The John Freeman Walls Historic Site and Underground Railroad Museum is a historical site located in Puce, now

Lakeshore, Ontario Lakeshore is a municipality on Lake Saint Clair (North America), Lake St. Clair, in Essex County, Ontario, Essex County, Ontario, Canada. It was incorporated in 1999 by amalgamating the Town of Belle River with the township (Canada), townships of ...

, about 40 km east of

Windsor Windsor may refer to: Places Australia * Windsor, New South Wales ** Municipality of Windsor, a former local government area * Windsor, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland **Shire of Windsor, a former local government authority around Wi ...

. Today, many of the original buildings remain, and in 1985, the site was opened as an Underground Railroad museum. The site forms part of the

African-Canadian Heritage Tour This is a List of Ontario Tourist Routes throughout the province, which are designated to highlight places of cultural, environmental, or social importance. It is currently unknown if the majority of these trails are still listed since many of the ...

Southern Ontario Southern Ontario is a primary region of the province of Ontario, Canada, the other primary region being Northern Ontario. It is the most densely populated and southernmost region in Canada. The exact northern boundary of Southern Ontario is disp ...

Background

Underground Railroad

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 ...

was a series of routes that were established to hide and transport former slaves escaping servitude from the

Southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...

. More specifically, it was a web of hidden, interconnected, man-made paths that were shrouded by forests and brush which assisted in the concealment of former slaves until they could reach a terminal location. The routes all headed north and towards the

free soil The Free Soil Party was a short-lived coalition political party in the United States active from 1848 to 1854, when it merged into the Republican Party. The party was largely focused on the single issue of opposing the expansion of slavery into ...

of the

Northern United States The Northern United States, commonly referred to as the American North, the Northern States, or simply the North, is a geographical or historical region of the United States. History Early history Before the 19th century westward expansion, the "N ...

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 ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

, and

New Brunswick New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and ...

; and at various points along the way they all intersected with Underground Railroad stations where runaway slaves could take shelter and would be given food and clothing. Enslaved people used the Underground Railroad despite the

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 The Fugitive Slave Act or Fugitive Slave Law was passed by the United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern interests in slavery and Northern Free-Soilers. The Act was one of the most co ...

, which stated that "any federal marshal who did not arrest on demand any person believed to be a runaway slave could be fined $1,000. As for the runaway slaves themselves, they would be arrested and stripped of any and all civil rights".

Migration to Ontario

In the mid-nineteenth century, black slaves were fleeing the United States by the thousands and coming north to Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick, via the Underground Railroad, the vast majority of these fugitive slaves arriving in Southwestern Ontario, crossing mainly over the

Detroit River The Detroit River flows west and south for from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie as a strait in the Great Lakes system. The river divides the metropolitan areas of Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario, Windsor, Ontario—an area collectively refe ...

and to a lesser extent the

Niagara River The Niagara River () is a river that flows north from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. It forms part of the border between the province of Ontario in Canada (on the west) and the state of New York (state), New York in the United States (on the east) ...

. After the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 of the

British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...

, the number of refugees from slavery coming to the colonies grew, and local leaders in the region became concerned that the influx of refugees, estimated to be around 30,000 in 1852, made it more difficult for Blacks to find jobs in their new homeland. As early as 1846, meetings were held by local church leaders to help remedy the situation, and later that year, the

Refugee Home Society The Refugee Home Society was an organization founded in Michigan and Ontario in 1851 that was designed to help former enslaved people become established in a community and remain free. It was located 20 miles from Windsor, Ontario, the border with t ...

was founded. The Refugee Home Society was dissolved in 1864, due to limiting land policies, lack of significant leadership. Families migrated to Haiti and various parts of Canada.

John and Jane Walls

John Freeman Walls worked at the Walls's plantation on Troublesome Creek, in

Rockingham County, North Carolina Rockingham County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 91,096. Its county seat is Wentworth. The county is known as "North Carolina's North Star." Rockingham County is included in ...

. It was here that he became good friends with Daniel Walls, the slave owner's son and his wife Jane King Walls. When Daniel was on his deathbed he freed John and placed Jane and their children under the care of John. In 1845, John and Jane left a life of slavery and oppression and fled towards

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

in search of a new life. The Walls family crossed

Lake Erie Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has t ...

in a steam boat ''the Pearl'' and arrived in

Amherstburg Amherstburg is a town near the mouth of the Detroit River in Essex County, Ontario, Canada. In 1796, Fort Malden was established here, stimulating growth in the settlement. The fort has been designated as a National Historic Site. The town is ...

