Working to preserve an Underground Railroad cemetery - part 2
By Mike Renzella The Haldimand Press The BAO thanks The Haldimand Press for permission to republish its article, published on Sept. 30, 2021.
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ast week, The Haldimand Press spoke with Aileen Duncan, whose ancestors escaped slavery, settled in Canfield, and are buried in a cemetery once lost to time that is now a central marker of Haldimand County’s ties to the Underground Railroad and the elaborate tapestry of Black history in the region. “Haldimand has a rich history that has never been told. My husband and I had a farm in the area where most of the freedom seekers settled south of Canfield, so I was familiar with a few families,” said local historian and author Sylvia Weaver, currently writing a book about the
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BEYOND \ Issue 2
BAO Inspector Andrew Reynolds at Street Cemetery
Street Cemetery. She was also the driving force behind a settlement marker honouring black freedom seekers at a public cemetery in the small community in 2017. On the Street family she said, “It was a humble beginning and over the years they used their 10 by 14 log cabin for their 14 children, which served as their kitchen, dining room, sleeping quarters, and a place of worship.”
A child was the first buried at Street Cemetery The first person to be buried at the Street Cemetery was two-year-old
