told by Owen Sound General & Marine Nursing School that while she was an “excellent” student, who was well loved and garnered much academic distinction, the sight of a Black nurse at the bedside would “kill the patients” and that “there would be no employment for her after graduation, so it would be a waste of resources to admit her” (Owen Sound Times). Scott’s unfair treatment based on race challenged white Canadians’ perceptions of themselves as a “racism-free society.” Scott’s “story of injustice spread to friends, church members, government authorities in Toronto and Ottawa, and most importantly, to the press” (McLean-Wilson). As reports on Scott’s denial of admission to nursing school appeared in the press, public sentiment against racial discrimination and sympathy for Scott’s plight grew. The pastor of the Church of Our Lady in Guelph, J. A. O’Reilly, reviewed Scott’s case and convinced St. Joseph’s Hospital to accept her as a student. In August 1947, Scott moved to Guelph and began her studies at St. Joseph’s Hospital (McLean-Wilson).  

This image shows four of the women who graduated from St. Joseph’s Hospital's nursing school in 1950, presenting Marisse Scott at the far left and three other women beside her with flowers along the bottom of the photo. This image is from 1950 and was found in The Grey Roots Archival Collection.
This image shows four of the women who graduated from St. Joseph’s Hospital’s nursing school in 1950, presenting Marisse Scott at the far left and three other women beside her with flowers along the bottom of the photo. This image is from 1950 and was found in The Grey Roots Archival Collection.

During her three years of training at St. Joseph Hospital, Scott was one of the most “popular” and academically successful students. Her instructors termed her “one of the most willing and able student nurses in the history of the institution” (qtd. in McLean-Wilson). In 1950, Scott graduated with an Honours Distinction. In the above image of the graduation at St. Joseph Hospital, Scott is prominently positioned at the very front of her class. By foregrounding her accomplishment as well as her acceptance by her peers, the image depicts the successful integration of the nursing profession.  Scott had a long career of nursing in Guelph; later, Scott and her husband moved to St. Lucia, where she worked at the Ministry of Health as a Nutrition Specialist. 

Scott showed many young Black girls that they too could pursue their dreams. “By 1949, Owen Sound was among the growing number of communities whose hospitals had abolished prejudice from their enrolment system,” writes McLean-Wilson. Scott’s experience of racial discrimination was raised in the House of Commons. MP Alistair Stewart raised awareness of Scott’s story, but dismissed her personal accomplishment, saying “all credit to the authorities. She turned out to be a most excellent nurse.” Stewart switched the narrative from the struggle of a young Black woman and her fight against racial barriers to gain equal access to the nursing profession to a story of a “fair” educational and employment system that worked hard to turn Scott into an “excellent nurse.” Stewart’s erasure of the systemic racism that led to Scott’s case re-focuses the government’s attention not on the obstacles to black access to education and employment opportunities but on the good white “authorities” that make Black education and employment possible.

Yet, it was the courage, resilience, determination, and strength of Black women, like Marisse Scott and Pearleen Oliver, who drew Canadians’ attention to racial discrimination and fought hard to break the colour barrier in Canada. Marisse Scott’s legacy outlives her nursing career and continues to inspire and influence others in the present-day. For example, the article “Jamaicans helped make Canada’s health care system more inclusive” highlights how current nurses “pa[y] tribute to nursing pioneers Mary Seacole and Marisse Scott,” and websites, such as the emancipation festival, an Owen Sound based-initiative, continue to shed light on how Scott changed our view of what being a Canadian is. Her story being shared helps us remap the “white space(s) of Canada” into one women and men of all colours have every opportunity to succeed.

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A Historical Walking Tour of Guelph

Taylor Brown, Karlie Castle, Alexandra Gristey and Dana Share

A map of Downtown Guelph

Welcome! Thanks for joining us on this lovely day. Today, we’ll be reimagining the geography of Guelph by walking through neighbourhoods you’re probably familiar with. We’ll be visiting Essex Street, Paisley Street, Norfolk Street, Macdonell Street and Toronto Street to retrace black presence in Guelph. The purpose of today’s walk is to explore the origins of Guelph’s African-Canadian community.

The British Methodist Episcopal Church

The BME Church, November 2018. 
A 1927 newspaper excerpt showing pictures of three different Guelph churches. The BME church is pictured on the top right. The article heading reads “Religious Growth of Guelph Shown by Fine Array of Stately Churches.” Guelph Civic Museum.

The walk begins at 83 Essex Street. Since 1880, the British Methodist Episcopal (BME) Church has stood on this spot and has acted as the focal point for the black community in Guelph (Shelley). Many members of the church were originally fugitive slaves who reached Canada through the Underground Railroad (Shelley). As Linda Brown-Kubisch outlines in The Queen’s Bush Settlement: Black Pioneers, 1839-65, Black individuals and communities were frequently segregated from the white community and forced to create their own churches, educational institutions, and communities. The BME Church in Guelph was a “hub” for the Black community, providing a social and spiritual support network for African-Canadians within Guelph.

The Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute

The front entrance of the Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute, November 2018.
Front cover of Acta Nostra,
The Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute yearbook, from 1950. Guelph Civic Museum.

From the BME church, we will walk 1km north to the Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute (GCVI) at 155 Paisley Street. Here we will introduce the Jewell family, who are a prominent part of Guelph’s Black history. The Jewell children attended high school at GCVI. Both Melba and Ted Jewell are mentioned in the 1950 edition of the GCVI yearbook, Acta Nostra. In this year, Melba would have been 17 years old and in the 10th or 11th grade. In an interview with the Guelph Social History Project, Melba fondly recalls her high school years. She had a lively social life during this time. Along with her siblings, she was actively involved in extracurricular activities, such as school plays and sports, and her brother, Ted Jewell, was President of the Students’ Council in 1948 (Jewell 1998; “Brotherhood” 17).