, Ontario, in 1846. The two were abolitionists who fought against the institution of slavery. Their

inter-racial Interracial topics include: * Interracial marriage, marriage between two people of different races ** Interracial marriage in the United States *** 2009 Louisiana interracial marriage incident * Interracial adoption, placing a child of one raci ...

relationship (John being black and Jane being white) caused controversy after they arrived, and they often received stares, although according to John, most of the refugees were neither black nor white but "various shades of black." Upon their arrival, the two toured various settlements and decided to live in Puce settlement, where the

had recently purchased land to sell back to refugee slaves. The two purchased a property and settle at 859 East Puce Road in Puce (now known as

Emeryville Emeryville may refer to: * Emeryville, California Emeryville is a city located in northwest Alameda County, California, in the United States. It lies in a corridor between the cities of Berkeley and Oakland, with a border on the shore of San ...

). They built a log cabin and acquired more than of land. The Walls had six children at Puce.. John was a carpenter. John and Jane held the initial services of the Refugee Home Society in their own home. Jane was a Sunday School teacher while John was the Deacon of the First Baptist Church and loaned the congregation the funds to purchase the necessary land for the construction of a log cabin church. The couple had many

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...

friends who assisted in smuggling fugitives by dressing them up in women's costumes. One of the most well known was

Levi Coffin Levi Coffin (October 28, 1798 – September 16, 1877) was an American Quaker, Republican, abolitionist, farmer, businessman and humanitarian. An active leader of the Underground Railroad in Indiana and Ohio, some unofficially called Coffin the " ...

, a Quaker from

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

who became known as the President of The Underground Railroad for his valiant crusade against slavery. John had a favourite passage in the Bible, Proverbs III, "My son forget not my laws, but let thine heart keep my commandments for length of day and long life shall they bring thee".Switala, William J. (2001). "Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania". The Walls sent word of their new haven to a Quaker

abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...

couple in

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

who had married them on their journey to Ontario and the site evolved into a terminal station for the Underground Railroad where they welcomed many fugitives of slavery and helped them to begin a free life in southwestern Ontario. Jane revisited to the south on two separate occasions and returned with numerous refugees of slavery.

Historic site and museum

The site was first recognized by the government for its historical significance after one of Walls' descendants, their great-great grandson Dr. Bryan E. Walls, wrote a historical novel in 1976 called ''The Road that Led to Somewhere'', a novel which chronicled the Walls' original journey to the settlement and their involvement in the Underground Railroad. The novel created interest in the Walls' story, and in 1985, the John Freeman Walls Historic Site and Underground Railroad Museum was opened. The current site now operates as a history museum. It contains Walls' original log cabin, the Walls' family cemetery, as well as the Historic Walkway, an overgrown brush trail that recreates the natural setting fleeing slaves would have had to contend with. The site also commemorates the modern

Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...

with a Peace Chapel created in honour of

Rosa Parks Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. The United States Congress has honored her as "the ...

, inside of which hangs a cross made from bricks from the

Lorraine Motel Lorraine , also , , ; Lorrain: ''Louréne''; Lorraine Franconian: ''Lottringe''; german: Lothringen ; lb, Loutrengen; nl, Lotharingen is a cultural and historical region in Northeastern France, now located in the administrative region of Gra ...

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...

where

Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...

was assassinated. A historical plaque exists on the site, which is still run by the family. It does not receive any government support. The site is administered as a non-profit organization by the Proverbs Heritage Organization, and shares a close relationship with the Motown Historical Museum in

. For his contribution to Black History, Bryan Walls has received the

Order of Canada The Order of Canada (french: Ordre du Canada; abbreviated as OC) is a Canadian state order and the second-highest honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. To coincide with the ...

and the

Order of Ontario The Order of Ontario () is the most prestigious official honour in the Canadian province of Ontario. Instituted in 1986 by Lieutenant Governor Lincoln Alexander, on the advice of the Cabinet under Premier David Peterson, the civilian order is adm ...

References

External links

John Freeman Walls Historic Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Walls, John Freeman, Historic Site Houses in Canada on the Underground Railroad African-American museums in Canada Black Canadian culture in Ontario Historic house museums in Ontario Museums in Essex County, Ontario