Melissa Smith Hisson (1874-1933)
Written by Zahra-Sadat Mirabolfathi-Nejad
In 1891 and 1893, Melissa Smith voiced the interests, longings, and concerns of young Black Canadians in Guelph, Ontario. Her short reports on the local activities in her Essex St. neighbourhood provides a glimpse into the the quotidian lives of young Black people. Melissa was an ambitious young Black woman who excelled in journalism, public speaking, and performance. Unfortunately, her intellect and talents were dampened and impeded by the limitations placed on her due to being a Black woman at the turn of the century. Yet, at only twenty-years old of age, Melissa’s reports, published in the Plaindealer, map young Black lives, holding the horrors of the past and representing the possibility of the future. In her biography of Melissa Smith and family, Jennifer Harris writes, “Smith’s desire for more, as well as her commitment to the [BME] church, was obviously part of a long family tradition.”
Born in 1874, Melissa was the daughter of Arthur and Sophia Smith. Melissa’s grandfather, Henry Smith, “was from Kentucky and likely escaped slavery, settling in Queen’s Bush. Henry served as an AME church minister” (Henry 18). In 1868, Melissa’s father, Arthur, married Sophia Wilson; and by 1871, they were parents to two children and farming. By 1874, the Smiths “would have at least five children, including their daughter Melissa, born in Queen’s Bush” (Harris). They soon left the farm and moved to Essex Street in Guelph, Ontario where Sophia’s brother, Peter Wilson, also lived on the same street. The Smith family lived doors away from the BME church, the heart of Guelph’s Black community. From this geographical vantage point, Melissa was appropriately situated to provide community reports on the activities, encounters, and gatherings of various Black community members, who lived along Essex street and/or attended the BME church.
While she solicited news items from her neighbours, her home location gave her easy access to and clear views into her neighbours’s living rooms. But Melissa was not writing “gossip articles” about her community members. Instead, she was writing for her community, locating them on the map of Black Canada and making Black Canadian lives visible. The Plaindealer was a Black newspaper based in Detroit, Michigan. The inclusion of Black Canadian news in the American Black press was due to the lack of Canadian news venues willing to print news about Black Canadians, which meant that American newspapers became the primary venue for publishing information about many Black Canadian communities (Harris). Melissa’s articles in the Plaindealer place particular importance and emphasis on the experiences of Black youth—her peers—who were on the verge of making significant, life-altering choices.
For example, Melissa observed that many young Black men from Guelph were moving to or desired to move too Toronto in search of marriage opportunities. Though this may read as a typical observation found within a gossip column, the expression of these longings for new social connections reflects the way young Black people in Guelph experienced the small and insular Black community in Guelph, which was older and not expanding in the late nineteenth century. For young Black men and women, Toronto was a land of hope. She writes, “It has been wondered if the girls will meet the same fortune as the boys, as some of the girls are talking of going to Toronto.” If young Black people desired to improve their lives, the best option was to leave Guelph and move to bigger, more populated urban destinations. In 1891, Melissa looked for opportunity elsewhere, leaving Guelph for five months to pursue her performing career as a touring member of the Canadian Jubilee Singers and Imperial Orchestra.
While young Black people left Guelph for more opportunities, the Essex St. BME church nurtured and supported Black intellect and talent. Melissa was very involved in church life as she was the organist for the BME Church. The church was a place of music and education that fostered a sense of community, especially for the younger members. Melissa “worked with the other women in the congregation to operate the weekly Sabbath school and organize the Young People’s Societies Conference” (Henry 18). In the Plaindealer, Melissa notes various community leaders, such as Mrs. M. C. Linton, the Superintendent of the BME Sunday School, who worked to make the church a safe place for Black youth to be themselves and be proud of their achievements. Referencing her death, Melissa writes, “We lost in Mrs. Linton, a true and devoted friend, whose place cannot easily be filled” (7 Aug. 1891). Melissa also wrote a great deal about Rev. Minter and his “great success building the church and advancing the young people in every department” (4 Sept. 1891). These articles publicized Rev. Minter’s efforts within the community, especially when it came to supporting its younger members.
Melissa’s writings often reference the educational achievements of Black people in the community. In August 1891, for example, she mentions that “Dr. H. Robbin, a graduate of Trinity University, Toronto, has gone to the old country to take a course in the famous Edinburgh Institute.” Closer to home, Melissa mentions speaking in a debate at the Collegiate Institute Literary Society on the subject “Money is Not as Beneficial as Love.” Participating in such a debate as a young Black woman shows that Melissa’s intellect was more than most at the time gave her credit for; that she was a thinker beyond the circumstances and limitations there were prescribed for her by white Canadian society. Other friends also exceeded these prescribed barriers to education: Melissa notes that the “many friends of Mr. George Douglas are pleased to know that he has passed a successful examination and has a school in Oklahoma” (3 Mar. 1893). Between 1891 and 1893, almost four hundred Black Americans are known to have been lynched (LOC). Significantly, George, who was twenty-two years old, had to leave Canada to pursue his passion for teaching; moreover, in his pursuit of a school to teach Black children, he found himself in the United States—a country his father left—at a moment of increased racial terrorism and violence.
Melissa’s writing in the Plaindealer provides a unique glimpse into the social world of young Black people in Guelph at the turn of the century. While Melissa left Guelph on numerous occasions—”Melissa and her husband moved back and forth between Detroit and Canada, Samuel [Hisson] worked as a teamster and sleeping car porter” (Henry 20)—, the majority of her life was spent in Guelph, where she later worked as a milliner and grocer.
She was living with her brother, Arthur Smith, at 75 Essex Street when she died of a stroke on June 11, 1933. She is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Guelph, Ontario. Melissa’s achievements at such a young age are significant because of how she positively represented her peers in her community. Melissa highlighted Black talent, intellectual, and industry; she showed that Guelph’s Black community deserved representation and had much to celebrate. Melissa’s tenacity and desire to be involved in her community and to document its activities is a testament to her own intellect and talent. Melissa’s confidence and determination to use her voice to speak the everyday lives of her peers and community was so important then and remains so now.