A Black American Missionary in Canada: The Life and Letters of Lewis Champion Chambers 9780228015536

Table of contents :
Cover
A BLACK AMERICAN MISSIONARY IN CANADA
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Figures
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Maps
Introduction
1 Maryland, Philadelphia, New Jersey, and Dresden (Canada West)
2 Letters from Dresden
3 London, Canada West
4 Letters from London
5 St Catharines and Hamilton, Canada West
6 Letters from St Catharines and Hamilton
7 New Jersey and Philadelphia and Hinterland
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

a b l ac k a m e r i c a n m i s s i o n a ry i n c a n a da

McGill-Queen’s Studies in the History of Religion

Volumes in this series have been supported by the Jackman Foundation of Toronto. Series One: G.A. Rawlyk, Editor 1 Small Differences Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants, 1815–1922 An International Perspective Donald Harman Akenson 2 Two Worlds The Protestant Culture of Nineteenth-Century Ontario William Westfall 3 An Evangelical Mind Nathanael Burwash and the Methodist Tradition in Canada, 1839–1918 Marguerite Van Die 4 The Dévotes Women and Church in Seventeenth-Century France Elizabeth Rapley 5 The Evangelical Century College and Creed in English Canada from the Great Revival to the Great Depression Michael Gauvreau 6 The German Peasants’ War and Anabaptist Community of Goods James M. Stayer 7 A World Mission Canadian Protestantism and the Quest for a New International Order, 1918–1939 Robert Wright 8 Serving the Present Age Revivalism, Progressivism, and the Methodist Tradition in Canada Phyllis D. Airhart 9 A Sensitive Independence Canadian Methodist Women Missionaries in Canada and the Orient, 1881–1925 Rosemary R. Gagan 10 God’s Peoples Covenant and Land in South Africa, Israel, and Ulster Donald Harman Akenson

11 Creed and Culture The Place of English-Speaking Catholics in Canadian Society, 1750–1930 Edited by Terrence Murphy and Gerald Stortz 12 Piety and Nationalism Lay Voluntary Associations and the Creation of an Irish-Catholic Community in Toronto, 1850–1895 Brian P. Clarke 13 Amazing Grace Studies in Evangelicalism in Australia, Britain, Canada, and the United States Edited by George Rawlyk and Mark A. Noll 14 Children of Peace W. John McIntyre 15 A Solitary Pillar Montreal’s Anglican Church and the Quiet Revolution Joan Marshall 16 Padres in No Man’s Land Canadian Chaplains and the Great War Duff Crerar 17 Christian Ethics and Political Economy in North America A Critical Analysis P. Travis Kroeker 18 Pilgrims in Lotus Land Conservative Protestantism in British Columbia, 1917–1981 Robert K. Burkinshaw 19 Through Sunshine and Shadow The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, Evangelicalism, and Reform in Ontario, 1874–1930 Sharon Cook 20 Church, College, and Clergy A History of Theological Education at Knox College, Toronto, 1844–1994 Brian J. Fraser 21 The Lord’s Dominion The History of Canadian Methodism Neil Semple

22 A Full-Orbed Christianity The Protestant Churches and Social Welfare in Canada, 1900–1940 Nancy Christie and Michael Gauvreau 23 Evangelism and Apostasy The Evolution and Impact of Evangelicals in Modern Mexico Kurt Bowen

24 The Chignecto Covenanters A Regional History of Reformed Presbyterianism in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, 1827– 1905 Eldon Hay 25 Methodists and Women’s Education in Ontario, 1836–1925 Johanne Selles 26 Puritanism and Historical Controversy William Lamont

Series Two In memory of George Rawlyk Donald Harman Akenson, Editor 1 Marguerite Bourgeoys and Montreal, 1640–1665 Patricia Simpson 2 Aspects of the Canadian Evangelical Experience Edited by G.A. Rawlyk 3 Infinity, Faith, and Time Christian Humanism and Renaissance Literature John Spencer Hill 4 The Contribution of Presbyterianism to the Maritime Provinces of Canada Edited by Charles H.H. Scobie and G.A. Rawlyk 5 Labour, Love, and Prayer Female Piety in Ulster Religious Literature, 1850–1914 Andrea Ebel Brozyna 6 The Waning of the Green Catholics, the Irish, and Identity in Toronto, 1887–1922 Mark G. McGowan 7 Religion and Nationality in Western Ukraine The Greek Catholic Church and the Ruthenian National Movement in Galicia, 1867–1900 John-Paul Himka 8 Good Citizens British Missionaries and Imperial States, 1870–1918 James G. Greenlee and Charles M. Johnston 9 The Theology of the Oral Torah Revealing the Justice of God Jacob Neusner 10 Gentle Eminence A Life of Cardinal Flahiff P. Wallace Platt

11 Culture, Religion, and Demographic Behaviour Catholics and Lutherans in Alsace, 1750–1870 Kevin McQuillan 12 Between Damnation and Starvation Priests and Merchants in Newfoundland Politics, 1745–1855 John P. Greene 13 Martin Luther, German Saviour German Evangelical Theological Factions and the Interpretation of Luther, 1917–1933 James M. Stayer 14 Modernity and the Dilemma of North American Anglican Identities, 1880–1950 William H. Katerberg 15 The Methodist Church on the Prairies, 1896–1914 George Emery 16 Christian Attitudes towards the State of Israel Paul Charles Merkley 17 A Social History of the Cloister Daily Life in the Teaching Monasteries of the Old Regime Elizabeth Rapley 18 Households of Faith Family, Gender, and Community in Canada, 1760–1969 Edited by Nancy Christie 19 Blood Ground Colonialism, Missions, and the Contest for Christianity in the Cape Colony and Britain, 1799–1853 Elizabeth Elbourne

20 A History of Canadian Catholics Gallicanism, Romanism, and Canadianism Terence J. Fay 21 The View from Rome Archbishop Stagni’s 1915 Reports on the Ontario Bilingual Schools Question Edited and translated by John Zucchi 22 The Founding Moment Church, Society, and the Construction of Trinity College William Westfall 23 The Holocaust, Israel, and Canadian Protestant Churches Haim Genizi 24 Governing Charities Church and State in Toronto’s Catholic Archdiocese, 1850–1950 Paula Maurutto 25 Anglicans and the Atlantic World High Churchmen, Evangelicals, and the Quebec Connection Richard W. Vaudry 26 Evangelicals and the Continental Divide The Conservative Protestant Subculture in Canada and the United States Sam Reimer 27 Christians in a Secular World The Canadian Experience Kurt Bowen 28 Anatomy of a Seance A History of Spirit Communication in Central Canada Stan McMullin 29 With Skilful Hand The Story of King David David T. Barnard 30 Faithful Intellect Samuel S. Nelles and Victoria University Neil Semple 31 W. Stanford Reid An Evangelical Calvinist in the Academy A. Donald MacLeod 32 A Long Eclipse The Liberal Protestant Establishment and the Canadian University, 1920–1970 Catherine Gidney

33 Forkhill Protestants and Forkhill Catholics, 1787–1858 Kyla Madden 34 For Canada’s Sake Public Religion, Centennial Celebrations, and the Re-making of Canada in the 1960s Gary R. Miedema 35 Revival in the City The Impact of American Evangelists in Canada, 1884–1914 Eric R. Crouse 36 The Lord for the Body Religion, Medicine, and Protestant Faith Healing in Canada, 1880–1930 James Opp 37 Six Hundred Years of Reform Bishops and the French Church, 1190–1789 J. Michael Hayden and Malcolm R. Greenshields 38 The Missionary Oblate Sisters Vision and Mission Rosa Bruno-Jofré 39 Religion, Family, and Community in Victorian Canada The Colbys of Carrollcroft Marguerite Van Die 40 Michael Power The Struggle to Build the Catholic Church on the Canadian Frontier Mark G. McGowan 41 The Catholic Origins of Quebec’s Quiet Revolution, 1931–1970 Michael Gauvreau 42 Marguerite Bourgeoys and the Congregation of Notre Dame, 1665–1700 Patricia Simpson 43 To Heal a Fractured World The Ethics of Responsibility Jonathan Sacks 44 Revivalists Marketing the Gospel in English Canada, 1884–1957 Kevin Kee 45 The Churches and Social Order in Nineteenth- and TwentiethCentury Canada Edited by Michael Gauvreau and Ollivier Hubert

46 Political Ecumenism Catholics, Jews, and Protestants in De Gaulle’s Free France, 1940–1945 Geoffrey Adams 47 From Quaker to Upper Canadian Faith and Community among Yonge Street Friends, 1801–1850 Robynne Rogers Healey 48 The Congrégation de Notre-Dame, Superiors, and the Paradox of Power, 1693–1796 Colleen Gray 49 Canadian Pentecostalism Transition and Transformation Edited by Michael Wilkinson 50 A War with a Silver Lining Canadian Protestant Churches and the South African War, 1899–1902 Gordon L. Heath 51 In the Aftermath of Catastrophe Founding Judaism, 70 to 640 Jacob Neusner 52 Imagining Holiness Classic Hasidic Tales in Modern Times Justin Jaron Lewis 53 Shouting, Embracing, and Dancing with Ecstasy The Growth of Methodism in Newfoundland, 1774–1874 Calvin Hollett 54 Into Deep Waters Evangelical Spirituality and Maritime Calvinist Baptist Ministers, 1790–1855 Daniel C. Goodwin 55 Vanguard of the New Age The Toronto Theosophical Society, 1891–1945 Gillian McCann 56 A Commerce of Taste Church Architecture in Canada, 1867–1914 Barry Magrill 57 The Big Picture The Antigonish Movement of Eastern Nova Scotia Santo Dodaro and Leonard Pluta 58 My Heart’s Best Wishes for You A Biography of Archbishop John Walsh John P. Comiskey 59 The Covenanters in Canada Reformed Presbyterianism from 1820 to 2012 Eldon Hay

60 The Guardianship of Best Interests Institutional Care for the Children of the Poor in Halifax, 1850–1960 Renée N. Lafferty 61 In Defence of the Faith Joaquim Marques de Araújo, a Comissário in the Age of Inquisitional Decline James E. Wadsworth 62 Contesting the Moral High Ground Popular Moralists in Mid-TwentiethCentury Britain Paul T. Phillips 63 The Catholicisms of Coutances Varieties of Religion in Early Modern France, 1350–1789 J. Michael Hayden 64 After Evangelicalism The Sixties and the United Church of Canada Kevin N. Flatt 65 The Return of Ancestral Gods Modern Ukrainian Paganism as an Alternative Vision for a Nation Mariya Lesiv 66 Transatlantic Methodists British Wesleyanism and the Formation of an Evangelical Culture in Nineteenth-Century Ontario and Quebec Todd Webb 67 A Church with the Soul of a Nation Making and Remaking the United Church of Canada Phyllis D. Airhart 68 Fighting over God A Legal and Political History of Religious Freedom in Canada Janet Epp Buckingham 69 From India to Israel Identity, Immigration, and the Struggle for Religious Equality Joseph Hodes 70 Becoming Holy in Early Canada Timothy Pearson 71 The Cistercian Arts From the 12th to the 21st Century Edited by Terryl N. Kinder and Roberto Cassanelli 72 The Canny Scot Archbishop James Morrison of Antigonish Peter Ludlow

73 Religion and Greater Ireland Christianity and Irish Global Networks, 1750–1950 Edited by Colin Barr and Hilary M. Carey 74 The Invisible Irish Finding Protestants in the NineteenthCentury Migrations to America Rankin Sherling 75 Beating against the Wind Popular Opposition to Bishop Feild and Tractarianism in Newfoundland and Labrador, 1844–1876 Calvin Hollett 76 The Body or the Soul? Religion and Culture in a Quebec Parish, 1736–1901 Frank A. Abbott 77 Saving Germany North American Protestants and Christian Mission to West Germany, 1945–1974 James C. Enns 78 The Imperial Irish Canada’s Irish Catholics Fight the Great War, 1914–1918 Mark G. McGowan 79 Into Silence and Servitude How American Girls Became Nuns, 1945–1965 Brian Titley 80 Boundless Dominion Providence, Politics, and the Early Canadian Presbyterian Worldview Denis McKim 81 Faithful Encounters Authorities and American Missionaries in the Ottoman Empire Emrah Şahin 82 Beyond the Noise of Solemn Assemblies The Protestant Ethic and the Quest for Social Justice in Canada Richard Allen 83 Not Quite Us Anti-Catholic Thought in English Canada since 1900 Kevin P. Anderson 84 Scandal in the Parish Priests and Parishioners Behaving Badly in Eighteenth-Century France Karen E. Carter

85 Ordinary Saints Women, Work, and Faith in Newfoundland Bonnie Morgan 86 Patriot and Priest Jean-Baptiste Volfius and the Constitutional Church in the Côte-d’Or Annette Chapman-Adisho 87 A.B. Simpson and the Making of Modern Evangelicalism Daryn Henry 88 The Uncomfortable Pew Christianity and the New Left in Toronto Bruce Douville 89 Berruyer’s Bible Public Opinion and the Politics of Enlightenment Catholicism in France Daniel J. Watkins 90 Communities of the Soul A Short History of Religion in Puerto Rico José E. Igartua 91 Callings and Consequences The Making of Catholic Vocational Culture in Early Modern France Christopher J. Lane 92 Religion, Ethnonationalism, and Antisemitism in the Era of the Two World Wars Edited by Kevin P. Spicer and Rebecca Carter-Chand 93 Water from Dragon’s Well The History of a Korean-Canadian Church Relationship David Kim-Cragg 94 Protestant Liberty Religion and the Making of Canadian Liberalism, 1828–1878 James M. Forbes 95 To Make a Village Soviet Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Transformation of a Postwar Ukrainian Borderland Emily B. Baran 96 Disciples of Antigonish Catholics in Nova Scotia, 1880–1960 Peter Ludlow 97 A Black American Missionary in Canada The Life and Letters of Lewis Champion Chambers Edited by Hilary Bates Neary

A Black American Missionary in Canada The Life and Letters of Lewis Champion Chambers

Edited by

h i l a ry bat e s n e a ry

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2022 ISB N ISB N ISB N ISB N

978-0-2280-1446-1 978-0-2280-1447-8 978-0-2280-1553-6 978-0-2280-1554-3

(cloth) (paper) (eP df) (eP UB)

Legal deposit fourth quarter 2022 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Title: A Black American missionary in Canada : the life and letters of Lewis Champion Chambers / edited by Hilary Bates Neary. Names: Chambers, Lewis Champion, author. | Neary, Hilary Bates, 1946– editor. Series: McGill-Queen’s studies in the history of religion. Series two ; 97. Description: Series statement: McGill-Queen’s studies in the history of religion. Series two ; 97 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20220283222 | Canadiana (ebook) 20220283257 | ISBN 9780228014461 (cloth) | IS BN 9780228014478 (paper) | I SB N 9780228015536 (ep df ) | IS BN 9780228015543 (ep u b ) Subjects: l cs h: Chambers, Lewis Champion. | l c sh : African American missionaries—Canada—Correspondence. | l c sh: Personal correspondence. Classification: l cc bv 2813.c43 a 3 2022 | ddc 266.0092—dc23

This book was typeset in 10.5/13 Sabon.

To my siblings, John Patrick Bates and Rosemary Bates Terry, with natural love and affection

Contents

Figures

xiii

Acknowledgments xv Abbreviations

xix

Maps follow page xix Introduction 1

3

Maryland, Philadelphia, New Jersey, and Dresden (Canada West)

13

2

Letters from Dresden

44

3

London, Canada West 95

4

Letters from London 119

5 St Catharines and Hamilton, Canada West

177

6 Letters from St Catharines and Hamilton 197 7

New Jersey and Philadelphia and Hinterland 210 Conclusion Bibliography Index

244 251

259

Figures

0.1 Aerial view of Beth Emanuel and London’s African Methodist Episcopal (later British Methodist Episcopal Church). Photograph by Reubin Kuc | 10 1.1 Bishop Willis Nazrey. Souvenir and programme, Seventieth Anniversary and General Conference, British Methodist Episcopal Church of Canada, Wednesday, 15 September, to Tuesday, 21 September 1926, 35. Archives of Ontario, Alvin D. McCurdy’s Records of Black Churches, b.m.e. : Ontario, Programs and Announcements, F 2076-10-0-33 | 27 1.2 British Methodist Episcopal Church quarterly ticket. Archives of Ontario, Alvin D. McCurdy’s Records of Black Churches, British Methodist Episcopal Church (b.m.e. ): Historical Notes (ca. 1830–1907), F 2076-10-0-3 | 28 2.1 The American Missionary, February 1859. American Missionary Archives, Amistad Research Center, New Orleans, Louisiana | 47 2.2 Chambers’s letter to Whipple, 14 June 1860, Dresden. American Missionary Archives, Amistad Research Center, New Orleans, Louisiana | 84 3.1 Chambers’s British Methodist Episcopal Church on Thames Street, London. London Advertiser, 8 May 1926. Ivey Family London Room, London Public Library | 101 3.2 Chambers’s letter in the London Free Press, 27 July 1861. Ivey Family London Room, London Public Library | 110 4.1 Notice of visit of Dr M.R. Delany to London. London Free Press, 2 March 1861 | 129

xiv

Figures

4.2 Chambers’s letter to Whipple, 14 March 1862, London. American Missionary Association Archives, Amistad Research Center, New Orleans, Louisiana | 151 5.1 Salem Chapel, St Catharines. Wikipedia Commons licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0 deed.en) | 182 7.1 The Christian Recorder. Accessible Archives | 212 7.2 Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, West Chester, Pennsylvania. Photograph by Albert Biles. Chester County Historical Society, West Chester, Pennsylvania | 234

Acknowledgments

This book is inextricably linked to the Chapel Project (earlier the Fugitive Slave Chapel Preservation Project) in London, Ontario, Canada, and I am grateful for the encouragement and support given me by Genet Hodder, its chair; fellow members of its steering committee; and especially its heritage consultant, Nancy Tausky. Michael F. Murphy, with whom I have served both on that committee and on the Historic Sites Committee of the London Public Library Board, has generously shared with me his encyclopaedic knowledge of London’s Black history. George N. Emery, professor emeritus, Department of History, University of Western Ontario, who is researching the Black history of his hometown of Ingersoll, Ontario, has likewise given me the benefit of his extensive research. In Dresden, Ontario, I spent a rewarding day with Marie Carter, who knows more about that community’s Black past than anyone else does. She informed me fully about the geography of Chambers’s time in the area, as we toured fields, river lands, and the twenty-first-century communities that had once hosted his Sabbath schools and preaching places. Black history is on a rising tide of knowledge and interest in Canada, and I have benefited from the work of past and present historians in the field. I acknowledge with thanks the permission granted me by the Amistad Research Center, New Orleans, Louisiana, for use of the letters of Lewis Champion Chambers in the archives of the American Missionary Association. Amistad Research Services staff members have given me indispensable assistance. Elizabeth Mantz of the D.B. Weldon Library, University of Western Ontario, did me and other scholars a great service by purchasing microfilms of the relevant records of the American Missionary Association.

xvi

Acknowledgments

I have also been helped in my work by other archivists and librarians far and wide and am pleased to acknowledge the support of the following additional institutions and repositories: Archives of Ontario (Toronto), Chatham-Kent Land Registry Office, Chatham-Kent Public Library, Hamilton Public Library, London Public Library (especially the Ivey Family London Room), St Catharines Public Library, and the University of Western Ontario (D.B. Weldon Library and its Archives and Special Collections unit). At the eleventh hour my research was greatly enhanced when Mackenzie Snare, library archivist at Wilberforce University, Ohio, generously made available to me the minutes of the annual and general conferences of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the British Methodist Episcopal Church (bmec) for the years covering Chambers’s involvement with those bodies. To my knowledge, the only historian of Canada who had previously consulted this important collection was Donald Simpson. I finished my research and did much of my writing while recovering from a broken arm and during covid-19 shutdowns. I am most grateful to many who were able to address my information needs in those unusual circumstances. I thank especially Wade Hale, deputy Burlington County clerk, Mount Holly, New Jersey, for sending me copies of records relating to Lewis Chambers’s purchase of land in Burlington Township. In trying to locate a drawing or photograph of Lewis Chambers, I contacted all the churches he had served in Philadelphia and its hinterland, and many historical societies in the area. My efforts did not bear fruit – Chambers was a humble man, seemingly lost to art and photography – but I thank all who assisted me in my search. I thank Richard Cornwall for his work on the illustrations included in this book, and Charlie Conway for so ably preparing the maps that supplement my text. At McGill-Queen’s University Press I thank Kyla Madden (senior editor), Kathleen Fraser (managing editor), Elli Stylianou (editorial assistant), and – for many creative suggestions – my estimable copy editor, Angela Wingfield. Writers often seek out readers for their work in progress, and I have been blessed with several who lived with Lewis Chambers and his letters long before my manuscript was ready for publication. I am deeply indebted for the generously shared editorial skills of my husband, Peter; my brother, Jock; and my sister, Rosemary. Friends Genet Hodder and Renée Silberman were always keen to discuss with me the details of Chambers’s well-spent life and to find meaning

Acknowledgments

xvii

in my scholarly interest. I thank them both for their encouragement and commentary. Any errors and omissions in what follows are my own. Lewis Champion Chambers deserves a place in the pantheon of Canadian-American history, and I trust my work will contribute to that.

