WELLINGTON OFFERS INTERESTING HISTORY LESSON
Column 3.
to receive land grants in Garafraxa Township in 1819-20. He
dreamed of a completely separate settlement where blacks
could prove their worth was equal to whites.
Glen Lamond, a settlement abutting Fergus along Garafraxa
Street, was one of 15 black settlements in early Ontario and
one of their residents con- structed the first bridge across the
Grand River near Fergus. But when Pierpoint died in the late
1830s his fel- low settlers started drifting away. It is also
believed government agents forced many blacks off their
property when the land was surveyed and put -up for sale.
The 1871 census of Peel Township shows a population of 500
to 900 blacks with two black schools and a couple of churches
to serve their residents.