Melba’s experience at GCVI was not without its issues, as she and her siblings faced discrimination throughout both middle and high school. Few Black students attended GCVI with the Jewells, who were subjected to racist comments from other students and even teachers. The Jewell children’s parents were a primary source of support against the racial discrimination that they endured. Melba’s mother made many visits to the school in an effort to educate the staff and compel them to address these issues properly. Her father taught her and her siblings how to fight, resulting in physical altercations with other students and trips to the principal’s office (Jewell 1998).

Furthermore, the city of Guelph led initiatives such as “Brotherhood Week” in order to promote “unity and understanding” in the community. As detailed in a 1948 Globe and Mail article, this city-wide event aimed to “bring the theme and the full import of its meaning into every Guelph home.” Student narratives provide examples of cooperation between children of different races and nationalities. The article also cites Melba Jewell (then age 14) as a proud Guelph citizen, and describes an essay she wrote in which she advocates for racial equality (Cole 17). Evident here is the complexity of the relationship between African-Canadians and the rest of the community. Acceptance and discrimination occurred simultaneously in Guelph. The Jewell family responded to this discrimination by advocating for themselves and others, thereby evoking positive social change.

81 Norfolk Street

A close up of a Guelph directory from 1941. 81 Norfolk Street is listed as the address for Douglas N Jewell and Ellen J Jewell. Guelph Civic Museum.
A close up of a Guelph directory from 1972. “Jewell, M & P” are listed beside the 81 Norfolk Street Address. Guelph Civic Museum.
The Family Medical Centre, November 2018.

From 155 Paisley Street, walk 800m east to 81 Norfolk Street. You will notice that this address no longer exists because the Family Medical Centre takes up the entire block. Before that building, a house owned by the Jewell family rested on this spot until the 1980s. The house was owned by Percy Cornelius Jewell and his wife Margaret Ada Brooks Jewell with their four children: Melba, Percy, Patricia and Theodore (Ted). Percy Cornelius’s mother, Ellen Jane Lawson Jewell, came to Guelph in the late 1800s from the Queen’s Bush Settlement. Ellen Jane’s grandfather, Henry Dangerfield Lawson, escaped slavery in the United States and settled in the Queen’s Bush. Ellen Jane is listed in the 1941 directory under this address and a directory from 1972 lists Patricia and Melba Jewell as residents. The Jewell family has been in Guelph and the surrounding area for over 150 years, marking an important presence within the black community and (noting their interracial heritage) showing ties to Guelph’s white community.

Percy Jewell and Ida Brooks stand together for an engagement photo, circa 1944. Guelph Civic Museum.
Melba Jewell riding a bicycle as a young girl, circa 1944. Guelph Civic Museum.


95 MacDonell Street and 22 Toronto Street

  • Royal Inn and Suites, 95 Macdonell Street, November 2018
  • Charles L. Bollen in the barber shop. Guelph Civic Museum.
  • 22 Toronto Street, a house in a residential area. November 2018

  • Rita and Warren Bollen at 22 Toronto Street, holding musical instruments. Guelph Civic Museum.

Before we stop by our next location, we will walk 500m east to 95 Macdonell Street, where Charles Bollen’s barber shop once stood. From there, we will walk 1km east to 22 Toronto Street, the former home of the Bollen family. The Bollen family was a prominent interracial family in Guelph from the the end of the 1800s and through the 1900s. The family home was located at 22 Toronto Street, where Charles Bollen and Eveline Bollen lived with their children throughout the years (Statistics Canada 1911). All family members are documented to have been born in Ontario, but Charles’ parents were born in the United States and Eveline’s in the United States and Ireland (Statistics Canada 1911). The Bollens also identified as Baptists (Statistics Canada 1891). Charles L. Bollen owned and worked at a barber shop at the Royal Hotel block in market square, providing for his family, for most of his life, while two of his sons (Junious and John) were documented as labourers in the year 1911 (Statistics Canada 1911). To take a look at the various members of the Bollen family refer to the table below (Table 1.0).

The Bollen family also had ties to other families in Guelph. Rita Bollen, one of the children, was linked to the Stickland family when she married William (Bill) Stickland on September 13th, 1924 (Ontario Marriages). Little is known about their marriage although they are photographed in one of the pictures provided.

  • Members of the Bollen family at a family gathering, circa 1915. Guelph Civic Museum.
  • The Bollen sons stand on the steps of a house, circa 1915. Guelph Civic Museum.

Table 1.0 – The Bollen Family Names and Birth Years

NameYear of Birth
Charles L. Bollen 1858
Eveline Bollen1860
Annie Bollen1878
Frederick Bollen1882
Eva Bollen1884
Gertrude Bollen1886
Louis Bollen1888
Edward Bollen1888
Edwin Bollen1889
Kate Bollen1880
Rita Bollen1904
Warren Bollen1908
Ella Bollen1899
John Bollen1893
Junious Bollen1894

Final Thoughts

The Bollen/Stickland family and the Jewell family were both interracial. The two families represent a connection between the Black community and the white community in Guelph. While there was clear racial division between Blacks and whites between the 1880s and 1960s, there were also moments of exposure and integration between the two communities. While African-Canadians lived close to each other in certain wards, they were very much a fabric of everyday life in Guelph.

This concludes our walk today.

We hope you learned something new about African-Canadian presence in Guelph. We encourage you to consider the spaces we inhabit and reflect upon their origins and the traces of former inhabitants.  

Remember, some historical narratives are more represented than others; we shouldn’t be hesitant to explore “hidden” histories.

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