Abbreviations

ama ame amec ar bai bme bmec ccss cw dcb

fscpp me mec oach

American Missionary Association African Methodist Episcopal African Methodist Episcopal Church Annual Report British American Institute British Methodist Episcopal British Methodist Episcopal Church Colonial Church and School Society Canada West Dictionary of Canadian Biography Fugitive Slave Chapel Preservation Project Methodist Episcopal Methodist Episcopal Church Ontario’s African-Canadian Heritage

The United States of Lewis Champion Chambers. Map by Charlie Conway.

The Canada West of Lewis Champion Chambers. Map by Charlie Conway.

a b l ac k a m e r i c a n m i s s i o n a ry i n c a n a da

Introduction

Lewis Champion Chambers kept his triumphant middle name to himself, almost invariably signing his letters L.C. Chambers or, occasionally, Lewis C. Chambers. Yet his life and correspondence show that he was a champion of many things: his Saviour, his church, and his belief in the inherent worth, achievements, and promising tomorrows for those who shared his complexion.1 “Black Lives Matter” was a phrase for the distant future, but its urgent message was well known to him and his contemporaries on both sides of the Great Lakes, that porous border crossed and re-crossed by African Americans and African Canadians.2 If a screenwriter were to compose a series based on characters in a nineteenth-century “Black Lives Matter” drama, L.C. Chambers would be a logical choice for its dramatis personae. In a life that spanned more than eighty years (c. 1818–1900) he embraced multiple roles, associated with many historical actors, and was a participant in pivotal events. Though he has long been forgotten, from his life much can be learned about the larger Black experience in both Canada and the United States. He merits a place in both Canadian and American memory, and the goal of this book is to provide a scholarly foundation for that overdue recognition. Chambers was born into slavery in Maryland and purchased his freedom from his third owner when he was in his mid-twenties. He

1 “Complexion” is Mary Shadd Cary’s descriptor for caste or race. 2 Harvey Amani Whitfield explores the complexities of identity and national borders for African Americans and African Canadians in his preface to Blacks on the Border.

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A Black American Missionary in Canada

then worked in Philadelphia, where he joined the African Methodist Episcopal Church (amec ), a body formed after white Methodists had insisted on racial separation in congregational worship. While resident in the City of Brotherly Love, he married and in time was the father of eight children. He next purchased land, which he farmed, in New Jersey. In 1854 the threat to Blacks posed by the Fugitive Slave Act, and the prospect of a better life in a freer county, inspired him to lead a party of fourteen family members and friends to Canada West.3 Chambers was ordained a deacon in the Canada District of the amec in 1855 and was engaged by the American Missionary Association (ama ) of New York in 1858 to minister to small groups of rural Blacks in the hinterland of Dresden, Kent County, where he was farming. In 1860 he was ordained as an elder in the newly formed British Methodist Episcopal Church (bmec ). That year he moved his family and farming operation eastward to London in Middlesex County, where he became pastor of the bme church and embraced Blacks in nearby Ingersoll and St Thomas in missionary outreach. The ama wound down its Canada Mission during the American Civil War (1861–65), and Chambers was moved by the bmec to St Catharines in 1863 and to Hamilton in 1866. He returned to the United States with his family in 1868 and thereafter served the ame Church in New Jersey and in Philadelphia and environs. In his long, peripatetic ministry, Chambers manifested evangelical Christianity: he was dedicated, as both promoter and teacher, to Sunday schools for children and adults; he fervently promoted temperance; and, while genuinely welcoming white clergy and worshippers, he staunchly advocated for the Black singularity of the amec . The arc of Chambers’s life typified the experience of many American Blacks who moved to Canada for safety and opportunity in the years leading up to the Civil War and the eventual abolition of

3 Canada West was the name applied to the former Upper Canada in the period of its union (1841–67) with Canada East, the former Lower Canada. The Canadas were united under the Act of Union of 1840, a British statute. When the present-day Canadian federation came into existence on 1 July 1867, Canada West became the province of Ontario, and Canada East the province of Quebec.

Introduction

5

slavery. Their passage to freedom (though not escape from prejudice), their struggles to make new lives in a northern clime, and, for many, their eventual return to a country ravaged by war were widely shared realities. Some of their stories are well known and have been ably narrated by historians, filmmakers, and popular writers. But many others are still waiting to be discovered and told to new audiences. The story of Lewis Champion Chambers is one of them, though he is mentioned in passing in two major surveys of the Black experience in Canada, both dating from 1971: Donald G. Simpson’s doctoral thesis, “Negroes in Ontario from Early Times to 1870,” published in 2005 as Under the North Star: Black Communities in Upper Canada before Confederation (1867); and Robin W. Winks, The Blacks in Canada, a general account with a Canada-wide perspective.4 By contrast, earlier historians almost completely missed Chambers, though their omission is understandable in terms of the sources available to them. The first scholars of the relevant time and place in Canadian Black history were William Renwick Riddell (1852–1945) and Fred Landon (1880–1969). Lawyer, judge, and scholar, Riddell was primarily interested in the legal boundaries of slavery, and the means by which it was abolished.5 Journalist, librarian, and university teacher, Landon wrote extensively on the experience of Blacks in Ontario and laid a solid foundation upon which later historians have been able to build.6 His research focus was on the interplay, in all

4 Simpson’s thesis in history was written at the University of Western Ontario; his book arising from that work was edited by Paul E. Lovejoy of the Harriet Tubman Resource Centre on the African Diaspora, York University, Toronto, and published by Africa World Press of Trenton, New Jersey. Winks’s work was published by Yale University Press; a second edition was brought out by McGill-Queen’s University Press in 1997. 5 See my “William Renwick Riddell: Judge, Ontario Publicist and Man of Letters,” Gazette (Law Society of Upper Canada) XI, no. 3 (September 1977): 144–74. This article is based on my 1977 University of Western Ontario master’s thesis, “William Renwick Riddell: A Bio-bibliographical Study,” which includes a bibliography of Riddell’s publications. 6 Many of Landon’s articles on Black history have been reprinted in Ontario’s African-Canadian Heritage (hereafter oach ), which includes my bibliography of his publications in that field. My general bibliography of his publications appeared in Ontario History 62 (March 1970): 5–16.

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A Black American Missionary in Canada

its dimensions, between southwestern Ontario and the neighbouring parts of the United States (his best known work, published in 1941, is Western Ontario and the American Frontier). By definition, his interest in the Great Lakes region drew him to write about the many people of African descent who traversed the Canadian-American border. In the course of a long career Landon wrote many articles about Black lives in British North America before and during the Civil War. He was drawn to the local and the regional, but his publications have largely stood the test of time. Now, thanks to the opening of local archives and research centres, the microfilming and digitization of both documentary and published collections, and the widespread availability of genealogical information, historians have access to resources that Riddell and Landon could scarcely have imagined. As a result, it is now possible to comprehend Canadian Black history in greater detail. In the case of Lewis Champion Chambers, the sources now available enable understanding of the many aspects of a complex life – such as origins, family, migration, household economy, and spirituality – and facilitate fuller biography. Fortunately for students of Canadian Black history, the work of scholars is complemented by riveting first-hand accounts: the chronicles that William Still collected from those he assisted on the Underground Railroad; the slave narratives that Benjamin Drew published in 1856 after visiting Canada West; the testimonies gathered in 1863 by Samuel Gridley Howe for the Freedmen’s Inquiry Commission (which reported to the Congress of the United States); Josiah Henson’s autobiography (the supposed model for Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom); and Mary Shadd Cary’s many contributions to the Provincial Freeman, published variously in Canada West. To these sources, which jolt the reader into another time, can now be added the letters, gathered and edited in this book, that Lewis Chambers wrote from Canada West to Reverend George Whipple (1805–1876), secretary of the ama in New York.7 His letters offer

7 Whipple was born in Albany, New York. He studied at the Oneida Institute near Utica, New York (the funding for which came from businessmen Arthur and Lewis Tappan), and then at the Lane Theological Seminary near Cincinnati, Ohio, where he joined a group of abolitionist students who left that institution for Oberlin College, Ohio, on grounds of theology and conscience. Ordained as a Congregational minister, he taught at Oberlin, helped found the

Introduction

7

a fascinating record of life in the places where he lived, in a period from which we have few contemporary accounts – and almost none from Black settlers. Chambers writes in rich detail about the people to whom he ministered, his encouragement of Sabbath schools, his development of temperance societies, and the worship services and many meetings he held. The record of prejudices he encountered, and the hard conditions Black newcomers faced in Canada West, as well as the successes of his pastoral life, are both revealing and evocative. In sum, his rough and ready letters are a treasure trove. My research leading to this volume began with an interest in a small and humble chapel, built by members of the ame church on Thames Street in the growing town of London, Canada West, around 1848. It was to this chapel that Chambers came from Dresden just over a decade later. As the street name suggests, the location was close to the south branch of the Thames River; low-lying land in the area was known locally as “the hollow,” an appellation often apparently used with a racist prefix – the malevolent N-word8 – indicative of deep-seated intolerance and rejection in the larger community.9 Many new arrivals lived there in temporary shacks until they had the means to settle on higher ground. As London’s population of Black citizens increased, the chapel served a growing congregation of worshippers with a succession of circuit preachers and resident pastors. The passage of the hated Fugitive Slave Act in the United States in 1850 swelled the number of both fugitives from enslavement and free Blacks seeking refuge in Canada. It has been calculated that when London achieved city status in 1855, possibly as many as five hundred of its more than ten thousand residents were Black. The following year, the amec in Canada severed its affiliation with its American parent church (with the latter’s blessing) and was reborn as the bmec . Thereafter, its congregation in London began to outgrow the clapboard chapel

Western Evangelical Missionary Society, and in 1846 joined the newly formed ama, ultimately becoming the corresponding secretary for its foreign department. For many years Whipple also edited the American Missionary, the ama monthly journal. 8 Shown elsewhere in this book, in quotations from historical sources and in keeping with an established convention, as n——. 9 Landon, “Fugitive slaves in London before 1860,” in Ontario’s AfricanCanadian Heritage, 143.

8

A Black American Missionary in Canada

on Thames Street. In 1864 its local trustees bought land about a kilometre away on Grey Street and built a more substantial brick church, Beth Emanuel, which was dedicated on 16 May 1869. The property on Thames Street was sold that same year; the abandoned chapel then ceased to be a place of worship, becoming instead a domestic dwelling. Indeed, it remained a family home for over 130 years. For students of history there are perennial questions, such as: When did such and such a fact become known? Or when did a certain piece of knowledge disappear from human memory? In the case of the chapel on Thames Street in London, the extant historical record suggests that its original identity was largely forgotten for many years. Unusually, the curious and informed Fred Landon wrote nothing about the building and its significance. In 1926, however, the journalist E.J. Carty contributed an article entitled “Fugitive Slave Chapel Is Steeped Deep in History” to a series on landmarks of London, published in the London Advertiser. Carty described the connection of the modest building to slavery, the Underground Railroad, and London’s Black history.10 A photograph of the building accompanied the article but, unfortunately, with no date or provenance. It is the earliest image we have of the former church. In 1986 the London Public Library Board erected a plaque on the house at 275 Thames Street to recognize its historic value to London and Londoners. Public knowledge about that site was thus documented and became more widely known. The building was featured on walking tours and in brochures about London’s relationship to slavery and the passage of freedom seekers by way of the Underground Railroad.11 Although not yet formally designated

10 London Advertiser, 8 May 1926. Carty was not the first to use the term fugitive to describe the chapel. Goodspeed’s History of the County of Middlesex similarly referred to it (357). It is, however, a narrow term, omitting the fact that many Blacks who worshipped there had come to Canada as free people or were born there. 11 See London Public Library Board, Walking Guide to Historic Sites. For all sites marked to date by the Historic Sites Committee, see http://www. londonpubliclibrary.ca/research/local-history/local-historic-sites (accessed 19 May 2020). The archives of the Historic Sites Committee are in the holdings of the Ivey Family London Room, London Public Library, 251 Dundas Street, London, Ontario, Canada.

Introduction

9

for its heritage significance by the City of London, there was local support for making such legal designation. Sometime in the early 2000s the property was sold to Aboutown Transportation, a numbered company with headquarters nearby. In March 2013, Aboutown applied to the City of London for a permit to demolish the building at 275 Thames Street. Public opposition to the company’s request was quickly voiced and came not only from heritage organizations and activists, local politicians, and city staff but also from Londoners at large, some of whom may not have been previously aware of the significance of the building. Once informed, they did not want to see the destruction of the earliest surviving structure in London relating to the city’s history of Black settlement. On 3 December 2013, following a spirited public campaign to preserve what became known as the Fugitive Slave Chapel, the City of London designated the building, thereby saving it from destruction. Some stories about heritage preservation efforts in London – and Ontario and the rest of Canada − do have happy endings. Following the designation, arrangements were made by the City of London, Aboutown, and Beth Emanuel to move the chapel to an empty lot on Grey Street, adjacent to and owned by that church. Funds raised for that purpose from generous Londoners paid for the move, and the city contributed a new foundation on which the chapel would rest, with additional funds to be applied to protection against the elements. On 12 November 2014, in a well-publicized event, the small and humble house of worship was moved to the new site beside its daughter church. In the following months many interested citizens, heritage activists, and members of Beth Emanuel Church met to plan the chapel’s future. Ultimately they resolved to restore the building to its original configuration and build an addition that would enable it to become a learning place about slavery and its fraught legacy, the Underground Railroad, and the history of London’s Black community. Thus, the Fugitive Slave Chapel Preservation Project (fscpp ) was born, with the objective of serving Londoners – school groups in particular – and visitors to the city.

10

A Black American Missionary in Canada

Figure 0.1 | London’s African Methodist Episcopal Church (later British Methodist Episcopal Church), right, at its Grey Street location, awaiting its next mission. Otherwise known as the Fugitive Slave Chapel, it is seen next to Beth Emanuel, its daughter church.

I have been involved in this quest at many times and in several capacities. I am a member of the Historic Sites Committee of the London Public Library Board, although not when the site of the amec was first recognized with a plaque (unveiled on 11 August 1986). As a member, I have been involved in the committee’s work in publicizing the many sites recognized and in developing a section of the library’s website devoted to our activities. I was also active in the publication of the committee’s 2005 Walking Guide to London’s places of historical interest. When the demolition permit was requested, I worked with Don Menard, the city’s heritage planner, to research the history of the

Introduction

11

site and church as a prelude to designation. Although I was not in the first group of Londoners who gathered to envision the future of the relocated building, I did join the fscpp early on, working with its restoration committee to help tear away time’s layers, inside and out, in order to return the building to its original design. The fscpp worked in many directions: the development of architectural plans for restoration and an addition; fundraising; publicity and local awareness; archival development; connecting with other Black historical and educational organizations; and governance. I have been active in many of those activities, but most of all I have wanted to understand and research the history of the building and its people so that the goal of the site to become a learning centre would have a foundation of documented history on which to build. It was in researching the history of the amec − the first denomination that ministered to free and fugitive Blacks in Upper Canada (later Canada West) − that I first learned about Chambers and soon found my way to the letters he wrote to George Whipple. Those letters are now in the holdings of the ama Archives housed at the Amistad Research Center at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, a huge document collection, most of it microfilmed and thus readily accessible. I began my work for this volume by borrowing on interlibrary loan the two reels of microfilm relating to the ama Canada Mission. From these reels I transcribed the Chambers-to-Whipple correspondence, my effort being greatly helped when the D.B. Weldon Library at the University of Western Ontario acquired copies of the reels in question to enrich its already extensive resources for the study of Black history. In May 2017, I gave a presentation (“Rev. Lewis Chambers’ London Ministry to Blacks”), based on my findings, in the Terrific Tales of London & Area series at the London Public Library. While I was thus busily engaged in understanding the history of a building and its people, the fscpp was foundering in its goal of restoring the chapel and raising funds to develop a learning centre. The challenge was to determine a governance model in which both that goal and the current needs of Beth Emanuel Church could be achieved. An impasse of sorts had been reached, but, miracle dictu, a way forward was found when the bmec generously offered the chapel to the Fanshawe Pioneer Village in London, an openair museum of thirty-three buildings dating from the early years

12

A Black American Missionary in Canada

of Middlesex County. In September 2021 the board of trustees of Fanshawe Pioneer Village agreed to accept this gift, subject to legal clearance and requisite financial backing. At the time of writing, the fscpp, renamed the Chapel Project, was working with the Fanshawe board, the leadership of the bmec , and community partners to serve the cause of a notable benefaction. This book germinated in my curiosity about a Christian community with very deep roots, planted first on a small piece of land on Thames Street and then transplanted to Grey Street in London, Ontario. One of its gardeners, Lewis Champion Chambers, had begun life enslaved in Maryland, chosen freedom in Canada West, and then sustained the community with his nurturing ministry. The more I learned about him and his time as a missionary, the more I wanted to document and write about his whole life: his beginnings in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey; his sojourn in several communities in Canada West; and his later life back in the United States, mainly in Philadelphia and vicinity. That is my purpose in the work that follows. Chambers’s letters form the backbone of this book, which alternates the chapters giving contextual information about his places of residence and ministry in Canada West with the chapters incorporating the connected correspondence, with annotations. These chapters, six in number, are followed by an account of his life and ministry after his return to the United States. In a separate conclusion I offer an assessment of Chambers’s place in African American and Canadian history.

1

Maryland, Philadelphia, New Jersey, and Dresden (Canada West)

Lewis Champion Chambers was born in Cecil County, Maryland, ca. 1818, to William and Hannah Chambers and was brought up in and near Port Deposit, Havre de Grace, and Elkton in that state of the union.1 He recalled: “[I was] bought and sold three times before I was ten years old,”2 but he somehow acquired education and training. Recognizing Chambers’s abilities, his last owner, William Little of Nottingham, md, gave him the superintendence of his farm for eight years and then sold him his freedom in 1844 for $1,250. Considering that in 1850 Little valued his real estate at $4,000, the price he extracted from Chambers for manumission was high.3 Though born into a Presbyterian family, Chambers joined the Methodist Episcopal Church (mec ) as a young man and was licensed to preach as an exhorter. His chosen church had its origin in the outreach to North America of the version of Christianity

1 Chambers disclosed some details of his life in an interview he gave to the American Freedmen’s Inquiry Commission in 1863, published in Blassingame, Slave Testimony, 412–14. More details can be found in articles written about him and in the letters he wrote to the amec weekly newspaper, The Christian Recorder (hereafter Recorder), after his return to the United States in 1868. The names of his parents were recorded in the licence for his marriage in 1893 to Elizabeth Drowden. This and other genealogical data can be found by searching Ancestry.com. Elkton is the seat of Cecil County, and Havre de Grace and Port Deposit are on the west and east bank respectively of the Susquehanna River as it flows into Chesapeake Bay. 2 “Facts for the People,” Recorder, 27 June 1889. 3 1850 United States Federal Census: District 7, Cecil, Maryland; Roll M432_290; page 197A; image 398.

