Anniversary event features R&B, Gospel vocalist Michael Dunston
This month, Bethel-Union Pioneer Cemetery will be bathed in the soft glow of candles illuminating tombstones and a monument erected at the centre of a cathedral of birch trees in memory of the original 25 Black families that settled in Old Sunnidale during an anniversary service.
The New Lowell cemetery, formerly Sunnidale Union, is the final resting place for hundreds of fugitive slaves who settled in the area after fighting with Loyalists or arriving on the Underground Railroad. It has been lovingly restored and maintained by the Silver Shoe Historical Society. This year marks the 27th annual service and will welcome special guests and musical performances.
When the society’s executive director Janie Cooper-Wilson and her team of volunteers first took on the restoration project, they had to search through brush and weeds to find the tombstones that were still standing, others were in pieces or had been bulldozed into a ravine after the cemetery sustained damage from Hurricane Hazel in 1954. Cooper-Wilson, a descendant of the Morgan family who are buried in the cemetery, said 75 volunteers took part in the initial clean-up. The group incorporated as an Affiliate of the Ontario Historical Society in 1997.
Vandalism and littering remained an ongoing battle for volunteers trying to maintain the cemetery.
The cemetery, established in 1885, is the final resting place for Black, White and Indigenous residents. It is also the site of a mass grave of epidemic victims who died in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It remained an active cemetery until 1940.
At the request of the Silver Shoe Historical Society, Clearview council designated the cemetery for its cultural heritage and historical significance under the Ontario Heritage Act in 2015.
Cooper-Wilson is now completing her third term as an Ontario Historical Society board member, and will continue as chair of the society’s cemetery preservation and defence committee, which works in collaboration with the Bereavement Authority of Ontario.
The cemetery is an extension of the Silver Shoe Burial Ground, located to the north of the present day site and is “the last vestige of the culturally unique and once vibrant community known as the Silver Shoe Settlement.” It is perhaps the only totally interracial, multicultural, non-denominational cemetery established during the period of history when only individuals of Anglo-European heritage were permitted burial within the boundaries of Caucasian sanctified cemeteries in the province of Ontario.
The SilverShoe Historical Society’s annual multicultural and multi-denominational service, is about community and family, where everyone is welcome.
The service will be held from 6:45 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 14 in the Cathedral of Trees, at Bethel-Union Pioneer Cemetery, 2249 Creemore Ave., New Lowell.
Come one, come all. Bring lawn chairs. Free will donations will be accepted.
Entertainment will include performances by Rudi Quammie Williams and his African Ensemble, and Singer-Songwriter Rob Green. The featured artist is R&B and Gospel vocalist Michael Dunston.
