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- It’s been estimated that more than 30,000 slaves from the United States sought freedom in Canada by travelling the Underground Railroad. Carolynn Wilson, one of the curators of the Sheffield Park Black History Museum in Clarksburg, said the Collingwood area was a “destination,” for hundreds of families. “Canada offered freedom,” she said.
www.simcoe.com/news/did-you-know-collingwood-was-a-destination-for-slaves-seeking-freedom-along-the-underground-railroad/article_74902ceb-458c-5640-9cf8-5c51f306399b.html
From its vibrant beginnings as a railway hub to the eventual silence of the tracks, this is the story of how a humble settlement became intertwined with the iron veins of the Canadian railway, leaving a legacy that still echoes through the trails of Collingwood today.
- A Stop on The Underground Railroad
- Once-Thriving Black Community Gone
- Debate Over Priceville's Namesake
- Disturbing Revelations
- A History Not Known to Many
- Hiding Black Heritage
- 'Honour That History and Lift It Up'
- A Success For A Short Time
In the 19th century, Collingwood — like the town of Owen Sound, about 65 kilometres to the west — was a terminus for theUnderground Railroad. The secret network, made up of Black, white and Indigenous volunteers, helped between 30,000 and 40,000 formerly enslaved African Americans escape to Canada — where slavery remained legal until Aug. 1, 1834, ...
According to the census of 1851, every 50-acre lot along Durham Road in Priceville was settled by a Black family with parents born in the U.S. but most children born in Upper Canada, says Nancy Matthews, chair of the heritage committee of the municipality of Grey Highlands. The road was a key settlement route surveyed in the late 1840s that ran fro...
According to Black oral history, Priceville took its name from Colonel Price, a Black Loyalist soldier credited with having founded the settlement who was most likely a private but went by the first name Colonel. Price brought with him a group of Black settlers, but there's disagreement as to when exactly he arrived — and there have been questions ...
Most Canadians were introduced to the Priceville story in 2000, when the National Film Board documentarySpeakers for the Deadwas released. The film, by Black Canadian filmmakers David (Sudz) Sutherland and Jennifer Holness, shone a light on the desecration of Priceville's Black cemetery and revealed other inconvenient truths. In addition to the sto...
For Priceville residents Doug and Mary Harrison, watching Speakers for the Deadprovoked complicated feelings. On the one hand, they were disturbed to learn about the extent of their community's racist past, but they were also troubled at the way in which the village they loved was being maligned. After raising their family in the Greater Toronto Ar...
Over the decades, the erasure of Priceville's Black past led the remaining descendants of the Black settlers to deny or obscure their bloodlines and try to blend into the white community. Today, there is still a Black community in Priceville; it's just mostly white. "There are Black descendants in the Priceville area who aren't Black," said Norquay...
In the years since the release of Speakers for the Dead, Norquay has played an increasingly active role alongside other residents in trying to tell the story of Black Canadian settlers. "The film galvanized me," she said. "Speakers for the Deadis absolutely crucial to Canada's story." In the years following the film, an annual Black History Month e...
For Natasha Henry, president of the Ontario Black History Society, Priceville is an example that disrupts the myth of Canada as a welcoming refuge for Black people fleeing slavery. "Black settlers did find a measure of freedom," she said, "[but] there's a question as to whether it measured up with their vision of freedom." Harding-Davis says that a...
Feb 7, 2006 · They helped African Americans escape from enslavement in the American South to free Northern states or to Canada. The Underground Railroad was the largest anti-slavery freedom movement in North America. It brought between 30,000 and 40,000 fugitives to British North America (now Canada).
Jan 5, 2024 · Freedom seekers crossing the border into Canada found refuge in various settlements throughout the province. Many settlements were stop-off places or terminals on the Underground Railroad, with Collingwood and Owen Sound being the two most northern terminals.”
Feb 2, 2022 · Many historians have written about the importance placed on a railway connection by the settlers in early Ontario communities. Researching old newspapers indicates the anger and remorse felt when Collingwood, instead of Owen Sound, was chosen as the northern terminus for a rail line from Toronto.
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Owen Sound. Approximate distance from Collingwood to Owen Sound: 66 kilometres, 60 minutes. Located where the Pottawatomi and Sydenham Rivers meet at an inlet of Georgian Bay, Owen Sound is the largest community in Grey County and one of the last stops on the Underground Railroad.