14

A Black American Missionary in Canada

preached by John Wesley (1703–1791), an Anglican divine who attracted a following and attempted to reform the established Church of England. In time this reform effort led to a breakaway movement – Methodism – which differed from the Church of England in its emphasis on personal conversion, the biblical assurance of salvation, and an intimate organizational structure. In the places where Chambers lived in Canada West, Methodism had several branches, with Wesleyan Methodists, Episcopal Methodists, Bible Christians, New Connexion Methodists, and Primitive Methodists all claiming adherents. As a free man, having moved to Philadelphia with a recommendation in hand from his former church elder, Chambers considered joining Zoar Methodist Episcopal Church on Brown Street.4 Although Zoar itself was an African church, Chambers had reservations about casting his lot with a denomination that had not publicly taken a stand against slavery. In a brief autobiographical sketch he wrote for the Christian Recorder many years later, he remembered: “I prayed to God to direct me and I would never join a church connected with the whites. So I joined the a.m.e. Church in the fall of ’44, and studied the form of Discipline of the church and eight months after they licensed me to preach and I commenced to work as a Sabbath-school worker in the church.”5 In October 1845 in Baltimore, Maryland, Lewis married Ann Maria, daughter of Elvina J. and William Harris.6 The couple settled in Philadelphia, where Chambers worked in a “chemical establishment” (the city was well known for its production of paints and pharmaceuticals, carpets and textiles, and a growing printing

4 For an historical plaque commemorating the first site of Zoar Church, see “African Zoar Methodist Episcopal Church Historical Marker,” Explore pa History, http://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId=1-A-F6 (accessed 24 May 2020). 5 Recorder, 19 April 1877. 6 Taken from an obituary of Sister Anna M. Chambers in Recorder, 20 March 1890. The Baltimore Sun of 3 October 1845, on page 2, noted: “On the 2d inst. by Rev. John Jordon, Rev. Lewis Chambers, of Philadelphia, to Miss Ann Maria Brown, of this city.” Chambers was not yet ordained, and the genealogical record has not explained the discrepancy in Ann Maria’s surname.

Maryland, Philadelphia, New Jersey, and Dresden

15

industry). He also “acquired a great deal of information”7 and continued his work in the amec . Those latter two pursuits – selfeducation and the practice and sharing of his religion – stayed with him for the rest of his life. In addition to acquiring practical knowledge, Chambers took a special interest in the history and politics of slavery. He claimed: “I did not know my own condition until I read ‘Jay’s Inquiry.’”8 William Jay (1789–1858) was a noted jurist, a founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and an advocate for emancipation, temperance, and pacifism. In 1835 he had published Inquiry into the Character and Tendency of the American Colonization, and American AntiSlavery Societies. In this influential work Jay “exposed the cruel character of American slavery, the beastly degradation, physical and moral, to which it condemned the blacks, the horrors of the interstate slave trade,” and much else. He maintained that the goal of the colonization societies, which were flourishing at the time, was really to rid the South of free Blacks, who were considered a social nuisance, and he argued that “emancipation could be accomplished with safety, and that the real danger to the country lay in the continuation of slavery.”9 The issues that Jay explored would concern Chambers throughout his life, as his letters and professional activities readily attest. Membership in the amec answered a deep human need in Lewis Chambers and led him to a life of service in both the United States and British North America. The amec had its origin in Philadelphia when Blacks were denied full freedom to worship and to minister as equals in local Methodist Episcopal churches. Established as a separate denomination in 1816, the amec had spread through Pennsylvania and Maryland, into the New England states, west into Ohio, and north to Canada by the time of Chambers’s involvement. The path to ordination as an elder in the church was long and involved detailed study. A candidate advanced through increasingly responsible roles: from lowly exhorter to licentiate to deacon to elder. Progress from one role to another might require the mastery of particular works of theology and church history, Bible study, preaching skills, and leadership in Sabbath schools. A positive assessment

7 Blassingame, Slave Testimony, 413. 8 Ibid. 9 Tuckerman, William Jay, 59.

16

A Black American Missionary in Canada

of a candidate’s character and accomplishments by both local and conference personnel was required before a recommendation for advancement could be made; one to four years of experience at each level was likewise expected.10 Chambers was licensed to preach in the amec by Rev. John Boggs in 1845.11 (Years earlier, Boggs had been the first minister in his church to work as a missionary in Liberia, and perhaps he passed on some of his missionary fervour to his acolyte. For the rest of his life, Chambers was hungry for news of his church’s outreach to the African continent.) In managing the farm of William Little and being able to purchase his freedom for such a hefty sum, Chambers had demonstrated an ability to work hard and save money. He was likewise thrifty while employed at the chemical establishment in Philadelphia and on 7 March 1850 was able to purchase about four acres of land from Henry C. Deacon of Burlington Township, New Jersey, for $425. The property was located “on the road leading from Burlington to Mount Holly,”12 a right of way running parallel to the Burlington and Mount Holly Railroad, which had opened the previous year. Today Burlington Township is a suburb of greater Philadelphia, on the east side of the Delaware River that separates the states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Soon after Chambers had purchased his land, part of the rural township in which his property was located was annexed by the city of Burlington, which was fast becoming a manufacturing centre. Chambers was in an ideal location for raising produce to feed his family and to market to a growing urban population nearby.

10 For the specific requirements of the ame and bme churches see African Methodist Episcopal Church, The Doctrine and Discipline; and Minter, The Doctrine and Discipline. These publications postdate the period when Chambers trained for ministry, but Methodist practice in relation to church management had been established during Wesley’s lifetime. 11 This information is included in “Facts for the People,” which Chambers contributed to the 27 June 1889 issue of the Recorder. 12 Transfer of land in Burlington Township in 1850 from Henry C. Deacon & wife to Lewis C. Chambers, Burlington County Land Records, book Y4, 690.

Maryland, Philadelphia, New Jersey, and Dresden

17

When the federal census was taken in early September 1850, the Deacon and Chambers families were neighbours and enumerated on the same page. Chambers was described in the census as being a farmer, aged thirty-one; his wife, Ann Maria, was listed as being aged thirty. According to this same source, their daughter Josephine, born in Pennsylvania, was three years old, and her sister Angella, born in New Jersey, was one month old. Everyone listed in the household, including an eighteen-year-old labourer, Isaac Baienard (like Chambers and his wife, a Maryland native), was Black.13 Henry C. Deacon had acquired his own 180-acre farm on the road from Burlington to Mount Holly in 1834. He was both a farmer and a surveyor. A historian offers this description of his family: “The Deacons may safely be classed among the thrifty, industrious, and judicious agriculturists of Burlington County.”14 Henry’s wife, Elizabeth, came from a family of Quakers, a Christian sect well represented on both sides of the lower Delaware River with many members who supported emancipation and gave assistance to those travelling on the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad was the name given to the transportation network of conductors, stations, stationmasters, and safe houses that facilitated the movement of fugitives fleeing the slave-holding South to northern – and Canadian – freedom destinations. An astute judge of character, Chambers had settled his family near congenial neighbours. Within two weeks of the visit of the 1850 census enumerator to homes in Burlington County, the United States Congress passed a law – ultimately the Fugitive Slave Act − that threatened both Black Americans and those who cared for their welfare. The new legislation, approved by President Millard Fillmore, required the return of escaped slaves to their masters; in practice, this meant that many free Blacks were rounded up and trafficked back to slave-holding states for the profit of slave-catchers. The Chambers

13 Ancestry.com, 1850 United States Federal Census, New Jersey, Burlington Township, Burlington County, 61–2. Henry Deacon is enumerated on page 60 (family #90), and data on the Deacon and Chambers household (family #93) is recorded on page 61. 14 Woodward, History of Burlington, 167–8.

18

A Black American Missionary in Canada

family was living near a major route on the Underground Railroad, and, following the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, traffic on this exit seemingly exploded. The exact number of those who found escape is not recorded, but the missionary Hiram Wilson calculated that, within three months of the passage of the Act, at least three thousand Black refugees had arrived in Canada.15 Chambers would have been keenly aware of all this. Although he had made his own way out of Maryland, in Philadelphia − the City of Brotherly Love − he would certainly have encountered many fellow African Americans in transit over the Underground Railroad. He would also have known citizens, both white and Black, who assisted their journeys, the ame churches in Philadelphia being well established sanctuaries for freedom seekers. By friendship or reputation, he would have connected in this period with both William Still (1821–1902), a Black member of Zoar Church, who supported runaways and kept records of their personal histories, and Harriet Tubman (d. 1913), who escorted countless Blacks to freedom. (On 1 January 1878 Chambers introduced Still at an Emancipation Day celebration in Philadelphia,16 and although he moved to St Catharines, Canada West, several years after Tubman had left there, Chambers may have met her when they were both living in Philadelphia.)17 The increased flow of fugitives passing through his New Jersey neighbourhood would have involved Chambers variously. Like sympathetic Christians generally, he may have offered support and shelter to those in need. As a member of the amec already drawn to ministry, he would no doubt have been concerned about the spiritual welfare of persecuted and hunted souls. Likewise, his growing interest in and understanding of politics may have led him to a mixture of despair for his country and a resolve to work toward the abolition of slavery in the United States. First and foremost, however,

15 American Missionary Association, Annual Report (New York: ama , 1851), 32. (Hereafter, ama , ar .) 16 Times (Philadelphia, pa ; hereafter Times), 2 January 1878, 4. 17 For an overview of the history of the Underground Railroad in Philadelphia see Okur, “Underground Railroad in Philadelphia,” 537–57. For Tubman’s life see the entry on Harriet Ross by Owen Thomas in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography (hereafter dcb ), http://www.biographi.ca/ en/bio.php?BioId=41802 (accessed 24 March 2020).

Maryland, Philadelphia, New Jersey, and Dresden

19

Chambers would have had reason to fear for the safety of his own family at the hands of slave-catchers with quotas to fill. Close as he was to the comparative safety of Pennsylvania, New Jersey did not have an unblemished record of supporting abolitionist movements or resisting previous fugitive slave acts.18 Perhaps a combination of the above coalesced into a decision to move his family to Canada. From his farming enterprise Chambers had “accumulated a little means – some 6 or 700 dollars,” and he used this to bring fourteen people (thirteen of whom he supported) with him from Burlington Township, New Jersey, to Dresden, Canada West. Nowhere in his surviving interviews or letters does he explain either the decision to emigrate or the route travelled; nor does he list the names of those who accompanied him. Based on surviving sources, we can surmise that this number included his wife, Ann Maria; a son (never named); daughters Josephine, Angella, and Carthagenia; his mother, Hannah; probably his brother George and wife Rebecca; a sister possibly also named Rebecca; and other members of his and Ann Maria’s family. In all likelihood, the party arrived in British North America on 31 October 1854.19 Within a year of reaching Canada West, Chambers was ordained a deacon in the amec , and in 1860 he became an elder in the newly formed bmec .20

d r e s d e n , c a n ada wes t Some of the “little means” that Chambers had accumulated, possibly augmented by the sale of his land in Burlington Township, would have more than covered the passage of his party by “overground” railway to New York City and then to Niagara, a distance of 450 miles (724 km). They could then have transported their goods and chattels on the recently completed Great Western Railway from the Niagara Peninsula for 168 miles (270 km) to Thamesville, Kent County, hiring wagons for the remaining few miles to Dresden. Alternatively, once in Canada, Chambers and his party (who possibly

18 For the history of New Jersey’s complicated approach to slavery, see Gigantino, Ragged Road to Abolition, and Hodges, Black New Jersey. 19 This can be discerned from various letters Chambers wrote to George Whipple. 20 amec , Canada District, minutes, 1855, 4; bmec minutes, 1860, 4.

20

A Black American Missionary in Canada

first stopped in Hamilton)21 could have taken a steamship via the Welland Canal, Lake Erie, and the Detroit River to Windsor, then a smaller craft up Lake St Clair and the St Clair and Sydenham rivers to Wallaceburg, where the Sydenham River (commonly then called Big Bear Creek) provided easy access to Dresden in the Township of Camden and Gore, Kent County.22 Land along the Sydenham River had much to recommend it. Before being opened up for agriculture, the area was known for its forests of hardwood trees, much of them destined to be felled and the raw logs exported abroad,23 or sawn into lumber boards for frame buildings, or turned into furniture and barrel staves. The local soil is alluvial, fertile, and ideal for cultivation. Non-Indigenous settlement in Camden and Gore Township began upriver at Dawn Mills in the mid-1820s and, in the decades before the Chambers family arrived in 1854, had spread downstream to the village of Dresden, where the British American Institute (bai ) – a school teaching skills to Black labourers, confusingly often called the Dawn Institute – held sway. With its help, free and formerly enslaved Blacks had been moving into Camden for many years. When the abolitionist

21 A possible detour to Hamilton en route to Dresden can be inferred from Ann Maria Chambers’s obituary in the Recorder, 20 March 1890, but I have found no further evidence about such a stopover. 22 Rail and steamboat routes are given in the Canada Directory for 1857–58, 910–32. I am indebted to Marie Carter for reminding me of the navigability of the Sydenham River in this period and its role in transporting lumber out of the area, and people into it. In 1852 former slave Henry Bibb, founder of Canada’s first Black newspaper, Voice of the Fugitive, and a director of the Refugee Home Society in Essex County, offered William Still (archivist of the Underground Railroad) helpful advice on the “most direct and cheapest route from Philadelphia to Canada West” (see his letter to Still of 15 January 1852, printed in Ripley, The Black Abolitionist Papers, vol. 2, 204). In 1861 Parker Theophilus Smith moved his family by a variation of that route from Philadelphia to Dresden (see Nina Reid-Maroney’s “Tracing Intellectual Migration,” in Ebanda de b’Beri, Reid-Maroney, and Wright, The Promised Land, 115). 23 In 1851 Josiah Henson proudly travelled to England to market blackwalnut logs from the area at the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All the Nations.

Maryland, Philadelphia, New Jersey, and Dresden

21

Benjamin Drew visited early in 1855 to interview fugitives for his North-Side View of Slavery, he reported that Dresden itself had a population of about a hundred whites and seventy Blacks. But he also calculated that the Black population of the entire township, including both Dresden and Dawn Mills, might be in the order of five hundred.24 By the time a census was taken in January 1861, the Black population of the Township of Camden and Gore had risen to 669.25 Chambers may not have explained to posterity exactly why he moved to Canada West, but his choice of Dresden as a place to relocate his family is easily understood. He intended to continue farming, the area offered good arable land, and he had the means to purchase a modest lot. The local community was expanding in population and economic opportunity, and Blacks were contributing to both in growing numbers. A year after Chambers’s arrival, the Provincial Freeman, a newspaper for all complexions published in nearby Chatham, gave this glowing account of the state of affairs in Dresden: We observed with no little pleasure, during the past two weeks, the large amount of business that has been done in the Village of Dresden, c.w. The wheat merchants seem to have about as much as they could do. We noticed as many as four sail vessels and one steamer lying at the different wharves at one time, and the streets pretty well thronged with teams, bringing produce from different parts of the county, to be shipped. A number of new-comers have arrived of late, both colored and white. Several new buildings are going up, and preparations are being made to erect a large Flouring Mill, by Wm. Whipper, Esq. Mr.

24 Benjamin Drew, North-Side View of Slavery, 308, 311. Drew was a Boston abolitionist who was supported by John Jewett, publisher of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and by the Canadian Anti-Slavery Society, to report on the lives of fugitives who had fled to Canada. In The Valley of the Lower Thames (313), Fred Coyne Hamel notes that the Sydenham River in Dresden was “deep enough to allow vessels of 300 tons to load at its banks.” 25 Wayne, “The Black Population of Canada West,” 73. These population numbers are based on the original manuscript schedules, not on the published record.

22

A Black American Missionary in Canada

J.H. Charity’s new Store is open, and doing well. The Baptists are preparing to build a Meeting-house – while a number of Village Lots have been purchased of late, which we hope, will soon have fine buildings on them.26 Even before Chambers arrived in Kent County, he was likely well aware of the presence of the bai in Dresden and of the support it had been designed to give newly arrived Black migrants in need of marketable skills. Founded in 1842 by former slave Josiah Henson and white missionary Hiram Wilson (who had been ministering in Canada for some time),27 the institute had achieved much but of

26 The Provincial Freeman, 3 November 1855. William Whipper had also moved to Dresden from Philadelphia, and his residence likely overlapped with that of the Chambers family. Later, when he and Chambers had both returned to the United States, they served together on the amec ’s publication committee there. For details of Whipper’s land holding and business career in Dresden, see Marie Carter’s chapter, “William Whipper’s Lands along the Sydenham,” in Ebanda de b’Beri, Reid-Maroney, and Wright, Promised Land, 73–90. 27 Former slave Josiah Henson (1789–1883) had made his way to Upper Canada in 1830, and to Dresden in 1842, where he co-founded the bai . A replica of his house is featured at the Ontario Heritage Trust historic site in Dresden. For an account of his life see his dcb entry by William H. Pease and Jane H. Pease, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/henson_josiah_11E. html (accessed 6 June 2020). For Henson and “Uncle Tom,” see Henson, An Autobiography of the Reverend Josiah Henson. Chambers would have known Henson and preached to the congregation that met at the institute, but he only mentioned him once in his letters, and then disparagingly. Referring to the death of a Henson granddaughter from consumption, Chambers observed in his letter of 30 May 1860 that “[s]he had not the best example set before her.” Hiram Wilson (1803–1864), like George Whipple, belonged to the group of abolitionist students who left the Oneida Institute for the Lane Theological Seminary. From there Wilson went to Oberlin College, where he took a degree in theology. Ordained in the Congregational Church, he migrated to Upper Canada in 1836 to minister to Blacks and came to know their settlements well. Sponsored by the American Anti-Slavery Society to establish schools in the province, he partnered with Josiah Henson and James Canning Fuller to found the bai in Dresden and was its administrator for many years. He was

Maryland, Philadelphia, New Jersey, and Dresden

23

late had fallen into neglect. After touring the 300-acre site in 1855 with its manager (since 1852), John Scoble, Benjamin Drew wrote an account of what he had seen, describing dereliction and wasted resources. Local Blacks, however, hoped that the institute’s industrial and educational purposes could be revived. Usually referred to as “the Dawn” in Chambers’s letters, the institute had earlier been closely associated with the ame church, of which Josiah Henson had been a member, and its buildings and grounds were used by adherents for worship and camp meetings before they built their first church in Dresden, ca. 1862–63.28 Fine land, good people, and an active church: these were compelling factors behind Chambers’s decision to settle in Dresden. It is possible that he initially farmed in the area as a tenant, for it was not until 5 March 1858 that he purchased land – twenty acres of the northwest part of Lot 3, Concession 6, Camden and Gore Township − from George Peate for $700.29 The property was just east of Dresden, below but not bordering one of the sinuous curves of the Sydenham River, and slightly west of Dawn Mills.

also supported for a time there by the ama and wrote many letters to Whipple about the condition of Blacks in Canada. Wilson moved to St Catharines in 1850, where he maintained a mission for fugitives, often in partnership with Harriet Tubman. He also ministered to mariners working on ships in the Welland Canal. He deserves an entry in the dcb . 28 The term adherent is used here to describe supporters of a bme church, as opposed to those who became formal members of the same. The 1864–65 County of Kent Gazetteer listed the churches in Dresden, including “Episcopal Methodist Church (colored), size 35x40, Rev. Josephus O’Banion” (sometimes spelled O’Banyoun or Obanyon), p. 81. Rev. O’Banyoun served the bmec in many places and edited its journal, Missionary Messenger, for several years. See Donald G. Simpson, Under the North Star, 97. In 1884 many of the bme churches reunited with the amec . O’Banyoun was active in the new configuration and was elected secretary of the first Ontario conference the following year. See Richard Wright, Centennial Encyclopedia, 296–97. In 1859 Henson reunited with the bmec and “was received as a local member of the Conference” (bmec minutes, 1859, 5). 29 Kent County Land Records for Lot 3, Concession 6, Township of Camden and Gore. (Gore here actually refers to the northern oblong – not gore-shaped – section of the township that was once part of Lambton County.)

