Tubman Tours Canada

22/12/2024

With a few days to go,
the Salem Chapel
wishes all of you a
Happy Ho Ho Ho!

20/12/2024

December 1858

one hundred and sixty-six years ago, Harriet Tubman entered the St. Catharines Courthouse.

The former Lincoln County Courthouse was built between 1848 and 1849 at the corner of King and James Streets. Known locally as the “old courthouse” this municipal historic site once housed the town council offices, a fire station and the police station.

Tubman appeared before the towns council and informed them that "she had taken a child off the streets” and asked for financial assistance.

Council deferred the matter for ten days.

The unnamed child resided with Tubman, and her elderly parents, Ben and Rit Ross at Tubman’s North Street boarding house.

18/12/2024

Tis the Season!

10/12/2024

Tubman Guides Eleven to St. Catharines

In December 1851, Harriet Tubman extended her Underground Railroad route to St. Catharines.

Tubman travelled to Maryland and collected eleven freedom seekers to guide to Canada. The identities of the group members remain unknown.

Scholars believe that Fredrick Douglass, most likely sheltered Tubman and the eleven freedom seekers at his Rochester, NY home.

In 1881, Douglass wrote, “On one occasion I had eleven fugitives at the same time under my roof, and it was necessary for them to remain with me until I could collect sufficient money to get them on to Canada. It was the largest number I ever had at any one time, and I had some difficulty in providing so many with food and shelter, but, as may well be imagined, they were not very fastidious in either direction, and were well content with very plain food, and a strip of carpet on the floor for a bed, or a place on the straw in the barn-loft.”

For the next decade, the Town of St. Catharines would serve as Tubman’s last stop on the Underground Railroad and her base of operations.

Harriet Tubman guided her elderly parents, three brothers and scores of other loved ones to St. Catharines.

Image: Tubman guiding freedom seekers to Canada, by artist Jerry Pinkney

05/12/2024

December 1850

Harriet Tubman was living in Philadelphia in December 1850 when she learned that her enslaved niece Kessiah Bowley and her two enslaved children, James Alfred and Araminta, were going to be sold on the Cambridge, Maryland auction block.

Tubman made her way to Baltimore and devised a successful rescue plan with Kessiah’s free Black husband, John Bowley.

On the day of the auction, John Bowley successfully bid on his enslaved wife and children.

The sale would be finalized when the auctioneer and seller returned from their lunch break. During the wait, when no one was watching, Kessiah and her kids were secreted to a nearby safe house.

In the evening, John Bowley placed his family in a small boat and sailed 60 miles (97 kilometers) up the Chesapeake to Baltimore where they met Tubman. From there, Tubman guided her family to Philadelphia.

The Bowley family lived in Philadelphia for several months before moving to St. Catharines. They eventually moved to Chatham, Ontario where they remained for over a decade.

When the Civil War ended, the Bowley’s left Canada and moved back to Dorchester County, Maryland.

The account of Kessiah and her children is recorded as Harriet Tubman’s first rescue.

Image: 1849 auction advertisement for the sale of Kessiah Bowley, which was postponed until December 1850.

26/11/2024

A Beacon of Hope

Earlier this month we viewed the Harriet Tubman “Beacon of Hope” statue that is on display at the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center on the US side.

The spectacular 13-foot bronze travelling statue of Tubman was created by Academy and Emmy Award-winning artist Wesley Wofford Sculpture Studio. It will be on display until January 2025.

Check it out if you can!

25/11/2024

UPDATE: Yes, we are a few days ahead! Thank you to the few for pointing it out. Haaaaaaa!

23/11/2024

Outstanding!

We are so excited to announce that we WON the Ontario Museum’s Association Award of Excellence in the category of Excellence in Exhibitions for our exhibition, Bound and Determined: Chloe Cooley, Enslavement, and the Fight for Freedom.

Our exhibit was selected for our collaborative, inclusive, intentional and truthful approach to this aspect of our history.

This exhibitions co-curators, Sarah Kaufman (CEO & Curator), Shawna Butts (Assistant Curator & Education Programmer), Rochelle Bush (Trustee, Salem Chape BME Church and Freedom Seeker descendent), and Dr. Natasha Henry-Dixon (Assistant Professor, African Canadian History, York University), are very honoured that this exhibition was chosen for this recognition!

18/11/2024

Salem Chapel!

Closed for tours from November 18, 2024 to January 31, 2025.

Yes, the church will still hold the regular Sunday Worship Service at 11:00 a.m. All are welcome to attend.

The final tour for the 2024 season took place last week. Sixth grade students from Foundation Christian School visited the Salem Chapel. It was a wonderful tour!

12/11/2024

Meet Joan Southgate!

Joan is a public historian and freedom seeker descendant from Ohio with connections to St. Catharines.

We first met Joan, aged 73, in 2003 when she walked from Ripley, Ohio to St. Catharines, to honour the freedom seekers and abolitionists on the Underground Railroad and to raise funds to restore the historic Cozad-Bates House in Cleveland.

Joan founded a non-profit called Restore Cleveland Hope for the restoration of the Cozad-Bates House and wrote a book about her 519 mile walk to Canada called “In Their Path.”

In 2010, Joan, aged 80, walked the path again, ending in St. Catharines at the Salem Chapel.

One of Joan's ancestral connection to St. Catharines and the Salem Chapel is through Benjamin Fletcher, a freedom seeker who attended the church and was Vice President of the Fugitive Aid Society Harriet Tubman established in St. Catharines.

We were thrilled to meet Joan again this past weekend. She visited the church with two Duke University students, Simone and Zach, to film some of the documentary that is in the works about her remarkable walks to Canada and her role in the preservation of the Cozad Bates House, which is now a fully restored interpretive centre.

