Chatham-Kent, ON

The history of Chatham is tightly linked to the legacy of the Underground Railroad that helped up to 100,000 black slaves escape to free states and to Canada. In nearby Dresden, Reverend Josiah Henson bought 100 acres of land to establish the Dawn Settlement in the 1830s to provide escaped slaves with vocational education to help them become self-sufficient. The British American Institute was officially established in 1841 with its trainees eventually working in local industries.

By 1850, the Fugitive Slave Law was passed in the US that required runaway slaves to be returned to their owners even if they escaped to free states. Mary Ann Shadd Cary immigrated from the US to Canada in 1851 to start a movement to promote racial equality through education. She was a teacher and an abolitionist who believed that education can lead to self-reliance. She started the Provincial Freeman, a newspaper in Windsor in 1853, and moved it to Chatham in 1855. She is the first black North American woman to be the editor of a newspaper.

American abolitionist John Brown held a series of meetings in the First Baptist Church in Chatham in 1858 to recruit people to attack the US in 1859. Although they initially saw success in Virginia, the attack lasted just two days before he was captured and executed as a traitor. Two years later, tensions escalated and the US was embroiled in a bloody Civil War.

Other local attractions include the Milner House, a house that belonged to a local industrialist which is now converted into a museum about living in the early 20th century. The nearby Chatham Cultural Centre is home to the local art gallery as well as the Chatham-Kent Museum. The old armoury is located near the Thames River named after the one in England, but you’ll have to drive an hour to reach London.