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A Black American Missionary in Canada

His neighbours at this location, like the population of Camden and Gore generally, were a mixture of Black and white settlers. Lot 3 in Concession 6 of the township had likely not been farmed extensively before Chambers purchased his portion. In 1848 it had been sold by the Canada Company (which controlled vast tracts of land in the western peninsula of the former Upper Canada and was promoting settlement there) to William Griffis et al. (possibly a local farmer; a man by that name was farming north of the Sydenham River on part of Lot 4 in Concession 8 at the time of the 1861 census). Griffis in turn sold the land, in 1853, to Archibald Fletcher, a merchant living in Blenheim.30 Fletcher subdivided the lot and then sold Chambers’s future twenty acres to George Peate, a tailor. This chronology suggests speculation rather than husbandry, and Chambers may well have purchased land of which little had been cleared, though this cannot be corroborated in the absence of data from local assessment rolls, which no longer exist. As well as arranging for a place to live and farm, Chambers would no doubt have made haste to present certificates on behalf of his family from their church in New Jersey to the pastor serving the amec congregation in Dresden so that they could be received into the local worshipping fold. He would likewise have presented his credentials as a licentiate in the church, ready to preach on invitation of the elder, teach in Sabbath schools, and make pastoral visits to families. In the event, he must have fulfilled those duties with energy and grace, for when the Canada Conference of the amec met in Chatham, 21−30 July 1855, he was ordained as a local deacon.31

30 Fletcher was a partner in Connor and Fletcher’s General Store in Blenheim, Harwich Township, Kent County. It dealt in dry goods, hardware, groceries, liquor, and produce (Canada Directory, 62). Before moving to London, Chambers had sold that land to Wesley D. Fletcher, a Chatham clerk, who had witnessed the transaction between Archibald Fletcher and George Peate in 1857. Fletcher sold the property in 1862 to Hiram Dolph, a local farmer. George Peate was listed as a tailor in the County of Kent Gazetteer and General Business Directory for 1864–65, 73. 31 ame , Canada District, minutes, 1855, 12. At that conference and before his ordination as deacon, Chambers had first been received “as a Local Preacher of the Philadelphia Conference, in good standing” on the recommendation of Bishop Nazrey (4).

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That gathering was a momentous one for the amec in Canada, thanks to a motion, introduced by Benjamin Steward, who had just been ordained an elder (although he had already served the church in that capacity in Trenton, New Jersey).32 His motion, which was passed unanimously, called for the creation of a separate Canadian church: Whereas, We, the members of the Canada Annual Conference of the a.m.e. Church, now in session, in the Town of Chatham, C. W., seeing the great disadvantages under which we labour, by not having a Discipline, in conformity with the laws of the Province in which we live; therefore, be it Resolved, — That it is our indispensable duty to have a book of Discipline, in accordance to the Laws of Her Most Gracious Majesty, under whose sceptre we enjoy our rights as men; and that we do hereby petition the General Conference to set us apart as a separate body.33 When the next General Conference of the amec was held in Cincinnati, Ohio, in May 1856, the resolution from Canada was reported favourably, whereupon, after much debate, the Canadian adherents were duly authorized “to organize a separate, distinct and independent Church.”34 With a gathering at the house of “Sister Taylor” in Chatham on 29 September of the same year, the Canada Conference of the amec came to an end. To advise on governance for the new church, the meeting formed a committee that quickly recommended episcopal leadership – that is, direction by bishops in the manner of the amec – and the name British Methodist Episcopal Church. This advice was accepted, along with a change to article 23 of the discipline of the mother church, which, with amendments, would remain in force in Canada.35 In the revised article 23, loyalty

32 See Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, vol. 2, 485n12, for a biographical sketch of Benjamin Steward. His surname was often spelled “Stuart” or “Stewart.” 33 ame , Canada District, minutes, 1855, 10. 34 Payne, History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, 367. 35 At its Chatham meeting the bmec made other amendments to its discipline to adapt to Canadian conditions and took up subscriptions to finance a print edition that was made available to church members at a low price. It continued to amend its discipline at sessions of its quadrennial general

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to the United States was replaced by allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Victoria.36 Having completed this work, those assembled then elected Bishop Willis Nazrey, who had lived near Chatham for several years, as the first bishop of the bmec .37 Present for this historic occasion was Bishop Daniel Payne, who had presided over the amec in Canada for many years and had attended the conferences held in Chatham in July 1855 and in Cincinnati in May 1856. In a two-volume history of the amec published in 1891, he explained the rationale of Benjamin Steward’s resolution and the support it commanded for a “friendly divorce.” That support had come from church members whose families had exited the United States, many of whom had “emigrated to escape the persecutions of the ‘Fugitive Slave Law’” and wanted to leave behind institutional relationships with the republic. They rejected the distinction imposed by the word African, partly because British law (as opposed to practice) did not discriminate on the basis of race and also because many immigrant Blacks had taken white spouses who did not feel welcome in a church defined by complexion.38

conferences. A trade edition was eventually compiled by W.T. Minter. See his Doctrine and Discipline. 36 ame , Canada District, minutes, 1855, 14. 37 Nazrey (ca. 1808–1875) was born in Virginia, a free man. He was converted in New York and was admitted into the amec conference in 1842. He served that church in the Baltimore and Philadelphia conferences and was elected bishop in 1852, supervising the Second Episcopal District (Baltimore and New York) before moving to Canada. He died in Shelburne, Nova Scotia, on 22 August 1875, where he had been nurturing the bmec , and his funeral was held at his old church in Chatham. See Handy, Scraps of African Methodist Episcopal History, 193. Nazrey was pastor of Bethel ame church in Philadelphia, 1846–47 and in 1851, so he and Chambers may have crossed paths before either man went to Canada (see Thompson, Bethel Gleanings, 20). The ame church in Amherstburg has a plaque honouring Nazrey, https:// www.historicplaces.ca/en/rep-reg/place-lieu.aspx?id=6054 (accessed 26 July 2020). 38 Payne, History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, 389–90. According to this source there were then “about forty colored men in the Buxton settlement and neighborhood who had white wives, and the adoption of that title would cut off from membership every one of these white women

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Figure 1.1 | Willis Nazrey, first bishop of the British Methodist Episcopal Church, 1856–75.

because they were not Africans.” Chambers would have met many mixed-race couples during his ministry in Canada West and welcomed them as well as white worshippers to his congregations. Buxton, or the Elgin Settlement, was in Raleigh Township, south of Chatham. It was founded by Rev. William King as a mission and model agricultural settlement for Blacks, some of whom had

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Figure 1.2 | British Methodist Episcopal Church quarterly ticket (proof of membership) issued by Benjamin Steward. In 1858 he was elder of the church in St Catharines.

Instead they had chosen to be known as “British,” a reminder to all of Great Britain’s leadership in the abolition of slavery. Chambers and his ministerial brethren launched forth into the new bmec with great optimism. Bishop Nazrey was intent on establishing local churches where there was need,39 and Dresden was an

been enslaved in Louisiana and whom he had manumitted on inheriting them from his wife. See Landon, “The Buxton Settlement in Canada,” in oach , 99–105. 39 Donald G. Simpson, Under the North Star, 52. No comprehensive history of the bmec has yet been written. Individual congregations celebrate on websites their continued existence, and many church buildings are well preserved.

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obvious example. As a newly ordained deacon, with experience and enthusiasm, Chambers would have many opportunities to use his training and talents, but to begin with he was not posted to a specific church congregation; he was limited to preaching and ministering to Sabbath schools as needed. As he himself understood, there was a surfeit of preachers in Dresden and its vicinity. Finally, at the bmec meeting in 1859 he was appointed to “McGee’s Station for the ensuing Conference year.”40 Meanwhile, another possibility had come his way. While his bmec brothers were holding their annual conference in Toronto in September 1858, Chambers travelled to New York to meet with officials of the ama and was engaged by that organization as a missionary to people in the Dresden area and beyond. A short note made at the time, and now in the ama Archives, gave this account of him: Rev. Lewis C. Chambers. Ordained at Chatham, Canada West. Aug 1858 by the African Meth. Epis. Ch. Been in Canada 4 years. Went from Burlington n.j. Located at Dresden, Canada West. Near Lake Huron. Gets his living by farming. Has a farm of 25 acres. Amidst a coloured population of 200. Space 18x18 miles. Supposed to be 1500 in Dresden & vicinity, across the river from Dawn, say 100 in village in circuit of 3 miles 700. Near 200 communicants in Chat. Dresden.

Of the historians from whose research I have benefited in this work, Donald Simpson is the only one who consulted the published bmec annual conference minutes. To the best of my knowledge, the only comprehensive collection that exists of this important source is in the holdings of the archives of Wilberforce University in Wilberforce, Ohio. I have been fortunate to have had digital access to this source. 40 bmec minutes, 1859, 10. McGees Ferry or Gees Ferry is referred to by Chambers elsewhere as his place “on the Thames.” Now called Kent Bridge, it is located between Thamesville and Chatham on the Longwoods Road (Highway 2), on the north side of the Thames River. Victor Lauriston in Romantic Kent, 438, references Christopher Gee, a brickmaker, who ran a ferry there. In the interest of consistency, I have changed “McGees Ferry” to “Gees Ferry” in later references.

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Mr Chambers, ministers to this church alone. Isaac L. Christine was there one year, left lately. Mr. Chambers is here to get help to build a church, has good letters from Rev. Wm Clarke, Dresden, c.w. , from J.B. Hagany, Pastor of Sand. St. Ch. (m.e. ) Brooklyn N.Y., an endorsement from Henry Wilkes, Montreal.41 The letters of reference referred to in that note are indicative of Chambers’s extensive network of church contacts. One was from Rev. William Clarke (ca. 1798–1878), who had been sent by the Colonial Missionary Society of England to London, Canada West, where he established that growing centre’s first Congregational church; he later ministered to pioneer settlers in Warwick and Plympton townships, Lambton County, and in the villages of Simcoe and Dresden.42 Chambers would have met Clarke in Dresden and had doubtless been stirred by his missionary fervour. He may also have known Clarke’s son, William Fletcher Clarke (1824–1902), also a minister in the Congregational Church. Although not noted on the books of the ama , the younger Clarke did correspond with its secretary, Whipple, while he was a pastor in Burford, Brant County, and then in London, Canada West. In 1852 W.F. Clarke was one of the founders of the Anti-Slavery Society in London and was also deeply involved in public education there. Later in life he

41 ama Canada Mission, letter F1-495. The note quoted here is not dated but is filed with material received in late 1858. Several of its elements lack precision. Chambers was ordained a deacon in 1855 and an elder in 1860. The geography of the area is somewhat vague, but emphasis in the note on numerical facts was stressed in ama publications. The “church” mentioned might have been the worshipping community in Dresden, or perhaps the small society of adherents at Gees Ferry. In Methodist practice, church sometimes referred not to a building but rather to a society intending to be a permanent worshipping community, eventually with a built structure. Isaac L. Christeen was the bmec preacher stationed at Dresden in 1857 (bmec minutes, 1857, 3). In 1861, William Wells Brown found him ministering at a bme church in Amherstburg; he was enumerated there in the 1861 census. See Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, vol. 2, 480, 497. 42 Wood, Memoir of Henry Wilkes, 87–8. William Clarke was buried in Dresden.

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spent several years as a missionary on Vancouver Island.43 Chambers frequently referred to himself as not being a party man, by which he meant that he did not associate exclusively with pastors of his own church. His letters often mention guest preachers from other denominations whom he had invited to address his people; many of them were from Congregational churches, and many of them were white. Henry Wilkes (1805–1886), the author of another of his references, also belonged to the Congregational Church and did much to expand the reach of that denomination in Canada.44 He knew and admired the missionary work carried out by William Clarke, likely knew his son, and could be prevailed upon to give positive judgment on another candidate for missionary work. There are many possible places where Chambers could have become acquainted with the writer of the third letter of reference, Rev. John B. Hagany (1808–1865), a fellow American. As a minister in the mec , Hagany had served in Cecil County, Maryland, when the young Chambers lived there, and later in several parishes in Philadelphia, where Chambers worked after purchasing his freedom. Hagany was a white abolitionist and a preacher on temperance issues. He and Chambers would have had much in common, and, in all likelihood, Hagany was one of Chambers’s early spiritual mentors.45 Chambers had a fourth referee, not referred to in the ama note but documented elsewhere in that organization’s archives. He was Henry Highland Garnet (1815–1882), an African American, and a member from 1857 to 1859, when he was a Presbyterian minister in Troy, New York, of the first executive committee of the ama .46 Like Chambers, Garnet had been a slave in Maryland, but he had escaped to New York, where, following work at sea, he acquired an education and studied for the ministry. Active in politics, he

43 See S. Lynn Campbell’s biography of Clarke in the dcb , revised 1994, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/clarke_william_fletcher_13E.html. 44 See Philippe Sylvain’s biography of Wilkes in the dcb , published 1982, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/wilkes_henry_11E.html. 45 “The Late Rev. J.B. Hagany, D.D.,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 10, 1865. 46 De Boer, “The Role of the Afro-Americans,” 52. De Boer was fortunate to have access to the entire ama archive in writing her seminal thesis. Her work is invaluable for an understanding of the missionary work of the ama .

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was an original member of the Liberty Party and became known as an anti-slavery orator.47 In the same year that he supported Chambers’s appointment, Garnet became first president of the African Civilization Society, founded to establish a nation in Africa for returning Blacks.48 In Henry Garnet’s view, Lewis Chambers was “a man of integrity and piety.”49 Behind Chambers’s emergence in missionary work was a supportive network of clergy.

t h e a m e r ic a n m is s io nary as soci ati on The ama was formed in 1846 by the congenial amalgamation of three anti-slavery organizations: the Union Missionary Society, the West India Missionary Committee, and the Western Evangelical Missionary Society. At the outset, in the operations that it classified as “foreign,” the ama supported the Mendi Mission in Sierra Leone, West Africa; one mission in Jamaica; two to Ojibwa Indians in the Minnesota Territory; and one to East Maui in the Sandwich Islands, Hawaii. It likewise lent help to “fugitives from Republican oppression finding refuge in Canada.” That effort, known as the Canada Mission, was an inheritance from the Union Missionary Society.50 In its “home” operations, the ama concentrated on the establishment, as its treasury permitted, of missions in the new western states of the United States.51 Both the foreign and home missions had corresponding secretaries: Whipple dealing with the foreign file, and Rev. Simeon S. Jocelyn (1800–1879) with home business.52 Both men had impeccable abolitionist credentials. While he was corresponding secretary of the ama , Whipple also edited its monthly journal, The

47 Ibid., 54–61. 48 Lynch, Edward Wilmot Blyden, 23–4. 49 Henry Highland Garnet, New York, October 27, 1858, to George Whipple, ama Archives, cited in De Boer, “The Role of Afro-Americans,” 176. 50 De Boer, “The Role of Afro-Americans,” 618n6. 51 First annual report, ama , 12. The annual reports will hereafter be cited as ama, ar . 52 Jocelyn was a member of the Amistad Committee and active in education for Blacks and in the Underground Railroad. See Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, vol. 2, 116, 292.

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American Missionary. This widely circulated publication reported on the society’s annual meetings, finances, and missions – both home and foreign, and on news affecting missionary life. Its children’s section featured instructive and didactic tales, often on the subject of a “good death.” Jocelyn, a native of New Haven, Connecticut, was an engraver of bank notes before being licensed as a minister in the Congregational Church, where he ministered to both Blacks and whites. He was active in the group of abolitionists who came to the aid of the slaves who had mutinied on the Amistad, a Spanish ship. The ama ’s second annual report (1848) included a cogent analysis of the difficulty faced by missionaries already working in Canada West, where, it was noted, perhaps as many as fifteen thousand Blacks were living. “For the most part ignorant, degraded, and poor,” they had brought with them “prejudices or predilections of sect,” which missionaries and teachers had found themselves unable to overcome. They clearly hoped that the ama , or some like body, would intervene to organize and sustain their work. Many churches and donors in the United States were already sending funds and clothing to support newly arrived freedom seekers, but these gifts often stirred jealousy and suspicion among those receiving them, and “constant anxiety and trial” among those distributing them. The ama itself had been a conduit of many such donations and over the course of the previous year had passed on $496.28 to various missionaries in Canada. But there were never sufficient donations of clothing and funds to support the number of Blacks making their way to Canada and in great need. ama preachers and teachers were often resented for that shortfall, and although unscrupulous “self-constituted collecting agents” solicited donations to line their own pockets, suspicion often fell on innocent missionaries. The Canada Missions, the report concluded, were “in a dark field, one that does not for the present furnish many indications of promise,” but “the greater the degradation the more the need of foreign aid.” Against this backdrop, the ama was set on a course in relation to Canada West in which earnest intentions would long conflict with opposition and demands.53 At its annual meeting in September 1849 the ama adopted a constitution, article II of which stated the aim of the association: “The object of this Society shall be to send the Gospel to those

53 ama , ar , 1848, 17–18; treasurer’s report, 28.

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A Black American Missionary in Canada

portions of our own and other countries which are destitute of it, or which present open and urgent fields of effort.” Qualification for association membership was described in article III: “Any person of Evangelical sentiments, who professes faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is not a slaveholder, or in the practice of other immoralities, and who contributes to the funds, may become a member of the Society.” One active recruit was Rev. Isaac J. Rice, who was already ministering on the association’s behalf in Amherstburg, Canada West.54 The growth of the ama in its first few years of operation was celebrated at the organization’s 1850 annual meeting, but its success was now being overshadowed by the Fugitive Slave Act, passed by Congress only a week before this meeting. In response, the gathering was quick to adopt a resolution that in effect called for civil disobedience: “That we believe the Christianity of the nation is about to be tested in view of the late act of Congress for the recovery of Fugitive Slaves, which appears equally at variance with the principles of this Association, the Constitution of the country, and the law of God; and that as Christians we do solemnly covenant with each other and our colored brethren that we cannot obey it, nor any law that evidently contravenes the higher law of our Maker, whatever persecution or penalty we may be called to suffer.”55 Knowing that the number of Blacks making their way to Canada West would immediately increase, the executive committee of the ama next commissioned Rev. J.P. Bardwell, general agent of the Ojibwa Mission, to report on the coloured population of the province and those ministering to them. His report gave details of the many Black settlements he visited, and his account of the Dawn Institute and its neighbourhood is of particular interest here. He

54 ama , ar , 1849, 23, 34. Rice, a Presbyterian minister from Ohio, was a graduate of Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. He joined the Canada Mission when it was under the auspices of the Union Missionary Society. Rice was based mainly in the Amherstburg area, where he ministered to many migrating Blacks who had crossed the Detroit River to Canada. Despite his zeal and the hardships he faced, his methods of distributing charity were sometimes called into question by those Blacks to whom he ministered. The Provincial Freeman had little confidence in him and questioned his moral rectitude. 55 ama , ar , 1850, 11.

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found that the bai , in which such high anti-slavery hopes had been invested, had become debt ridden and been incompetently run since the departure of Hiram Wilson from its management. Bardwell concluded that the institute’s goal of providing a level of high school or college education was impracticable in the absence of common junior schools. The ama annual report for 1850 also noted that Isaac Rice was no longer with the organization but was working as “an evangelist among the colored Baptists.” That being the case, the society was looking for “an intelligent, trustworthy and judicious man, of regular habits, and possessed of some native dignity of character” to replace him at Amherstburg. Both receipts and expenditures for this mission had risen over those of 1849.56 In its fifth annual report, covering the year 1850–51, the association recorded support for Hiram and Mrs Wilson (who were now in St Catharines), David and Mrs Hotchkiss in Amherstburg,57 and Miss Susan Teall at the Mount Pleasant Mission School.58 During the year, Wilson had visited many areas of Canada West to determine “the number, condition and prospects of those who have fled into Canada since the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Bill,” calculating that number to be at least three thousand. Hotchkiss was working to establish schools and to preach to receptive ears in a part of the province where there was considerable suspicion of white clergy, of whom he was one. Donations from ama members and others had been generous during the year, with receipts exceeding expenditures.

56 ama , ar , 1850, 7–30. 57 David Hotchkiss had been a missionary to “Choctaws and French along the frontier” (see Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, vol. 2, 117n5). I have endeavoured to discover the given name of the first Mrs Hotchkiss (the ama was not inclusive with the names of wives). She died in the summer of 1859, and in October 1860 David Hotchkiss married Mary McCord Saunders of Centreville, Pennsylvania (Hotchkiss to Whipple, 20 November 1860, ama Canada Mission, FI-589). See also ama , ar , 1862, 26. 58 The Mount Pleasant Mission School was in Peel Township, Wellington County, now in the municipality of Mapleton, Ontario. Historically this was within the area known as the Queen’s Bush. Its cemetery has been recognized as a Peel Historic Site. See the “Queen’s Bush” category, The Black Past in Guelph: Remembered and Reclaimed (blog), https://blackpastinguelph.com/ category/queens-bush/ (accessed 6 May 2022).

