Cainsville is a community straddling the boundary of

Brantford Brantford (Canada 2021 Census, 2021 population: 104,688) is a city in Ontario, Canada, founded on the Grand River (Ontario), Grand River in Southwestern Ontario. It is surrounded by County of Brant, Brant County, but is politically separate with ...

and

Brant County The County of Brant (Canada 2021 Census, 2021 population 39,474) is a Census divisions of Ontario#Single-tier municipalities, single-tier municipality in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. Although it retains t ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. Cainsville started off as a rural Black Canadian settlement called Bunnell's Landing.

Joseph Brant Thayendanegea or Joseph Brant (March 1743 – November 24, 1807) was a Mohawk people, Mohawk military and political leader, based in present-day New York (state), New York, who was closely associated with Kingdom of Great Britain, Great B ...

had given an initial land grant to a handful of free, formerly enslaved Africans. Throughout the 1800s other black settlers, who were not part of the original land grant, purchased land in the area to be close to a larger black community. Most of the settlers were African American

freedom seekers In the United States, fugitive slaves or runaway slaves were terms used in the 18th and 19th century to describe people who fled slavery. The term also refers to the federal Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850. Such people are also called freed ...

or descendants of those who had escaped to the area through the

Underground Railroad The Underground Railroad was a network of clandestine routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early- to mid-19th century. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states and Canada. T ...

. It was named after Peter Cain, one of the first settlers, and was laid out in 1837.

Ontario Highway 53 King's Highway 53, commonly referred to as Highway 53, was a provincially maintained highway in the southern portion of the Canadian province of Ontario that connected Woodstock to Hamilton via Brantford. The route served as a southerly bypass ...

, runs through the community. This was the main East-West provincial highway until the completion of Highway 403 in 1997, which reduced the use of Highway 53 to local traffic. The

Hamilton–Brantford–Cambridge Trails The Hamilton–Brantford–Cambridge Trails are a network of multiuse interurban recreational rail trails connecting several municipalities in southern Ontario, Canada. The trails are part of the Southern Ontario Loop of the Trans Canada Trail. F ...

, part of the Southern loop of the

Trans Canada Trail The Trans Canada Trail, officially named The Great Trail between September 2016 and June 2021, is a cross-Canada system of greenways, waterways, and roadways that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, Pacific to the A ...

runs through Cainsville. A commemorative plaque in the area reads:

''Bunnell’s Landing: Early Black Settlement'' ''When Joseph Brant and his supporters came to Canada from New York in 1784 they brought their American slaves with them to the Grand River Valley. Slavery was abolished in the British Empire by 1834 and so most of the Black families stayed here and settled along the river near Cainsville. Fugitive slaves from the South later joined them, coming through Buffalo across Lake Erie and then up the Grand River.'' ''Until the Grand River Navigation Company locks were built in 1848, this site was as far up the river as cargo boats could travel. Later the Toronto, Hamilton and Buffalo Railways shipped goods from Brantford’s factories along this rail line. The landslide of 1986 destroyed the tracks and buried most evidence of settlement in this area.'' ''Across the river from Bunnell’s Landing is Bow Park Farm, the home of George Brown (1818-1880), Journalist and Statesman. He was founder of the Canadian Liberal Party and of the Toronto Globe Newspaper. He also played an important role in Confederation.''

Present day

At the time of the

2021 Canadian Census The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, which is sl ...

, the area had a total population of 3,251. The portion located in the City of Brantford had a population of 2,652 while the portion in Brant County had 599 residents. The area in Brantford experienced rapid population growth in recent decades due to the establishment of several subdivisions along Garden Ave and Johnson Road. The area in Brant County remains largely rural, with some industrial and commercial activity. A new 9,200 sq.ft Cainsville Community Centre is slated for development in the community at 15 Ewart Drive. The new building is expected to be completed in 2023.

References

{{reflist Communities in the County of Brant Populated places on the Underground Railroad Black Canadian culture in Ontario Black Canadian settlements Brantford

Present day

See also

References