Congratulations Joan!

https://www.universitycircle.org/cozad-bates-house-interpretive-center
https://www.restoreclevelandhope.com/

11/11/2024

In Loving Memory

CHARLES ERNEST HARPER JR. a.k.a “Buddy” Harper
Underground Railroad freedom seeker descendant
Born: September 10, 1920 - St. Catharines, Ontario
Parents: Charles Ernest Harper Sr. and Ethel May Flowers-Harper-Smith
Spouse: Loretta Harper
Children: Richard & Paulette
Siblings: Ruth Harper-Bell, James Harper, Florence “Biddy” Harper-Wilkinson-Bowles, Harry Harper, Ritchie Harper, Jeanette Harper-Washington, Elsie Harper-Bush, Lorna Harper-Vintes
Occupation: Truck driver
Religion: Christian – 4th generation member of the Salem Chapel, BME Church NHS
Enlisted: September 15, 1942 - Hamilton, Ontario
Force: Canadian Army
Unit: Royal Canadian Army Service Corps
Died: March 27, 1944 - Ortona, Italy
Buried: Moro River Canadian War Cemetery – Italy

Charles Harper Jr. served with honour, made the ultimate sacrifice, and rests in heavenly peace and power.

10/11/2024

07/11/2024

Honouring Tubman's Military Service

“Tubman supported the Union Army’s intelligence by using the tradecraft she learned as an operator on the Underground Railroad.” - CIA

“What many do not know is that during the Civil War, Harriet Tubman was a spy helping to gather vital intelligence for the Union Army.” - CIA

"Harriet and her nine-man spy team evolved into a kind of special-forces operation for the black regiments. Her team sneaked up and down rivers and into swamps and marshes to determine enemy positions, movements, and fortifications on the shoreline beyond the Union pickets." - US Army

“On the night of June 1, 1863, three federal gunboats sailed from Beaufort, South Carolina traveling up the Combahee River. Tubman had gained intelligence on the location of Confederate torpedoes planted along the river, which enabled the Union ships to steer away from danger.” – CIA

“Under the command of Union Colonel James Montgomery, Tubman became “the first woman to lead a major military operation in the United States when she and 150 African American Union soldiers rescued more than 700 slaves in the Combahee Ferry Raid during the Civil War.” - Smithsonian

“Today, historians consider the Combahee River Raid to be a major intelligence and military success.” - CIA

In 2021, the US Military Intelligence Corps inducted Harriet Tubman into its Hall of Fame.

In 2022, a bronze statue of Harriet Tubman was erected at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/honoring-pioneer-harriet-tubman/

https://www.army.mil/article/126731/harriet_tubman_nurse_spy_scout

https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/combahee-ferry-raid

November 11th is Remembrance Day in Canada and Veterans Day in the USA.

Image: Harriet Tubman statue at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia

04/11/2024

Happy Anniversary!

Once upon a time, the Salem Chapel, British Methodist Episcopal Church (BMEC) located in St. Catharines was known as Bethel Chapel, African Methodist Episcopal Church (AMEC).

A few scholars have concluded that the first AMEC was built between 1814 and 1820.

In 1835, property was purchased on North Street to build a bigger church. The second church would seat about 70 members.

in 1855, the third and current church, which was built by African American freedom seekers opened.

In 1856, most of the AME Churches in Ontario split from their parent body in the US and formed the BME Church.

Today we celebrate the 204 to 210th anniversary of the first church, the 189th anniversary of the second church and 169th anniversary of the third church!

29/10/2024

Creative Artists!

Grade 3 students from the Harriet Tubman Public School recently donated this lovely contemporary piece of art work to the Salem Chapel.

We love it!

28/10/2024

Josiah Henson!

in 1830, Josiah Henson and his family crossed the Niagara River and landed in Fort Erie, Ontario.

In 1830, Henson was enslaved in Kentucky and escaped from there with his wife and four children. Two of his children were so small that Henson constructed a handmade backpack to carry them as they journeyed 600 miles to Canada.

The Henson family settled in Fort Erie for a few years then moved to Dresden, Ontario where Henson established a self-sufficient freedom seeker community known as the Dawn Settlement. The focus of the settlement was the “British-American Institute” which was an educational centre and trade school.

In 1849, Henson wrote his autobiography titled, “The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself.” Shortly thereafter he embarked on a book tour that took him to Great Britain where he met Queen Victoria.
Henson’s autobiography helped inspire Harriet Beecher Stowe to write her 1852 bestselling novel, “Uncle Tom's Cabin.”

Josiah Henson was a freedom seeker, abolitionist, author, minister and Underground Railroad conductor.

In 1995, Henson was designated a National Historic Person. In 2000, Freedom Park in Fort Erie, Ontario was dedicated to Henson and the thousands of freedom seekers who crossed the Niagara River in that area.

The Josiah Henson Museum of African-Canadian History in Dresden, Ontario is devoted to his life.

Images: Josiah Henson, sketches of Henson escaping enslavement with his family, the Henson family landing at Fort Erie

21/10/2024

This past Saturday we received more news articles relating to the local BME Church and the Black community from Cindy Fishburn, a Niagara researcher, genealogist and public historian. The news articles range from 1876 to 1950.

As you can imagine, we are thrilled to receive such a gift. We are grateful beyond measure! Thank you Cindy!!!

We have titled this 1896 featured article, ``A Heated Argument.``

The freedom seeker surnames in this 1896 article are blocked out because the relatives of the young lady still live in St. Catharines.

At the time of the assault, both were members of the Salem Chapel. Lewis and Louisa do not appear to be related and there is about a 35 year age difference.

As many of you know, on our tours and at the Salem Chapel we talk about the good and bad parts of our ancestral history.

We apologize in advance if this article or some of the future posts offend you. Let us know your thoughts about content like this.