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Over the year being reported, the executive committee had carefully considered reports on the situation of recent Black arrivals in Canada, from both the Baptists of New York State and a convention of coloured people held at Sandwich, Canada West. The committee had concluded that the most useful material donations that the concerned Americans could send to the ama Canada Mission would be items suitable for enabling children to attend school. Above all, however, Blacks arriving from Southern slavery were best trained for farming and needed help in acquiring land. Overall, the Canada Mission was struggling: It must not be concealed from the patrons of the Association, that this mission is one of the most difficult and least promising of immediate results of any under our care. Upon a careful investigation of the causes of this difficulty, the Committee are constrained to believe that they have their origin in the oppression which the colored people have endured in the United States. As a people in their native land, the Africans are remarkably confiding, and readily receive influences for good from the hands of the white. That after long years of suffering they should have become jealous of all influences should not discourage our labors for his temporal and eternal welfare.59

ama officials often contrasted those to whom they ministered in the African missions with their American counterparts whose character had been warped by slavery and who therefore might mistrust and suspect white missionaries. Chambers frequently connected slavery and the degradation of “my poor race.” In its 1852 annual report the association recorded the names of more missionaries who were now in Canada: Rev. and Mrs Elias E. Kirkland and teacher Miss Theodesia Lyon at New Canaan (Colchester Township, Essex County), and Miss Mary A. Shadd at Windsor, Essex County. (David and Mrs Hotchkiss had left Amherstburg due to his ill health.) The Kirklands had previously served in both Dawn Mills and the Queen’s Bush and were thus 59 ama , ar , 1851, 32–5. In his letters to Whipple, Chambers frequently mentioned the cost of shoes and clothing and how the lack of means to purchase them could prevent his own children from attending school.

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well equipped to address the varied needs of newcomers to New Canaan, entering into their new appointment with energy. The dedication with which all the missionaries approached their labour was celebrated by the ama , which condemned the undermining influence of “ignorant preachers, and self-constituted collecting agents” who “would drive every white missionary from the colony.” The society would continue to consider “new applications for appointments.” The Canada Mission seemed to have found new life.60 Yet within a year there was another setback. “Opposition to white missionaries” was so strong against the experienced and well-wishing Kirklands that they decided they “could be better employed elsewhere” and left New Canaan, though the teacher, Miss Lyon, stayed there. Hiram Wilson was still active in St Catharines but had decided not to sign on for another term with the ama . Mary Shadd had also left Windsor when her school was suspended.61 Clearly, the association had good reason to remember its earlier assessment of prospects in Canada West: “this mission is one of the most difficult and least promising of immediate results of any under our care.” An explanation for the reverse prejudice driving the Kirklands away was given in the Canada Mission report of 1852: “There is a class of ignorant preachers, and self-constituted collecting agents, who, to retain their own influences, are laboring, some of them avowedly, to drive every white missionary from the colony. The influence of this class of men is very extensive … Although these things are discouraging, they should not abate our warm interest in behalf of the people.”62 By 1854 (the year the Chambers family crossed the border), with the ama ’s other foreign missions and its home missions expanding, its contingent in Canada had shrunk to three teachers in New Canaan, one of whom left within the year. But the society was undaunted and declared: “Missionaries of a superior class are greatly needed for the missionary work in Canada; men of controlling intellect, sound judgment, and warm hearts, so deeply imbued with the spirit of Christ that they will be willing to make the needed sacrifice, take up the cross, and labor there amidst the contradiction of sinners against themselves, till God shall give them victory. If such can be found, the

60 ama , ar , 1852, 31–4. 61 ama , ar , 1853, 49. 62 ama , ar , 1852, 31–4.

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Executive Committee will gladly undertake their support; and we doubt not they will ultimately obtain a rich reward.”63 Better days followed. In 1855, David and Mrs Hotchkiss returned to the Canada Mission, this time to the area east of Windsor and south of Lake St Clair, where they settled on lands owned by the Refugee Home Society. That society had been formed in 1851 with the support – albeit shifting over time – of abolitionists and missionaries well known to the ama : Isaac Rice, Hiram Wilson, Josiah Henson, Henry Bibb, Samuel Ringgold Ward, Lewis Tappan,64 and C.C. Foote. Hotchkiss acted as the society’s corresponding secretary. Founding, and often sustaining, capital came from extensive fundraising, largely in Michigan. The society’s purpose was to purchase lands in Essex County to be sold in twenty-five-acre lots to formerly enslaved Black migrants, with the ultimate aim of self-sufficiency for them and their families. Arrangements were likewise made to establish schools and ensure adherence to the principles of temperance. While being supported by the ama , Hotchkiss established a church (likely Wesleyan Methodist) that worshipped in the school that his wife had established in the Puce River area.65 In 1855 also, Robert C. Hansell was stationed at Chatham, where he taught school during the week and ministered spiritually on the Sabbath, but the ama looked for an increase in the number of his scholars before deciding to continue his funding. Such scrutiny typified a cautious and careful approach from headquarters in New York: as its work expanded in Canada West, the ame sought continually to refine and re-articulate its mission there: There is more need of ministerial labor in Canada directly in behalf of the colored people. In general, those who have gone there from the United States, even the fugitives, may provide for

63 ama , ar , 1854, 48. 64 Brothers Arthur (1786–1865) and Lewis (1788–1873) Tappan were successful businessmen and abolitionists and aided many organizations devoted to that cause with their philanthropy. They helped found the New York Anti-Slavery Society, the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, and the ama . Lewis Tappan was instrumental in arranging for successful legal help for the slaves on the ship Amistad. 65 Carlesimo, “Refugee Home Society,” 121, 136–7, 140.

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the wants of their families after a short residence there, especially if they meet a friendly hand, and, more than all, good counsel, on their arrival. But all who are acquainted with the condition of slaves in the United States know their religious and intellectual culture has been greatly neglected. It is to supply this want that our labors should be mainly directed. In order to meet it fully, men of no common mould are required, men who, in the spirit of Christ, most covet fields of labor that are most neglected; and who possess intellectual and spiritual power to enable them to cope with the greatest difficulties. Such men are now needed.66 By the time of the 1856 annual report, Hansell had disappeared from the books of the ama , leaving David and Mrs Hotchkiss as the only employees in the Canada Mission. As in Amherstburg, Hotchkiss’s efforts in Puce River came up against a reality in which “common wrongs seem to have had no tendency to diminish sectarian feeling.” Yet he wrote that headway was being made and that he saw growth in his people’s sense of “Christian charity and union.” Many of them, he reported, were hoping for war between the United States and Great Britain, which might bring an end to slavery.67 In 1857 the ama reported that Hotchkiss’s little church had been destroyed by fire in June, and after a replacement was found, it too had been torched in August. Thereafter his local congregation met in private homes. Since there had been no need in June and August to light the church stove, incendiaries were blamed for the destruction of both places of worship, and indeed Mr Hotchkiss continued to receive threats. “This field is emphatically a hard one, and requires much faith and patience from those who labor there.”68 But the Hotchkiss enterprise improved the following year, when they were able to build a new church in the area of Puce River, Little River, and Pike Creek, where they met with no hostility from the local Black community. Side by side with the congregational rebuilding, Mrs Hotchkiss’s school continued its ameliorative work, though many children were unable to attend for lack of “suitable clothing. They are nearly naked. If there could be a large box of clothing forwarded

66 ama , ar , 1855, 46–7. 67 ama , ar , 1856, 43–4. 68 ama , ar , 1857, 36–7.

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A Black American Missionary in Canada

to Mrs Hotchkiss for her school, we would see that the articles are properly distributed.”69 In an earlier report the organization had made known that much of its expenditure on the Canada Mission was devoted to covering shipping charges for such donations. As Chambers came under the missionary umbrella of the ama , although much had been done by that body in Canada West, in consequence of the Fugitive Slave Act the need for its services was growing exponentially.

re v e r e n d l e w is c h a mpi on chambers, a m a m is s io n a ry in dresden Chambers began his missionary work on behalf of the ama on 14 November 1858 and thereafter wrote regularly to Whipple, describing the day-to-day life of his ministry. Chambers wanted Whipple, whom he considered to be both a spiritual mentor and a patron, to have full details of his frontier life. It was, moreover, important to the functioning of the ama that its missionaries be able to describe their achievements and write heartfelt stories about those whom they served. Such accounts were used by the association in both its annual reports and the American Missionary, to inform members of the successes and travails of missionary life and build support for the cause. Reports from the field were likewise invaluable in informing the ama executive when it was deciding policy matters. Chambers learned to keep statistics on the number of children enrolled in Sabbath schools, on church attendance and membership, and on temperance pledges. The volume and regularity of his letters surpass those that Whipple received from any other Canada Mission correspondent. Most of Chambers’s letters were written as quarterly reports and in expectation of receiving his quarterly stipend of twenty-five dollars (sometime before December 1859, this was raised to fifty dollars), or to remind Whipple that payment was overdue, or to describe why he and his family were in great need of money. His missives mix prayerful thanks and rejoicing over graces received and urgent reminders of the

69 ama , ar , 1858, 32. This report located Hotchkiss at Rochester, Essex County, then a small community near Amherstburg. In his own report for 1859, Hotchkiss sites himself at Little River and Pike Creek in Sandwich Township, and Puce River in Maidstone Township.

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41

next stipend due. Readers will appreciate the intimacy of Chambers’s letters and the immediacy of his bond with Whipple, which went far beyond their financial connection. When Chambers was engaged, the ama was in the thirteenth year of its missionary outreach, had eight foreign missions, and supported more than a hundred missionaries, teachers, and colporteurs in its home missions.70 Against all obstacles, its dedication to the Canada Mission lived on, the more so because of the impact on that country of the Fugitive Slave Act. After several years of discerning and describing qualities required in new appointees to that mission, perhaps the ama Canada Mission had found them in Lewis Champion Chambers. He was the association’s first and last Black missionary in Canada.71

t h e l e t t e rs o f l . c. chambers Between 14 November 1858 and his return to the United States a decade later, Chambers wrote almost one hundred letters to Whipple in New York. Those written during his actual employment with the ama were sent first from Dresden (thirty-three) and then from London (forty-seven). He wrote fourteen letters from St Catharines and two from Hamilton, these being motivated more by affection than duty as he was no longer on the books of the ama . As well as Chambers’s letters to Whipple, the reader will find in the chapters that follow a

70 These numbers are given in the 1859 annual report of the ama . For several years the society had supported a mission to the Copts in Egypt. Its foreign missions also included the Ojibue Mission at Lake Winnipeg in the Minnesota Territory and the Ojibue and Ottawa Mission at Grand Traverse Bay in Michigan. However, the Lake Winnipeg referred to by the ama is more likely Lake Winnibigoshish in Minnesota, rather than Lake Winnipeg in present-day Manitoba, Canada. 71 De Boer, “The Role of Afro-Americans,” 175. I have noted all those supported by the ama in the Canada Mission as reported in that body’s annual reports and agree with Ms De Boer’s conclusion about Chambers. The ama had also supported teacher Mary Shadd Cary, who ran a school in Windsor and was the first Black teacher to work for the ama in Canada West. In his letter to Whipple dated 14 February1863 (ama Archives, F1-681), Chambers noted that he was the “only black man in Canada aided by you.”

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commendation written to their pastor by the officers and parents of the London Sabbath school; Chambers’s reply; and two letters from Thomas McNider, Chief Clerk of the Province of Canada Census Department in Quebec City, replying to Chambers’s and Whipple’s queries about the number of Blacks enumerated in Canada West and Canada East in the 1861 census. There are also three letters written by Ann Maria Chambers to Whipple, soliciting financial assistance from the ama for a school she had begun in St Catharines. Letters are preceded by Chambers’s date of writing, and footnotes bear the number given them by the ama Archives in the Amistad Research Center at Tulane University, New Orleans. Some letters were annotated by Whipple or an associate, and if they are germane to the contents, I have included their notations in my notes. Chambers’s salutations to Whipple often included multiple forms of address, that is, “The Rev. Mr. Whipple Dear Sir,” and I have omitted Chambers’s salutations and signatures of all but the first letter. I have also dropped the place or origin from letters as this is indicated by my chapter titles. Chambers was an enthusiastic correspondent, throwing his heart and soul – and pocketbook − into his rapid prose. His letters demonstrate that he could have been largely self-taught; if he did attend school (his narratives and later autobiographical articles are silent on that subject), it likely was not for very long. He might be classified by some as not fully literate according to present standards, but his prose is understandable and informative, and his singular voice has much to relate and deserves to be heard. Readers of his letters may struggle but will be well rewarded. Chambers seldom punctuated, he spelled words as he heard or spoke them, and rarely seemed to have reread what he had written; his corrections are few, and missed and omitted words abound. But he was an avid reader − mainly, of course, of the Bible − and, in the period that he wrote to Whipple, also of the American Missionary; his mind was retentive and open to facts and ideas. His letters include many biblical references, and these are elucidated in my endnotes, using the New Revised Standard Version: Catholic Edition. The major subjects of his correspondence are those about which Whipple and his ama colleagues expected reports on a quarterly basis: the statistical and spiritual fruits of his missionary labour. (His quarterly reports were due on the fourteenth of February, May, August, and November.) Chambers also kept his sponsors informed about the clergy whom he met and invited to preach for him (or he for

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43

them), and about visitors of note. Because his own background was agricultural, he informed Whipple about crops and harvests, weather conditions, and the accomplishments of many fellow Blacks involved with him in husbandry. Balanced against those stories of success are his accounts of difficulties that many newcomers experienced in finding work because of active prejudice or lack of skills and resources. Chambers described both sides of the Black immigrant story. The personal details of the Chambers family seem often to be an afterthought in his letters, or are mentioned to underscore his absences from them when travelling between his preaching places, or to emphasize his need for the prompt remit of an overdue quarterly stipend. But between Chambers’s rapidly written lines can be found true devotion to family, while fervour for his missionary labour is everywhere writ large. My goal in transcribing and editing the letters of Lewis Chambers has been to make them as fluent as possible for a broad readership. My interventions have been in the service of accessibility and easy reading. Thus, I have introduced punctuation and sentence and paragraph structure. Many obvious errors in spelling have been corrected, and sometimes grammar as well, although I have retained as much of Chambers’s distinctive voice as possible. I have used square brackets sparingly to indicate omissions and my suppositions. Some letters had not survived unscathed the long passage of time before being archived and microfilmed, and scholars dependent upon such missives (and their readers) must accept my efforts to deal with the consequent unintelligibility of some passages. Immersion in the letters over many readings has enabled me to reconstruct some garbled or blotted passages better than others. Perhaps another scholar of the Black experience in the period will be able to fill in words and phrases I have missed, and thereby enhance understanding of Chambers’s place in Canadian history. To comprehend the fullness of the past, all available evidence must be taken into account. In the case of the history of Blacks in the Canada of his time, Chambers’s letters are a unique source and should be valued. So we now look at the letters written while he was resident in Dresden, Canada West, where he began the correspondence that has led to this volume.72

72 Two of the letters in chapter 2 were actually written while he was away from home in London, but they manifestly belong with the Dresden correspondence.

2

Letters from Dresden

3 January 18591 Mr Rev. George Whipple Dear Brother: I wish you a Happy New Year. When these lines come to hand they will inform you of my good health. I am well at present and hope that these few lines may find [you] and family the same enjoying the blessings of God. Well, Brother, I got home safe and found my family very sick. My wife has got well. Mother has been very low. But she is now a little better today. But there is now hope that she will get well but we must trust in the will of the Lord. Well, Brother, I have been looking for a letter from you. You said you would write within a ten days or so. There is a very great interest at this time among our people to try to learn to read the Bible. I have now two Sunday schools under my care. I meet at nine and half o’clock in the morning then preaching at eleven o’clock. Then I walk 2½ [miles] and commence my other Sunday school at half past one o’clock. Well, they turn out well for winter time. It is very hard times here now, and I do not know what the poor people will do. They raised no grain last year. A great many did not. There is many that cannot get boots and shoes and clothing. The price of wood is fifty c[en]ts. Very little demand at that price. Well, Brother, I have not received the paper but two numbers. This is not a report, but I feel that I want to hear from you. Write as soon

1 To Rev. George Whipple, letter F1-498, American Missionary Association Archives, Amistad Research Center, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana (hereafter ama Archives).

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as you get this and let me know your plan.2 And I will by the help of the Lord do the best that I can. O how glad the members and Sabbath school children were to see me when I got home. Please send me the paper every week.3 It is a good paper. This is all that I will say at this time. Farewell. No more at present but remain your brother and fellow labourer in the missionary cause of our Lord, and your well-wisher. Now Brother, I want to hear from you. Yours in Christ, L.C. Chambers

28 February 18594 I again write you a few lines not knowing whether you got my letter or not. I written on the fourteenth of this month stating that I got home on Sat. the thirteenth of November and commenced my labour on the fourteenth, so if you have not got my report for this quarter, please write and let me know, for it is now two weeks since I sent it. I fear that it has been miscarried.5 Still if you have it and if there is anything wrong I know that you will write. Well, Mr Whipple, times is so hard and what the people will do for bread the good Lord knows best. These lines leave me and family well and hope they may find you all the same. I am still busy in the great work of our Lord’s Gospel, and will do all that I can to promote his cause, although I have to walk a great deal, for I have many calls to attend to – prayer meeting and preaching and experience meetings. Times is hard – but the Lord is with us. I did not state what number I have in my Bible class. I forgot it but I will try and be more careful the next time. If there is anything wrong in my report that I sent, that is if you have got it, pardon for I mean right. No more but remain yours in Christ. Write as soon as you get this letter.

2 The “plan” would be Whipple’s desired layout for his quarterly statistical reports. 3 Chambers was devoted to the monthly ama journal, The American Missionary. When he returned to the United States in 1868 and ministered in the amec , he became an avid reader of its weekly newspaper, The Christian Recorder. 4 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-500. 5 Chambers’s report dated 14 February is not in the ama Archives; perhaps it did miscarry.

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A Black American Missionary in Canada

19 March 18596 Yours of the 24 of Feb. came safe to hand enclosed with a draft for $25, which was received with much thankfulness, and I had no trouble with it.7 I have been very busy ever since I got your letter. On last Tuesday the 15th I walked ten miles and preached to a crowded house at seven o’clock in the evening of both black and white people. The Lord was with us for they gave great heed to what I preached to them, and four families said that they would open their doors to hear the word of the Lord every week. They pleaded hard that I must preach for them twice a week for they want a preacher. I have agreed to serve them.8 Some of them say that they have not heard a sermon nor a chapter read in the Bible for three years – no Sabbath school, no prayer meeting – so you see that they are starving for the word of the Lord. I have no doubt but this will make a good field for labour. I have two regular preaching places, two Sabbath schools. I meet them both schools every other Sunday, and every other Sunday I meet Sabbath school at nine in the morning, then walk eleven miles and preach at four in the afternoon. I preach at one place twice a week, the other once a week. But I have Sabbath school meetings once a week. To get to my preaching places I have [to] walk. It [is] very hard work to walk. Sometimes so much water and mud, but I feel it will be well with me if I do right. The religion among the people vary: some Methodist and Baptists and Wesleyans. There is more for the name than is for Christ.9 The temporal wants of our people are great at this time. There is many that do not know where they will get bread to eat for such times have not been known here before. I have calls so often for

6 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-502. 7 Chambers means he had no difficulty cashing the cheque. 8 The locations of Chambers’s preaching places and Sabbath schools will become apparent as his letters progress. See the map “The Canada West of Lewis Champion Chambers.” 9 In Canada West, members of the bmec worshipped beside Wesleyan Methodists, Methodists Episcopal, Primitive Methodists, New Connexion Methodists, and Bible Christians. Chambers frequently complained that his fellow Blacks were more interested in belonging to a particular sect than in following the Gospel itself.

Figure 2.1 | The American Missionary 3, no. 2 (February 1859). The table of contents of the “little paper” that Chambers loved so well highlights the geographic, spiritual, and charitable outreach of the American Missionary Association.

