Sunday, February 16th, 2025

Award-winning historian, Jane Cooper-Wilson will speak in Stayner this month about the migration of African-Canadians in this area –including seven generations of her own family – in honour of Black History Month.

The lecturer and author, who won the Ontario Historical Society’s Carnochan Award in 2012 for her outstanding service to Ontario heritage communities, says her goal is to “enlighten people on the contribution of the original racial makeup of our province.”

This “original racial makeup” includes her own ancestors, John Morgan Sr. (born in 1763 in Madagascar) and his wife, Elizabeth, who were former slaves from Virginia who escaped to Canada during the American Revolution and who settled in Sunnidale Township around 1829.

Cooper-Wilson’s novel, Morgan’s Seed, tells the story of her ancestors, who are buried in the Bethel-Union Pioneer Cemetery in New Lowell. She is also the author of Echoes in the Hills: My Search for John Brown’s Legacy and her work has appeared in Northern Terminus: The African Canadian History Journal, as well as in documentaries and on television.

In 1997, Cooper-Wilson joined the SilverShoe Historical Society, a group of 25 people who formed in 1997 to restore the Bethel-Union Pioneer Cemetery, to “honour the ancestry of the people who lived in the Silver Shoe community.” She is now the group’s Executive Director.

Silver Shoe is the name of the local settlement where many Black settlers lived. It was bordered by present-day Concession 7, Creemore Avenue, County Road 10 (Sunnidale Road) and Concession 5, Cooper-Wilson says. The SilverShoe Historical Society was incorporated as an affiliate of the Ontario Historical Society in 2007.

For Cooper-Wilson, history has a definite role in the lives of the living. “We can learn a great deal about ourselves by learning about our ancestors – we are who they were,” she says.

She fears that history is lost when buildings such as the Oro African Methodist Episcopal Church, built in 1849 in Oro-Medonte, are left to deteriorate. “It needs serious refurbishing or it won’t be around,” says Cooper-Wilson, of the church where her ancestors were married. “This is our hereditary home.”

“It is important that people understand the past, so they don’t make the same mistakes in the future. We need to understand the collective history of our province and our nation in order that the ‘true’ history can be handed down to younger generations. The presence and contributions of African-Canadians and First Nations to the development of our great Nation can no longer be swept under the rug. It is not about blame – it is all about truth and accountability.”

This Black History Month event is one of three major events the Stayner Heritage Society organizes each year, along with its Heritage Day in the summer and Remembrance Day breakfast.

The free event will also feature music by trumpet player Don Doner, who will tell the stories of the spirituals that he will play.

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