__NOTOC__ The Sandwich First Baptist Church is a Black Baptist church located in the

Sandwich A sandwich is a food typically consisting of vegetables, sliced cheese or meat, placed on or between slices of bread, or more generally any dish wherein bread serves as a container or wrapper for another food type. The sandwich began as a po ...

neighbourhood 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 ...

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. It was established to serve a community of refugees who had fled slavery on 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 ...

. The congregation was founded around 1840, and the current church building was constructed in 1851. It was designated a

National Historic Site of Canada National Historic Sites of Canada (french: Lieux historiques nationaux du Canada) are places that have been designated by the federal Minister of the Environment An environment minister (sometimes minister of the environment or secretary of t ...

in 1999.

History

Due to its proximity to 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 ...

, which served as one of the crossing points into Canada for the

, the

area served as a refugee settlement and housed many people who had fled slavery in the United States. Around 600 people of colour lived in the area as of 1827. While Baptists had lived in Sandwich beginning no later than 1826, the First Baptist Church was only founded in or around 1840. The congregation initially met in the homes of members and later in a small log cabin that was constructed in 1847. Madison J. Lightfoot, who had previously helped to establish the Second Baptist Church in Detroit, served as the congregation's first minister, and continued in that role until 1853. Together with the Detroit Second Baptist Church and the Amherstburg First Baptist Church, the Sandwich church was a founding member of the Amherstburg Regular Missionary Baptist Association (ARMBA). Established in 1841 in

Amherstburg, Ontario 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 ...

, the ARMBA (originally the Baptist Association of Colored People) sought to represent the interests of Black baptists and would later go on to organize extensive anti-slavery activities. By 1861, the association's membership had grown from 47 to over 1,000 congregants. Following fund-raising efforts, the church was constructed in 1851 on a patch of land granted by

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 21 ...

for the purposes of constructing a church and a graveyard. The labour force consisted of the able-bodied members of the community; many of them made bricks from the Detroit River's clay by hand, while wealthier community members bought bricks from the Robinette Brickyard. Trees from the area were also used as building materials. Though the cornerstone was laid in 1851, the building remained unfinished as of 1852, and church members had to solicit donations to complete its construction. Like other Black churches along the Ontario–United States border, the Sandwich church provided social and political support for those fleeing slavery and racial oppression on the Underground Railroad. The church was heavily involved in activism against slavery: monthly anti-slavery rallies were held there, and local history recounts that refugees would use the church as a hiding place to evade slave-catchers. Although there is little concrete evidence of the latter (which is not unexpected due to the secretive nature of the work), architectural features of the church such as its many crawlspaces and a former

trap door A trapdoor is a sliding or hinged door in a floor or ceiling. It is traditionally small in size. It was invented to facilitate the hoisting of grain up through mills, however, its list of uses has grown over time. The trapdoor has played a pivot ...

leading to the basement lend credence to these accounts. The Sandwich First Baptist Church was recognized by the ''

Ontario Heritage Act The ''Ontario Heritage Act'', (the ''Act'') first enacted on March 5, 1975, allows municipalities and the provincial government to designate individual properties and districts in the Province of Ontario, Canada, as being of cultural heritage ...

'' in 1995 and designated a

in 1999. It continues to function as a church while attracting visitors interested in its history; it is estimated that 14,000 tourists visited the site in 1996. In 2020, the church received a grant to finance the establishment of a museum dedicated to the Underground Railroad. The church's history was covered in a 2020 documentary titled ''The North Was Our Canaan''.

Description

The church building is a small and "unpretentious" structure. It is similar in design to other early Black churches in Ontario, with a

gabled roof A gable roof is a roof consisting of two sections whose upper horizontal edges meet to form its ridge. The most common roof shape in cold or temperate climates, it is constructed of rafters, roof trusses or purlins. The pitch of a gable roof ca ...

and a rectangular floor plan, but distinguished by its use of brick as a building material. The church's wooden floors, ceiling, and

wainscoting Panelling (or paneling in the U.S.) is a millwork wall covering constructed from rigid or semi-rigid components. These are traditionally interlocking wood, but could be plastic or other materials. Panelling was developed in antiquity to make roo ...

were fashioned by hand. In 1868, a coal-burning stove was purchased and installed. A two-storey

crenellated A battlement in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (i.e., a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at interva ...

tower stands at the entrance of the church; this was not part of the original design, but was added in 1920 to replace the old wooden entrance which had fallen into disrepair. Other

Gothic revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

decorations, such as arches and pointed windows, were gradually added, and an extension was made to the rear of the church at an unknown date, though the main auditory hall was mostly left unmodified.

Notes

References

External links

Photograph of the log cabin church ― Parks Canada Virtual Museum
{{Authority control Churches completed in 1851 Black Canadian culture in Ontario National Historic Sites in Ontario Churches in Windsor, Ontario 1851 establishments in Ontario Black Canadian organizations 19th-century churches in Canada