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bread and have it not to give first one then another. Our white friends in next township have got help. It may be that the Lord will give us friends. The place here at Dresden where I preached two years and part of last year while I was away the conference sent a preacher.10 He has the oversight of the congregation, but I have my school in the house every Sabbath morning at o’clock and it is a fine school. I have never seen better in the country, nowhere that I have been. But the worst thing is to get a teacher. The school in the Chatham Township is fine and doing well. Many scholars say that they love the Lord. I preach often in Dresden but it is not one of my regular preaching places. The one in the Township Chatham is about two miles from home, the other is near Thamesville on London Road.11 At this I have great hope of the people for they have a heart for the work. I will by the help of the Lord I will do all the good that can for the missionary cause. Yours in Christ.

11 April 185912 It is with pleasure I take my pen in hand to write you a few lines to let you know how I am. This leaves me and family well and hope that they may find you all the same. Well, the work of the Lord going on well since I commenced my labour on the river Thames eight miles from Dresden. The Lord has owned and blessed his word at every meeting. I commenced with four members, and through the goodness of the God we number now eight. At this place the people were starving for the Gospel of the dear son of God. I have never witnessed more of the out-pouring of the spirit of God since I have

10 Chambers may have expected that he would be assigned to the bmec congregation in Dresden but in the event he was not posted there. In a later letter he informed Whipple of the large number of Black preachers in the area, so Bishop Nazrey possibly had many supplicants for that preaching place. In 1858 the bmec conference stationed William Douglas to Dresden. Local preachers there at the time were S. Stephens, Nero Hardin, T. Simpson, B. Whipper, T. Peterson, D. Turner, and Peter B. Smith (bmec minutes, 1858, 6–7). A local preacher was “a layman authorized by District or Quarterly Conference to perform certain ministerial functions” (Anderson, Methodist Dictionary, 57). 11 Chambers is referring to Gees Ferry. 12 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-503.

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been in Canada. I have by a number of settlers been invited to come and preach to them about six miles further. When I write again then I will tell you more about the people. Well, I did not know that our Brethren were so bad off for someone to advise them for the better. But slavery is the cause of it. It has driven them to Canada without help so they are compelled to go back in the woods without a Bible or a minister. You must know they are glad to hear me. They praise God for sending me among them. I thank God that he has blessed me to find such kind friends to aid a servant of Christ to preach the Gospel to the poor. The number of members in Chatham is fourteen, that is church members. The school members forty-five. Dresden Sunday numbers eighty-one, and it is still increasing. Chatham Sunday school: Bible class male six; Bible class female ten, tes. class male eight; tes. class female twelve; Dresden Sunday school male Bible class eleven, female Bible class eight, female tes. class eight, male tes. class sixteen.13 I think that I stated to you the cause why I don’t preach really at Dresden. The conference sent them minister last August, so I would not interfere with him. But it is all well. Paul says, Romans 8 chapter 28. “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God.” For there is places, as I stated before, that the people are starving for the word of the Lord with regret. Then the death of Brother Newman’s wife who died the 4th in the Lord.14 O what a happy death! She was a good woman. It is Elder Newman’s loss,

13 This is his only use of the abbreviation tes., probably short for testify or testimony. It perhaps describes those in formation leading to a conversion experience, the centrepiece of Methodist piety. In this letter Chambers is referring to his Sabbath school in Chatham Township, not in the town of Chatham. 14 A former slave, Rev. William P. Newman had been educated at Oberlin College and was based in Dresden during Chambers’s time there. His first wife, Nancy, was buried in the local bai cemetery. Newman devoted his life to the abolition movement, the education of Blacks in Canada West, and to preaching as a Baptist minister. He went to Haiti as a missionary in 1859 and from there went to Jamaica. He returned to the United States in 1863 and died of cholera in 1866. See Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, vol. 2, 302–3n2. Unless otherwise noted, Ripley is the main source for biographical data on many of the Blacks mentioned in this work.

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but her gain. Times is still hard and very hard if there is not some aid. The people will die for bread. Pray for the poor slaves who have come to Canada without help. I remain yours truly, Mr Whipple.15

14 May 185916 These lines will inform you that I and family are well and hope that they may find you all enjoying the same blessing. I promised in my last letter to write and give a further account of the state of society around us, and our future prospects. There is a large number of colored people in neighbourhood of Dresden and the vicinity. The Baptist church numbers about sixty members. The Methodist church numbers one hundred. But a very poor place the Methodists have to worship in. The most of the people are very poor. The Baptist church has no Sunday school in it, but there is a colored Sunday school in the Dresden Hall, about twenty scholars. In the Methodist church I have a Sabbath school which numbers one hundred scholars, ten teachers, two Bible classes doing well. The scholars are improving fast. Three who could not read last quarter they can now read. One man is sixty, the [other] forty, and a woman fifty-five. The Lord is with us in our Sabbath school. Our Sunday school prayer meetings are well attended. The interest is great. I believe the Lord hears our prayers, for our school is increasing in numbers every Sabbath. The Sabbath school in the Township of Chatham, three miles from Dresden, numbers fifty scholars.17 The teachers are in great earnest in trying to make the school interesting. In this settlement is finest spirit among the people of any that I know of. They meet on Fridays at 3:00 o’clock in the afternoon. Last Sabbath there were upwards of forty-eight present. They want books very bad. They sing beautiful.

15 Included is a note in an ama hand: “Statistics; Quarter salary due May 14.” 16 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-506. 17 In his letter of 14 August 1859 (F1-519), Chambers mentions two Sabbath schools in Chatham Township, one in Concession 11 and the other in Concession 13. That township (with a Black population of 737 in 1861; see Wayne, “Black Population of Canada West,” 73) was located between the townships of Dover (west) and Camden and Gore (east) and the Thames River (south). See the map “The Canada West of Lewis Champion Chambers.”

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Six of the children have given their hearts to God. They appear to be strong in the faith and they seeking the pardon of their sins. Families are deeply interested in their own salvation and their children’s. I enjoy the labor of cross better and better. Since last quarter, one of labour and great joy, I have enlarged my field of labour. I organized a small society Feb. 27 after preaching a temperance discourse. There were three men got up and declared that they never would drink any more ardent spirits. They begged the prayers of the faithful. The number that professed faith in the Lord and joined at that meeting was six. Since that time four more have united with the church. The Lord is pouring out his spirit upon the people. I never witnessed more of the goodness than in the meetings held in this place. They are a fine people, very industrious. They are farmers. They come out to meeting. Well, this is the place where some had not heard chapters read in the Bible for four years. It is about nine miles from Dresden on the river Thames.18 I organized a Sabbath school at this same place eighteen scholars, one sup[erintendent], three teachers. April 17: I organized a small society in the township of Harwich in a place called Botany.19 Six joined. They have increased through the Lord’s grace to about twelve members. I have started a fine Sunday school in this place. This is the place that Mr Jocelyn said that I must go and see after. It is fourteen miles from Dresden. There is twenty-four scholars in the Sabbath school, one superintendent, four teachers. They want books. Never since I have been in Canada have I seen so deep a work of grace. It appears in our Sabbath school, prayer meetings, our weekly prayer meetings where the Lord poured out his spirit upon his people, urging them to duty. My appointments Feb. 20: we had fine school at Dresden and a very pleasant time. Divine service at eleven of the clock. At two o’clock I met the Sabbath school in the Township of Chatham. It was well attended. I preached at half past three. [Feb.] 25: our Sabbath school prayer meeting. The Lord was with us in our meeting. [Feb.] 27: I preached at eleven o’clock; first

18 Gees Ferry. 19 Botany, once a hamlet, now a crossroads, is in the Township of Howard rather than in the Township of Harwich, which lies to the east. I have corrected Chambers’s error in subsequent letters.

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meeting of the Sabbath school at nine o’clock in the morning; and attended that school two o’clock, and preached half three. Both schools were well attended. March the third: prayer of the Sabbath school teachers. 6 of March: both Sabbath schools were doing well. March 10: prayer meeting, Sabbath school teachers. [March] 13: Sabbath schools both well attended. [March] 15: I preached at the Thames; [March] 20: both Sabbath schools doing well; [March] 22: I preached at the Thames, a fine meeting.

24 May 185920 These two meetings at the Thames will be long remembered by all who were present. One white man who said that he was a universalist was deeply convinced and rose for prayers.21 One soul reclaimed. I do not think ever I witnessed more of the goodness of the Lord. [March] 25: prayer meeting of the Sabbath school teachers. [March] 27: I met both Sabbath schools. They were well attended. [March] 29: I preached at the Thames to a crowded house of both white and black. [March] 30: prayer meeting of the Sabbath school teachers. April first: prayer meeting of the Sabbath school teachers. [April] 3: met the Dresden school at nine o’clock then went to the Thames and preached at three o’clock. It was a meeting of great interest. [April] 5: I preached to a large number of white and colored at the Thames. It was a good meeting. We had another added to our number. The Lord is doing a great work in this part of our mission. [April] 10: I met both schools. [April] 12: preached at the Thames. [April] 15: Sabbath school prayer meeting. [April] 17: I preached at [Botany] in Township of Howard at ten o’clock; then at the Thames [place] at three o’clock; on the Lindsay Road at seven to white and colored.22 [April] 19: I preached at the Thames. Two men asked the prayer of the faithful. [April] 24: I met both schools. [April] 29: our Sabbath school prayer meeting was well attended. May the first: I helped brother

20 This letter, F1-507, continues his missive of 14 May 1859, F1-506. 21 Universalists believed in the salvation of all souls. The Universalist Church had Pietist and Anabaptist roots, and its members were strongly opposed to slavery. 22 Lindsay Road runs between Base Line Road (separating the townships of Camden and Gore, and Chatham) and the Longwoods Road.

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Clarke23 to hold a quarterly meeting.24 We had a good time. [May] 3: I preached at the Thames and the Lord was with us. In our meeting there was one added to our number. [May] 4: prayer meeting of the Sabbath school teachers. [May] 6: Sabbath school teachers’ experience meeting.25 It was a meeting of much interest. [May] 8: I preached in Botany at ten o’clock in the morning and at the Thames at half past three in the afternoon. [May] 10: I preached at the Thames. Although the farmers are busy they came out to meeting. Well, the good Lord is carrying on his work of grace among people. I preach every Sunday, very often twice. I hope that you will be able to make this report out. Forgive my poor spelling. By the help of the Lord I mean right with all my heart. Please to instruct me where I am wrong. Dear Sir, will you please to give me leave to leave my field of labour for two months. I want to go to Pennsylvania on some business. I can get two brethren to attend for me while I am away. I will not leave without your orders. I have my brother’s affairs to settle up.26 Please let me know in your next letter. I want to see you very much. Pardon me for not writing before. There is much labour I have not spoke of – visiting the sick, burying the dead and solemnization of matrimony. I feel more and more of missionary spirit. No more, but remain yours in the mission cause of the Lord. I did want to leave the first of June but it will depend on what you all say. Write soon as you get this.

23 William Clarke, the Congregational missionary in Dresden, who had recommended Chambers to the ama . 24 Chambers frequently mentions these meetings, which gave church members an opportunity to consider both temporal and spiritual matters. Business discussed ranged from the expenses of pastors and the supplies required for Sabbath schools and the Lord’s Supper, to making lists of those who had joined or been expelled from the church. Love feasts were generally held at quarterly meetings. In some churches such meetings also involved prayers and preaching; in fine weather an outdoor camp meeting might last for days. 25 In Methodism an experience meeting offered those attending opportunities to describe their spiritual encounters. Such personal stories could lead some to greater understanding of their own beliefs, and others to religious conversion. Under the leadership of a wise minister this practice built up a worshipping community and promoted spiritual introspection. 26 My research has shed no light upon this particular family business.

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30 May 185927 Yours of the 19th came safe to hand and I [was] very glad that you do understand my letter as well as [you] do for I [am] a poor writer. The Sabbath school in Chatham is the Township of Chatham. The small society I organized of preaching a temperance discourse was a religious society, and the best of all, one [of] the men who arose for prayer says that he has found the Lord. I believe that the Lord has blessed him for he [is] a new man. I stated also that I formed a small society in the Township of Howard in a place called Botany. The first one organized numbered six, now it eleven. The other one that I organized numbered eight members, it now numbers twelve, and Sunday school at each place doing well. I would be glad if you have it in your power to send me some books for my two new Sabbath schools, for both are bad off for books. The two schools both are made up of fugitives from slavery. One school has eighteen scholars, the other has twenty-four scholars. Please send us some Sabbath schoolbooks for they want to learn how to read. Well, Brother, you say that cannot spare me from my work. Well, I will not go without your leave. I know that my labour is much wanting. I stated that my field was enlarging, so I am well pleased at what [you] say about me going. I hope when I am wrong that you will always tell me. Do not make light of my bad writing. Yours in the Missionary labour of Christ.

17 July 185928 These lines leave me well and family. I hope they may find you and yours the same. I have lost my aged mother.29 She died last Saturday sixteenth in the Lord. She went a shouting glory to God. She was well advanced in her 90 years. She was a kind mother. She loved to praise God for his goodness to her in sparing her to come to Canada with her children and her grandchildren. Well, the Lord is still carrying on his work. The people turn out well, although the times is hard and many find it hard to get along

27 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-509. 28 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-517. 29 Hannah Chambers.

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for want [of] bread. But the Lord will provide if we are faithful. You may have seen in the paper an article written by Elder Newman about the starving in our neighbourhood. It is true indeed and the half has not been told.30 But our harvest has commenced which makes times a little better. Dear Sir, our Sabbath schools are still increasing, but we want books. I held a Sabbath school exhibition. It was well attended, and it came off fine. They spoke well and the public give them much praise. We raised four dollars and 30 cts. for to get books with. Will you please get the books if I send you the money, or it may suit you to send four dollars worth of books and deduct from my next pay. For if that will do, please do so. Send some hymn books. We have some of London Religious Tract Society hymn books.31 The same kind will do. Twenty-five primers, the rest Sunday school library. I have got many or a number of settled persons in the spirit to learn to read God’s word, but they want books.

30 bmec conferences evaluated the performance of individual ministers. At the annual conference held in Chatham in August 1859, William Douglas, the local preacher at Dresden, reported that Chambers had signed a recent appeal by Baptist colleague William P. Newman “addressed to the people of the United States, in which it is said the people in Canada are starving.” Describing Chambers’s involvement as “a fling at the Methodist church, and an injury to the people in Canada,” he asked Chambers to explain himself. Chambers readily admitted that he was concerned about the suffering of people after the failure of crops but that he had expected Newman to take the issue up with people in Canada, not to broadcast it in the United States. He claimed to be as “much opposed to these disgraceful appeals to the States as any other brother present.” In the event, he was not chastised (bmec minutes, 1859, 4–5). In its issues of 19 and 21 July 1859, the Chatham Tri-Weekly Planet covered Newman’s initiative and local reaction to it. Newman was quoted in relation to attacks “on the character of such unoffending men as the signers of that letter, for their deeds of purity.” He praised Chambers as “a man devoted to the interest of his suffering people, and laboring and suffering like a slave for their elevation and good, as well as that of the writer, who has not failed to add his mite to the same end.” 31 The Religious Tract Society, London, had published many editions of its Cottage Hymn Book, beginning as early as 1810. Possibly that was the work that Chambers had in mind in making this request.

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Well, the weather is hot but it is fine for corn. Our wheat is better than what we thought it would to of been. Some will have some and others will not,32 but however I must not complain. Pardon me for not writing sooner for I ought to written before this time. No more. I remain, yours in Christ.

2 August 185933 I write you a few lines which leave me well and family the same. This day week I sent you a letter by the way of Chatham, but have not heard from you yet. You said that you would send a draft in a few days, but I have not heard from you yet. I have been thinking that you sent it. There has been two drafts sent to Dresden, both or neither one have not arrived. The letter sent back – have you got it? Well, dear Brother, the British m.e. Church, their annual conference is over and we had a good time.34 The Lord was with us there. The return of ten ministers who gave a good account of their fields of labour. Two did not return; three were turned out, two for immoral conduct, one for unfaithful duty at the conference. It was well attended and we had good preaching. Our people are improving as ministers, but I will write to [you] again when the report is made out and let you hear from us in Canada. Brother, pray for me. Well, we had another heavy frost.35 It done a great deal of damage to some of the crops. When I write I will give you a better

32 Chambers may have been thinking of Matthew 13:12: “For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.” 33 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-518. 34 The 1859 conference was held in Chatham. Chambers was received on trial in the itinerancy (i.e., as a preacher) and was elected as a reserve delegate to the General Conference to be held in May 1860. With T.W. Stringer and W.H. Jones he was appointed to a committee to “inquire what relation the Dawn Institution sustains to the coloured people of Canada, and report next Conference” (bmec minutes, 1859, 4, 5, 7). However, no such report is mentioned in the minutes of the 1860 annual or general conferences. 35 Chatham newspapers for the period make no mention of frost, which would have been unusual in August. Chambers may be referring to hail, a known summer danger to crops in the area.

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account of our people. Elder Newman is married again to [a] young woman. She is a fine woman. His first wife has been dead a four months. Well, I must stop. Please write as soon as you get this. Yours in the Lord.

14 August 185936 I have received your kind letter, which gave much pleasure in seeing the pains you have taken to inform me how to write. So I will now try to do as you have informed me. The Sabbath school at Dresden, as I have stated, is doing well. It has numbered one hundred scholars, but many of them are badly clothed so that they cannot attend school. They average from forty to fifty scholars every Sunday. Dresden: scholars one hundred, teachers six; Chatham Township on the 11 Concession, School #1: scholars fifty-eight, teachers four. Well, this Sabbath school in Chatham Township on the Concession is a fine school, but has but a few books. They want to be helped with a few books. Now in the same Township on the 24 of July, on the 13 Concession [I] started another Sabbath school. 13 Concession, Chatham Township: twenty scholars, teachers three. They poor off for books. Now this school wants help very much. I believe it will make a fine school with a little help. In the Township of Camden at Gees Ferry I have in this church ten members. Gees Ferry church members: ten in good standing. I started Sabbath school in the church: twelve scholars, and three teachers. This school has a few books but not enough. They are a fine people. They would be thankful for a little help. Township of Howard, in a place called Botany: I have a church and members; they number eleven members in good standing. I made a mistake: it is twenty-one members instead twenty. They are a fine people. The Sunday [school] in this church: fourteen scholars and three teachers. They want books bad. I want your opinion for I want to [know] which is best for me to do: to attend school two Lord’s days at two schools, or to preach. The schools do not seem to gain without my help. So if you think that I had better attend Gees Ferry and go on increasing the Sabbath school, please inform me what is

36 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-519.

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best. Our people cannot get along without someone to teach them. So you will see that. Dresden scholars: one hundred, teachers five. Concession Chatham: fifty-eight scholars, teachers five. Gees Ferry: church members ten in good standing. Gees Ferry: twelve scholars, three teachers. Botany numbers eleven members in good standing, Sunday school fourteen scholars, three teachers. Township of Howard: fourteen scholars, teachers three. Chatham Township 12 Concession: twenty scholars, three teachers.

15 August 185937 These lines leave me and family well. I hope that they find you and your family the same. Well, dear Brothers, this is the third report that I have tried to make in a week way. I hope that you will bear with me for I know that I am deficient for knowledge in making out a good report. But while this is true, my heart and mind is to try to do right. I do love the Lord and his cause, and I pray daily for grace and knowledge so that I may be more able to do the Lord’s work. I feel very serious when I read our paper38 and see the reports of other missionaries and I am so lame that I cannot make a report. Well, I am glad to say that our Sabbath meetings have been largely attended. The interest is still increasing. Our Friday afternoon prayer meetings are well attended, and also our Tuesday night prayer meetings are doing well. Although times has been hard I must say that I have never seen better attention. I said in one of my letters to you that the people could hardly get bread to eat, but in this the goodness of God has been seen, for the people seem to love to come to meetings in the week where they would not before. I can say for a truth that the people are improving; their lives, their conduct, their walks is good. The neighbourhood where I preach the Canadians say themselves that there is a great alteration. You recollect that I stated two men came forward and said that [they] would stop a-drinking and joined the society. Well, I do believe that they love the Lord with all their hearts. Their conduct from then seems to be the fullness of that which is

37 This letter, F1-520, was also addressed to Rev. Jocelyn. 38 The American Missionary.

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good. But I need not speak of them only, for there is others who are doing as well. We have added one more to our number this quarter. Our Sabbath schools, all of them are doing well, but we want books. Our people are poor, very poor, books they cannot beg. I sent you a letter wishing you to send $4.00 worth of books and deduct from my pay, or I will send you the four dollars for you to buy books with. I do wish that I were able to do better so you might understand what I try to write. I preach every other Tuesday night on the Thames, and every third Lord’s Day in Botany at 10 o’clock in the morning, and the same day at the Thames at 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Then that gives me one Sabbath in Dresden Sunday school, and one Sabbath in the Sunday school in the Township of Chatham, on the 11th Concession. Then prayer meeting Wednesday evening. The Lord is with us in our meetings, and his spirit is felt in our meetings. I can say for truth that I feel more and more of the missionary spirit, and if I live another year, I will do better, for my way is getting bright and brighter. I say that my way is getting bright and brighter. The Lord is clearing up my way for his work, and I feel that I shall be better prepared to work for God than ever. I have much to do, so I need more grace. I know that our people are a feared people driven from their homes and coming to Canada buying wild land and trying [to] pay for them at a big price. Others are leasing in the woods, helpless. You must know that they need someone to read God’s word to them and encourage them both to serve God and to work with their hands to make an honest living. I know it is hard to serve our people, but slavery is the cause of it. But some have hearts to do. I do say that two Sunday schools, although the scholars are men and women, not many children, yet I never seen greater minds to learn. I know that our people want in Canada good men to preach Christ in life, in work and conduct. I pray that I may be a good man … [15 August 1859]39 I held my quarterly meeting Sunday last the 14th and must say it will be a meeting long remembered. It was one of the best love feasts that

39 F1-521, Chambers omitted date, place of origin, and salutation. Likely this is an addendum to his previous letter that he intended for publication in the American Missionary.

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I have been in for some years.40 While they spoke their experiences it was an interesting time, for the Lord was with us in our meeting. The power of his spirit was felt. I said that our people were improving. Now I will state why that [I] say so. In our love feast although our souls were happyfied and there was much interest in the meeting and the burning love of God was felt, there was not that old time jumping, hollering, but things were done in order.41 After the feast were over, the house being small, we went in [the] woods and held our preaching service. There were present about a two hundred persons present, and while we preached they gave the best attention, and I never seen better order. Both white and black were on the ground. My own people behaved so well that it was said by many it was the greatest meeting that they ever were at in Canada. It does my heart good to see our people trying to be good. We have added one more to our number this quarter. We number now twenty-one members in our new society since the 24th of March. Two more at the quarterly meeting said they wanted to go to heaven with us. Now I must stop by saying if the Lord spares me another year I will try and be a better

40 Love feasts were important gatherings in Methodist tradition and often held as part of the quarterly meetings. They could be led by both deacons and elders and promoted fellowship among the faithful. This might include hymn singing, formal and spontaneous prayers, the sharing of bread and water (not Eucharist or Communion, which was always called the Lord’s Supper), the giving of testimonies concerning temptations resisted and graces received, and a final benediction. According to the bmec rulebook, the presiding elder or deacon might permit such a meeting “to last one hour and a half.” See Minter, Doctrine and Discipline, 67. 41 Both the ame and bme churches were known for the sometime exuberance of worship services, a practice often viewed with askance by more sedate Protestants. At the meeting of the Canada Conference of the amec in Toronto on 1 July 1843, preachers were urged to close their churches “at a suitable hour of the night, conforming to the customs of the communities where they live, thereby removing much of the odium commonly thrown upon our religious worship” (Payne, History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, 160–1). The cathartic emotionalism of Black Christian worship gave strength and succour to its practitioners.

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missionary, for I feel that I am about a great work and I cannot stop for I must do something for my race. So you must pardon my report for I mean [to] do right, the Lord being my helper. Yours in Christ.

28 August 185942 Gees Ferry is in the Township of Camden, 11 miles from Chatham, 11 miles from Dresden. Botany is in Howard about 5 miles from Gees Ferry. These two places I your servant have gathered together within four months. I have stated that these are a fine people, and I believe that they will do well. Well, the number that attend Sabbath school they vary, sometimes good number and other times not so many. My members and congregation attend well and believe that the Lord will do much for us. I thank you, my dear Brother, for your kindness for instructing me. If this is not right, I will [do] it again. Pray for [me]. No more, but remain yours.

Sabbath schools43 Name of the place where the school is

Teachers

Whole number of scholars

Numbers generally present

Dresden

6

100

60

Chatham Township, 11 Concession

11

58

40

Chatham Township, 13 Concession

33

22

18

Camden Township, Gees Ferry

23

14

10

Howard Township, a place called Botany

23

13

9

42 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-524. 43 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-525. This carefully written graph (perhaps in Ann Maria Chambers’s hand) is not dated by Chambers but is annotated: “Rev. L.C. Chambers, Report, Aug 59” and “To be returned to G.W.”

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Churches Name of the Church

Where the Church is

1. Number of members received in a year

Gee’s Ferry Gee’s Ferry Church Camden Township

11

Township of Howard

11

a place called Botany

2. How many members have died

3. How many been cut off

4. Removed

5. Number of members now

6. Number of congregation

10

25

9 September 185944 $4.30 for library books. It is with pleasure I write you these few lines to inform you that I and family are well, and hope that you and yours are the same. On the 6th I preached on the Thames. We had a good meeting. The Lord was with us. Two more say that they want to unite with the church. There is a good feeling on this mission to have the work of God to review, so I believe that we shall have an outpouring of the spirit of God. I have a great prospect for the people on this mission at Gees Ferry and Botany, for they are very industrious. They are all leasers of land. None owns their own farms. But I assure you that they are a working people. They have fine crops and they attend their meeting well, both prayer meeting and preaching. I try all I can to encourage them to raise their own living, and they seem to be glad to think that I take so much interest in them. Many are trying to learn to read. May the God of all of grace help them and me. Well, on yesterday we had our Sunday school teacher prayer meeting on the 11th Concession in Chatham Township, and we had a fine time. They are a fine people. They love Sabbath school. They want to know

44 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-526.

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when I will get the books. It has been over two months since the $4.30 cts has been raised, and I written to you to let me know if you would send $4.30 cts worth of books and pay yourself out of my salary. The scholars are very anxious to see their new books. Please write and let me know what you will do. I would prefer you to buy the books. Well, the frost has killed off all of the buckwheat and potatoes and corn. It not be more than a third of the crop.45 It came on the 28th of Aug. and 4th of Sept. So in the School Section number One, Chatham Township is where the frost that killed the crops. Well, I do not like to say anything about more, but it is a needy time with me. You are aware that this is a very poor place. We have had no crops much for three years. I do say to you as a friend that times look more like a famine than anything else. Some persons do not want it to be naming that times is so hard in this neighbourhood, but it is some bad frost every month this summer so far, and [I] will say more to you. There is not a farmer that has a crop of wheat. The number of bushels among the farms is 10, 18, 20, 30, 40, 60, 70, 80; but who has raised a hundred? I do not know. Well, what the poor will do, I do not know. Pardon me for writing so much, but I must say that I would like to say more to you than what I have said.46 No more, but I remain yours in Christ. Write as soon as you get this. Pardon me.

10 September 185947 Yours of the 7th came safe to hand and thank you for your kindness. All is right. I am very glad indeed to learn that you have a box of books to offer my schools. When I announce the fact it will put a new spring in the scholars. I am sorry that I written on the 9th, but do not think bad of me. You will please mark the box to me Chatham, Canada West. Write when you send them and I will go to Chatham and then send them as post for if sent by express they cost more. No more, but remain yours in truth.

45 Again, Chambers probably means hail. 46 Having had some local criticism for his support of Rev. William P. Newman’s letter about poverty amongst Blacks in the area of Dresden, Chambers expresses reluctance to say more about this situation to George Whipple. 47 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-527.

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8 October 185948 I take my pen in hand to write you a few lines to inform you that I am well and hope that you are the same. I am happy to say that on last Saturday and Sunday the first and second, I held a two days meeting in the woods in Botany. I preached on a Saturday night. We had a good number out a Sabbath morning. We met at 8 o’clock in a love feast, and the Lord was with us. While we spoke our experiences his Spirit was felt powerfully in our hearts. I never was in a better love feast, for it was one of deep interest. At 10 o’clock I preached to a fine congregation at which time I stated that we had heard that we would be interrupted, but some white gentlemen came forward and said that they would help to keep good order. At two o’clock, Brother Harden preached to a fine number.49 At four o’clock I preached again to a large number, about as between four and five hundred persons. And we had the best order. Well, I must say that the Lord owned his blessed word. It was a meeting in the woods which [will] be long remembered. There is not many colored persons in the settlement, but what is they very interested. You must know that we had a good time, for they – the white friends – let us have their house, and they came out and helped to fill the house. I preached again at seven o’clock to a large congregation. Now I must say that I do feel that the Lord smiles on my labour. I feel to have more and more of the missionary spirit than ever. I love your advice. It has done me good. Well, Mr. Newman parted for Haiti. He has left Canada. He sold off all and gone to labour for Christ. It may be that you will see him in New York. Well, they had another meeting on last Monday to take into consideration the incorporation of the Dawn Institute. The large number [of] things went off very calmly. The books came

48 This letter, F1-53, was obviously edited for publication and has the following annotation: “This written for the AM.” The American Missionary for December 1859, 273, includes an excerpt from Chambers’s letter. 49 Nero Harden was listed as a local preacher at Dresden in the bmec minutes, 1858, 6, and 1863, 13. Possibly a relative, Nelson Harden, was enumerated in the 1861 census for the Township of Camden and Gore. He was recorded as a farmer, born in the United States, and forty years of age, and was included in the column of “Colored Persons, Mulatto and Indians.” His small farm was on the river near Thamesville, not very far from Botany.

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safe, and they were thankfully received. We will hold a prayer meeting on behalf of this favour. My prayer is to God for you that the Lord may spare you for this good work. May the Lord bless you all. Yours in Christ. The present you sent me is a great favour from you. It is the very thing that I needed. I will make good use of it, the manual, for it is a fine book.

14 November 185950 These lines leave me well, but my family are poorly. I hope that these few lines may find you and yours well. We have a very sickly time at this period. Several deaths have been in different families. The Lord has visited by death one of our Sabbath school, and taking one of our members. She was about fourteen or fifteen years of age. She died in the Lord. She said that she did not want to stay in this world. Said mother, do not weep for me, do not shed one tear, for I am going to Jesus. She said that it was better to go now while young than to stay in this sinful world. Well, she was one who loved her Bible, for she said from reading she had found that she was poor, and that Christ was the only way to happiness. Well, during this quarter just closed it has been one of great interest. I have just come home from holding our quarterly meeting. Although it was a stormy day we had a good meeting. While we spoke our experiences the power of the Holy Spirit was felt. There was two white brethren paid us a visit, and they bore a good testimony for Jesus. This was the best meeting we have had at Gees Ferry. The snow fell fast, but they came miles. At three o’clock the Lord’s Supper was administered, and we had a happy time. The Lord was with us in our meeting. Aug. 20 I met the annual conference of the bme Church.51 There were present fourteen preachers. Sept. 3: prayer meeting of Sunday school. [Sept.] 4: I preached at Botany in the morning and at Gees Ferry at five; and the [Sept.] 5: prayer meeting. [Sept.] 6: I preached at Gees Ferry at eleven, prayer at five. [Sept.] 13: preached again.

50 This letter, F1-533. is annotated: “LT copied it for AM.” Lewis Tappan was treasurer of the ama . 51 Held at Chatham, 20–29 August.

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[Sept.] 18: meet two Sabbath schools on the same day and preached at seven. [Sept.] 20: I preached at Gees. [Sept.] 25: preached at the same place and baptized three by immersion. [Sept.] 27: prayer meeting. October the first and second I held a two-day meeting in Botany in the woods. There was a large attendance and good order. [Oct.] 4: I preached at Gees. [Oct.] 9: I meet the Sunday schools. [Oct.] 11: I preached at Gees. [Oct.] 16: preached at the same place. [Oct.] 18: prayer meeting. [Oct.] 23: I preached at Gees and at Botany. [Oct.] 25: preached at Gees. [Oct.] 28: prayer meeting. [Oct.] 30: I preached at Botany and Gees. November the first I preached at Gees. [Nov.] 4: prayer meeting. [Nov.] 6: buried the young member I spoke about. I have another place to preach about 20 miles from Dresden.52 They were after me last Lord’s day and said that they had nobody to teach them. So I must go and labour for them. I will write soon and let you know what luck. I have much to write you about in a few weeks. I want you to know how much grain has been raised by the slaves who are now freemen now in Canada. Many of these men came to this country you [know] poor, but this year have made a fine crops. So I will let you know what they are doing. Well, dear Brother, this has been the best year that [I] have laboured in the field, and I feel that I will spend my time and be spent in trying to do good.53 I know that the Lord has blessed my labours this year. I will now give myself wholly to the missionary cause. I know that there is a great need of someone to go out in the forest and hunt up the poor fugitive and encourage him to work for himself. I forgot to state that our monthly concert prayer meeting for the slave is still going on, but poorly attended, I am sorry to say.54 So I have

52 In Euphemia Township, Lambton County, the southeastern most township of Lambton County, northeast of Dresden. 53 He paraphrases 2 Corinthians 12:15: “I will most gladly spend and be spent for you.” This was a favourite text of John Wesley, frequently used by Chambers to express his missionary zeal. 54 The ama encouraged its missionaries to hold such meetings at which special prayers were said for the abolition of slavery and for those still suffering under its yolk. At its twelfth annual meeting the association passed a resolution lamenting that such meetings “had fallen into disuse” or were being “thinly attended”; pastors were encouraged to resume the practice both for

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laboured hard to teach that they ought to have the work at heart.55 Yours in Christ.

29 November 185956 These lines leave me well and my family is getting better. I hope that they may find you all well. Well, I promised in my last communication that I would write soon. It was on the 14th that written. I have just came home from Euphemia where I preached last Lord’s Day to a large number.57 But they are a hard people. They gave good attention, but they love rum. If there is any one place in this part of Canada West that wants preachers more than another, this is the place. I found one man that said he was trying [to] serve the Lord. They asked me to advise them. By the help of God I will do the best that I can. I did not believe that there was such a place in c.w. for Sabbath breakers. Slavery has so degraded our people that when they get to Canada they get disencouraged [sic] and want someone to tell them better. Well, I promised to let you know something about the crop raised by men who were slaves in the States. One man has one hundred and fifty bushels of corn, fifty bushels of potatoes, cabbage and other garden truck.58 He has a yoke of oxen, one cow, hogs, chickens, geese.

reasons of piety and “for the conversion of the world” (ama , ar , 1858, 9). Chambers was a faithful organizer of concert prayer meetings. 55 The Bible has much to say about the dignity and value of work. Chambers may have been inspired here by 1 Timothy 5:17: “Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.” 56 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-536. 57 Chambers lived as far away from Euphemia as he did from Botany. The 1861 census recorded sixty “colored persons” in Lambton County and only eleven in Euphemia Township (Census of the Canadas, 61). See Wayne, “The Black Population,” for a discussion of the accuracy of the enumeration of Blacks in that census. 58 Garden truck refers to vegetables raised for sale at a market, not for family consumption.

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Another man raised corn one hundred and twenty bushels, potatoes one hundred bushels, buckwheat four, turnips and other garden truck. This man has two yoke of oxen, hogs and chickens. The third man raised corn six hundred bushels, potatoes one hundred bushels, buckwheat fifty bushels, turnips twenty. He has two cows, hogs. The fourth man nine hundred of corn, potatoes fifty-five, turnips forty, cabbage and other garden truck, wheat ten, rye six, oats fiftysix, buckwheat six. This man has a span of fine horses, two cows, hogs, chickens. He raised forty bushels of peas. The fifth man raised seven hundred of corn, buckwheat twenty, potatoes one hundred and fifty, turnips ten. This man two cows, hogs, chickens. The sixth man raised twenty corn, potatoes sixty, buckwheat four, cabbage and other garden truck. He has one horse, three cows, geese, chickens, hogs. This man has been in Canada eight years. The other five men five years. They are escaped slaves. This will show that they can take care of themselves. The seventh man has raised corn eight hundred, buckwheat thirty, potatoes one hundred and twenty-five, two cows, hogs, geese, cabbage and other garden truck. The eighth man raised eight hundred and fifty corn, potatoes two hundred and twenty, beans forty, buckwheat four, cabbage and other garden truck. He has one cow. The two last men are freeborn from the state of New Jersey. The ninth man raised six hundred corn, potatoes eighty. He has two cows and hogs, garden truck. These all belong to church. None of the men owns land, but they are trying to make an honest living. We still have fine weather. It is very wet, but no snow. Mine of the 14th was written bad. Did you get and could you make it out? There is some other farmers that I have not spoke of. They have not their crops in yet. I should too of said three of these men lease their lands and clear them up, the others rent theirs. Please write soon. Yours in Christ. The figures stand for bushels. The Euphemia is the place that I spoke of on the 14th.

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9 December 185959 It is with much pleasure I now take my pen in hand to write you a few lines to inform you how time is. It is now very cold. Sleighing is tolerable good, but times is hard, and money matters is tight, But the Lord has blessed many with good crops, that is part of the farmers have done well. But crops has been poor in some land that is back from Dresden where the frost has killed it. But the [price of] provisions this fall it is much better [?] and I think that we will be better able to get through the winter than last winter. But religious matters is dull about Dresden among white as well as colored, but our mission time is good. The Lord’s work is going on since I written. We have added five more to our number. Well, I hope you will pardon me for asking you for money. I have had to get some things for winter, and I cannot get along without the money. You will please, Mr Whipple, to let me have it by the 14th of this month and oblige me.60 Your well wisher. No more, but I remain yours in Christ.

19 December 185961 These lines leave me well but my youngest child is ill with the whooping cough. The rest of my children are getting better. Well, the good work of the Lord is still going on. My members are scattering, that is they have to come some distance to meetings, but they turn out well. I do believe that the people have the work at heart, and as I said before, that they [are] industrious. There has been less rum drunk among the people for these twelve months than there has been for the last four years. I will, by the help of the Lord, try and turn the hearts of the people of Euphemia from intemperance to temperance. I stated to you that they were hard, so they are indeed, but they give good attention. But they drink very hard, that is a good number of them. And they need a good deal of persuasion to get them to stop drinking.

59 This letter, F1-538, is in poor shape and difficult to read in places. Hence my question marks. 60 Chambers is referring to his stipend, due after submitting his report of 14 November. 61 This letter, F1-539, was annotated: “Rec. 24th same day sent him dft $50 [?] LB.”

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Mr Whipple, dear sir, you must not think hard of me. These lines I written to you to please [send] me my money by the 17th. But I have not heard from you yet, although my report was made on the 14th of November. I see it in the paper, and it did my heart good.62 Well, now the day is the 19th, and I have had to get medicine for my family, and something for the winter, and I promised to pay by the 15th of this month, and they are after me every day for the money more or less. Now, my dear Brother, do not think hard of me for writing to you so soon, for I am in great need at this time. Please write as soon as you get this. You will register your letter – that is the best way. I think, I hope that I will get an answer by the 23rd. Mr Whipple, is there much excitement now about Mr Brown?63 Please write me a few lines and let me know what is going on. Was there any more hung? My heart bleeds for the poor slave. My prayer is to God to hasten on the day when slavery may have an end. My prayer to God is for your labour of love. May the Good Lord bless you all. No more, but remain your brother in the Lord. Write soon.

4 January 186064 These lines leave me and family well and hope that they may find you and yours the same and the rest of the brethren. Brother Tappan’s came safe to hand which informed me that you were out of the city uttering to loading a vessel for Africa and that you had lost your

62 The paper was the ama Annual Report for 1859. The Canada Mission section of the report included a synopsis of Chambers’s missionary labours, highlighting his development of Sabbath schools and churches. 63 On 18 October 1859 the abolitionist John Brown (1800–1859) led an unsuccessful raid on the United States arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. He was captured, tried on 2 November, and hanged on 2 December. Four of his accomplices were hanged on 16 December, and two more on 16 March 1860. While visiting Chatham in October 1858, Brown had tried to enlist Blacks for his planned raid, which he hoped would trigger a general slave uprising. Harriet Tubman heard Brown speak at a recruitment meeting in Chatham, and Chambers may have been present on this occasion, though he does not mention this in his letters. Chambers greatly admired Brown and later in his life organized events to commemorative his memory. 64 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-543.

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brother. I sympathize with you for I do feel for every brother that [is] labouring to do good for the poor African race as well as for others. Well, the work of the Lord is still going on. On my mission at New Year’s Day, although it was a very cold day, we had a fine meeting commencing with a watch meeting the night before.65 Well, it was cold weather but the good Lord warmed our hearth and now we have joined with the call to unite in general prayer meeting for the spread of the gospel through the world. I called yesterday to see a little boy about ten years old who fell last winter and put his thigh out of place. His father is in California. He said to his aunt, “Will you please ask the preacher to pray for me?” I drew near his bedside and said: “Do you want me to pray for you?” “O yes!” was the reply. I asked him if he could read. He [said] no, but he loved to hear reading. I asked him if he loved the Lord. He said yes, that he wanted to [do] good. So I prayed with the poor little boy. His brother and sister are very ignorant, but I left with good impression made on their minds. I go all kind of weather to do good. Well, I stated something of the industrious habits of some of my members. I want to tell you what twelve men have done since they came to Canada without anything much. This do in a week way, so you as one who loves to hear what we are doing in Canada. Some say when the blacks get free that they cannot take care of themselves, but it is not so. The longest that any of these men have been in Canada is from four to five years.

Number of man

corn

potatoes

cows

the first man

150

50

one

the second man

120

100

two yoke of oxen

the third man

600

100

two

the fourth man

900

55, oats 56, pease 40

one cow, one span of horses

65 In Methodist practice, watch meetings were often held on New Year’s Eve. They mixed prayer with exhortations for repentance, thanks, and praises for blessings received in the year past, and expressions of community hope for the future. Amongst former slaves, prayers were commonly said for the end of slavery.

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Number of man

corn

potatoes

cows

the fifth man

700

125, buckwheat 20

two cows

the sixth man

20

60

two

the seventh man

800

125, buckwheat 30

two

the eighth man

850

220

one

the ninth man

600

80

two

the tenth man

500

40

one

the eleventh man

300

25

two cows, two yoke of oxen

the twelfth man

150

30

one horse

This man one year ago commenced to pay for a piece of land by cutting cordwood. He has finished his contract. He has cut three hundred cords of wood and kept his little family at the same time in woods at Chatham. But I must say that Canada is a hard place for colored people. It is too cold and the winters are too long. Some trials has to be undergone in Canada. Many get disencouraged [sic] on the account of hard times. So, as I have said before, they need much advice. Well, I stated I pray that the blessing of God may be with you, Brother. I am still in great earnest for my master’s work. Yours in the Lord.

15 February 186066 These lines leave me well and mine, and hope that you and yours are enjoying the blessing of the Lord. The quarter now closed has been one of great success indeed. The interest that was manifested this quarter is the greatest that I have seen since I have been on this mission. The Lord has powerfully owned and blessed his word to the conversion of seven souls who have united with us, and five more who have joined by confession that they found Christ in the States, which makes twelve that have united with us this quarter. Bless the Lord for his goodness for hearing our payers.

66 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-546 and F1-547.

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Last Saturday I commenced our quarterly meeting although it was very stormy day. At night we had a large number out, and a white brother who gave us an exhortation. We had a good meeting Sunday morning. We had an experience meeting at nine o’clock. While we spoke our experiences the spirit of the Lord was felt among us. One white brother paid us a visit and he bore a warm testimony for Jesus. I am happy to say that the church of Christ that was formed in the woods is a prospering. November 20th I preached at Botany. It was a glorious meeting; one joined. [Nov.] 22: preached at Gees. [Nov.] 24: prayer meeting. [Nov.] 27: I preached at Euphemia. [Nov.] 28: I attended burying. [Nov.] 29: preached at Gees. December 6 preached at Gees. [Dec.] 11: the same place and at Botany a prayer meeting [Dec.] 13. [Dec.] 18: preached at Gees. [Dec.] 20: preached at the same place. [Dec.] 25: preached at Gees and Botany. [Dec.] 27: preached at Gees. [Dec.] 31: at the same place and we commenced a week’s meeting. We had a good meeting. I held a watch meeting although it was a very cold night, but the meeting will be long remembered. Jan 1st I preached at 11 o’clock. It was a solemn New Year’s Day. [Jan.] 3: prayer meeting. [Jan.] 8: preached at Dresden at 11 o’clock, meet two Sunday schools. [Jan.] 9: I went to pray for a little boy about eight years old who fell and put his thigh out of place. He asked me to pray for him. He said that he loved the Lord and he don’t want to stay in this world. But he wants to be with Jesus. [Jan.] 10: prayer meeting. [Jan.] 11: preached. [Jan.] 15: preached at Botany. I should to have stated that we had union prayer meeting for the outpouring of God’s spirit on the whole world, which held one week. It was well attended. There was a very deep interest manifested. [Jan.] 20: I called again to see that little sick boy. [Jan.] 22: preached Gees at 11 o’clock; Dresden at 7 o’clock for the baptism. [Jan.] 25: Gees. [Jan.] 29: met the Sunday school. [Jan.] 30: concert prayer meeting for the slaves and the friends of the slaves. I am glad to say that our meeting was well attended, and a very deep interest was manifested. Feb. the 1st I preached at Gees. [Feb.] 5: preached at Botany and Gees at seven o’clock. [Feb.] 8: preached at the same place. Quarterly meeting ends this quarter. Mr Whipple, dear Brother, the lines you sent has caused deep sorrow to rest on my mind, to learn that so many dear Brethren and good friends have been driven out from their labour and their homes, then to think on the other hand that our people of color are so dead to this one interest and do not know how to respect or

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feel for their friends. Slavery has so brutalized my poor race that it will be some time before they will have a reformation. There is much said in Canada about fugitives, but what is the cause of so much poverty and degradation? They come here poor, they come here degraded, they come here ignorant, turned out, and what has been their education? We all know [why] that it is they cannot take care of themselves, but bless the Lord, it is not so with many. [I] see them in the woods making living for themselves. But I must say to you about the Dawn.67 It is the worst people that I have seen in Canada that a [fury] has cursed the place. I am sorry [to] say so, but it is true. Some of the party do what they please. I had to go myself and stop them from grinding on the 22nd of Jan., which was the Lord’s Day. This I [am] writing to you. They are bad people, but there [are] a good many that is doing well. But in Canada I do not think that there is much difference. The white population have been educated, and have a better chance. But there is places in Canada I know that I have to go through that the people are but little better. I do not say this to justify our people to be lazy, for lazy persons are a curse to any people. The blacks I do think, when we make allowance for the cause, we can say that they do not go bad. I make no complaint only against those who are the enemies of black men and the black man’s friends, but we are a degraded race. But we who love the Lord must preach to them, pray and labour for them. I will do the best I can by the help of God. You say that you hope that I make all of preparation for preaching with much prayer to God. I do, for I feel without his aid that my labour is in vain. I pray earnestly for more of the spirit of Christ. You have asked whether I have so much of the spirit of Christ that I can mourn over the wretchedness of men. I do, and oftentimes weep over the condition of mankind. I pray much to God for more grace. Brother, my heart’s desire is to God for the spread of his glorious gospel. May the God of all grace bless you and give you much

67 The mill at the British American Institute (Dawn) was no longer in operation. Chambers here may be criticizing the owners of the mill at Dawn Mills, upriver from his land. In her essay “Reimagining the Dawn Settlement,” in Ebanda de b’Beri, Reid-Maroney, and Wright, Promised Land, 176–92, Marie Carter explores the multiple meanings of the word Dawn in the history of the region.

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success and bless too the rest of your dear brethren. Pray for me. Let us not be weary in well doing, for we should rest if we faint not.68 Yours truly.

24 February 186069 These lines leave me and family well, and hope that they may find you and yours the same. I want to pen you a few lines. It may not be too late for the press.70 I hope not. Well, we have lost one of our members. She was buried on the 22nd. She was sick about thirteen days. She was confined to bed on the 9th, died on the 19th. Some three months before she died she stated to one of her sisters in the church when she was taken that she never would leave her room until she was carried out feet foremost. Two weeks before she was confined to her bed she again said to a sister of the church that it would be the [last time] that she ever would be at her house, for she would not get over this spell of sickness. So, she was confined and delivered of a son. After she was taken very ill and stated that she would not get well. So she went out of her head and was in a state of insanity for five days. But the day before she died she came to herself and said that she was going to die and leave her little children. The night before she died she said, “Father, I am going to leave you. I am going to Jesus. Father, one favour I want of you: lay me beside of my mother.” The next morning [to] the doctor she said, “Doctor, you cannot do me any good at all for I have a better doctor than you. Doctor, I am going to Jesus. I am going home to heaven. I am going to leave this world, and I am glad of, I am glad of it, for I am going to live with the Lord.” So she died in the Lord. She leaves four little children and poor husband behind. She was a good mother and a kind wife. A husband and children mourn the loss of a good mother and a [?] wife. The church has lost one, but heaven has gained. Her death will be long remembered. I thought that you would be glad to hear of her happy death. May the Lord bless you, my dear Brother. Yours in truth.

68 Chambers is paraphrasing Galatians 6:9. 69 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-550. 70 Chambers hoped for publication in the American Missionary of his account here of a “happy death,” but this did not happen.

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8 March 186071 These lines leave me well and hope that they may find you the same. Dear Brother, I have just come home from London. I find a very large number of colored people who are destitute of a minister and a Sabbath school. The people are poor and times are hard. There is now in London six hundred houses empty.72 Some of the best men are broke up and left the place, but the poor fugitive must stay in poverty and ignorance and it requires much patience and faith in God to do much good. I must say that our people are evil, and a great number about London love liquor. They are very intemperate. They written to me if I could reach them from Thamesville73 that they would pay my passage from Thamesville to London and back again. So I have agreed to serve them on the condition that is they will pay my passage from London to Thamesville and from Thamesville to London. It is about five miles from my appointment to Thamesville. I hope that you have got my last report for the 14th of Feb. I have not got an answer yet and this the 8th of March. This is the twenty-third day since I sent my last quarter report. My prayer is for you and our American Missions that God my help us. Pray for me that God may bless me and prosper his work in my hand. Write soon as you can. Yours in the Gospel of our Lord.

12 April 186074 These lines leave me well and family. I hope that they may find you all well. Pardon me for not writing sooner. The cause for delay was

71 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-552. 72 London suffered from the worldwide depression of the late 1850s, compounded locally by the end of a railway boom, collapsing real estate market prices, and crop failures. H.W. Johnson had been appointed to London by the bmec conference at its 1859 annual meeting, but seemed to be absent from that posting. He is not mentioned in succeeding conference minutes until listed, in 1863, as a local preacher in Windsor. 73 Thamesville in Camden and Gore Township is at the eastern end of Kent County. It was connected to London by the Great Western Railway. The Thamesville station would have been a good jaunt from Chambers’s farm. 74 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-559.

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that I wanted to be around more about London. Yours truly came to hand with a draft. Mr Whipple, Dear Sir, I have been very busy. I have just come home from London. I have been there for two weeks trying to do what good I can. There is seventy-six. They appear to be deeply engaged about their souls. I have spent some time with them in prayer to God. They profess to have a good knowledge of God and say that they are happy in his love. I went to their house and gave them the Lord’s Supper. It was a time of much interest indeed. Mr Whipple, I do not want you to think that I am inclined to run about from place to place. As I stated to you some time ago that I could not do the good about Dresden and Dawn that I should like to do on account of matters that I could not have any control over.75 So, I went to work to hunt out the poor outcast in the woods, and I do feel that God has blessed me and my labour. So, as I told you, one of my preaching places was at Gees Ferry, that is in the Township of Camden; the next in Botany, the Township of Howard. Well, all of the people are poor, they own no land, and at both of these places they are getting ready to move away. Their times is out, that is their leases. I had two more places but a very few persons of color live in either of settlements, so I am constantly going from one place to another. I walk a great deal over swamps, through the woods and water. So on my way to Botany I met with a friend who invited me to London to preach for them. So I went the time I written to you before. I have been up to London three times this quarter. I find the people very glad to hear the gospel preached to them. I have in attendance on public preaching about one hundred and twenty-five persons I think, but am sorry to say to you that their morals are bad. So many men have two wives, and women have two men living. They leave one and take another. They love whiskey. O how it pains my heart when I think how bad my poor race is and how slavery has degraded us. On last Lord’s Day I held an experience meeting. I invited some white friends to meet with us. I must say the meeting was one of deep feeling. There was many tears shed.

75 Chambers is referring to the fact that he was not stationed by Bishop Nazrey to the bme church in Dresden but was ministering to small settlements of Blacks at Gees Ferry, Botany, and Euphemia Township, etc. When he mentions preaching in Dresden, it would have been by invitation of another minister whether Methodist, Baptist, or Congregationalist.

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In the afternoon, I administered the Lord’s Supper. God was with us, his spirit it was felt powerfully in the hearts of those who loved him. We have a tolerable good meeting house to worship almighty God in.76 It is a hard thing to preach among those who have made their way to Canada from slavery, but it requires much faith and patience. But I do not feel weary in trying to work for God. I love the peace of Christ and I am determined to spend and be spent in the missionary cause. By the help of the master I will try and live for it. I will just say the people of London pay my passage backwards and forwards to London. I spend two weeks at a time with them. When I write the next time, I will tell you more about London. My heart is with you in the good work. Yours Truly.

14 May 186077 These lines leave me well and I hope that they may find you and the rest of the brethren well. The weather is fine now with us in Canada. The people are busy getting their crops in. The colored farmers are trying to keep time with others. I can say the colored people got through the last winter far better than they did the winter of 1859. Things has been cheaper and a better crop was made last year. The past quarter which is now closed, I am able to say through the goodness and blessing of God to let you know something about the prosperity of the work since the first of April. On the 8th I preached in London at 11 o’clock and at 6 o’clock in the evening, and also the 10th at the same place. We had a very large congregation. Many persons manifest a desire to do better. Several have promised to stop drinking ardent spirits. The people have come together when I arrived at London. The church was much to pieces, the members loving brawling, and many would not come to church, but I am happy to say that they have come together and they say that [they] are resolved if possible to let old things pass away. I have visited the different members, and now we have a time of deep interest.

76 As described in my introduction, the “tolerable good meeting house” in London still stands. In Chambers’s day it was on Thames Street. At the time of writing, it had been moved next to its daughter church on Grey Street and may find a new home at the Fanshawe Pioneer Village. 77 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-562.

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On the 15th I visited Ingersoll,78 a 20 miles from London. I found there a few old men and women who were anxious, very much so indeed, to hear the Gospel. From that time up to this the Lord has owned his blessed Word. He has poured out his spirit in this place. I have spoke on the subject of temperance since the 15th. I have formed a temperance society numbering thirty-six members and have added to the church thirty-eight members. Never have I felt more of the goodness of God than the last two months. The colored people in Ingersoll are persons who have lately come from slavery. They are mostly young persons. I find that they have great minds for learning. We have a Sabbath [school] in this place and are now trying to beg a schoolhouse for a house to worship God in. The people are favourable to our cause and I believe that the friends will do much to get us a house. I have a very large congregation in this town, both London and Ingersoll. We have on the Lord’s Day a very full house. When I was invited to London, I made it [a] matter of prayer and I know that it was the will of a kind providence that I should labour in this field. So, Mr Whipple, you will not think I am inclined to run about from place to place for I could not do in the neighbourhood of Dresden the good I would like to [have] done, for there is twelve colored preachers, three white preachers. They all preach more or less in this neighbourhood. So I by the help of God went in the woods from places some distance from Dresden until I have reached this point, and now by the divine aid of God I will try and live a Christian and preach the gospel. From the 14th of February I preached twice a day every Lord’s Day, and every Tuesday night. I written you some time ago that I was willing to spend and be spent in the cause of my dear Redeemer. I am away from my wife and children as much as three and four weeks at a time, so I can assure you that the interest for piety and morality and industry among those who have gained Canada is better. I have more faith in our people that they be something in Canada. I have proved what you say, that it takes much faith and heartache and

78 In Oxford County, east of London, on the south branch of the Thames River. Chambers could easily have travelled there and back on the Great Western Railway.

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much self-denial. I want to live so that you will bless our missionary cause in Canada. Our monthly prayer meeting for the slave is still going on, and how my heart feels for my missionary brethren in the South. Yours in truth and love.

[No date]79 This quarter there has been one woman who has been striving for the blessing of God for twelve months. A week ago she rose from her bed and said that she found the Lord. She was calm, the tears of joy flowed from her eyes. Yesterday we had a fine quarterly meeting. The Lord was within our meeting, and his Spirit was felt in our hearts. I baptized four persons by sprinkling.80 Sunday the 6th I baptized twelve by sprinkling, eleven children, one grown up person; the same day eight by immersion, which makes this quarter twenty-six children baptized by sprinkling. I have taken in at London since the first of April five members, three by letters, two without letters; at Ingersoll thirty-eight by letters.81 This will show you, Mr Whipple, that the Good Lord is doing great work in this part of the vineyard.

30 May 186082 These leave me and family well. I hope that [they] may find you and yours the same. Well, dear Brother, I feel that I want to write you a few lines to inform you of another death of one of our Sabbath school scholars. She was a member of the Bible class that I formed some two years ago. She was between twelve and thirteen years of age. She was sensible of her death till the last. Since I came home my

79 This letter, F1-563, likely a postscript to F1-562, gives no date, place of origin, or salutation. 80 According to the Doctrine and Discipline of the British Methodist Episcopal Church of the British Methodist Episcopal Church on the form of baptism, adults and “parents of every child to be baptized, have their choice either of immersion, sprinkling or pouring” (Minter, The Doctrine and Discipline, 127). 81 The letters in question, evidence of previous church membership, would have been provided by elders to those moving within the country or emigrating to Canada. 82 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-567.

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own sister has informed me all about her death. She said to my sister that she was in great pain. She said, “How I do suffer.” She asked her if she was afeared to die. “O no, for I love the Lord. I love my Bible.” She was willing to die for she wanted to go to Jesus. The night before she died she said, “O Miss Chambers, how I do suffer.” She told her that the Lord would come and take her home to himself. “Pray to him,” she replied. “I am waiting.” She called her stepfather and said to him, “Get religion and be good to my Mother and prepare to meet me in heaven.” She said that she wanted all of her relations to love God and try to meet her in heaven. She said “Give my love to [all] of my Sabbath schoolmates, and tell them to [love] God, and be good children and meet her in heaven.” She bid goodbye for she was going home to live with God. The Lord has been here and borne away a sister from our side. “Just in the morning of her day as young as we she died. Perhaps our time may be as short, our days may fly as fast O Lord, impress the solemn thought that this may be our last.”83 She was a good little girl. I hope this may reach you in time for the press.84 The good is still going on. I have just come home from my stations. Last Lord’s Day we had a good meeting. On the 24th, which was the Queen’s birthday,85 on the river Thames, there was three young persons drowned, two young men and one young woman. They were of the best family in the town. It was a sad affair. I hope you have received my report of the 14th . I hope you may get this in time for possible publication. Yours in love and fellowship. I have not stated the place on the Thames where the three young persons was drowned. It was near Thamesville, fifteen miles from Chatham. This little girl was Father Hinson’s granddaughter.86 She

83 Chambers’s words here are taken from the hymn “On the Death of a Scholar.” It could be found in many hymn-books of the period, including William Gadsby’s A Selection of Hymns, from Various Authors, for the Use of Sunday Schools (London, 1852). See hymn no. 286 in the supplement to the fifth edition. 84 That is to say, publication in the next issue of the American Missionary. 85 Queen Victoria was born on 24 May 1819. Her birthday was celebrated throughout the British Empire, and the date remains a national holiday in Canada. 86 By “Father Hinson” he may mean Josiah Henson. The little girl Chambers

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died with consumption. She had not the best example set before her, but she was a good little girl.

14 June 186087 These lines leave me well at this time and hope that they may find you the same. I have just come home from my labour. Since I sent my last quarterly report I have formed two Sabbath schools, one at London and one at Ingersoll, and a temperance society at London. When I write again, I will let you know the number of Sabbath school scholars and what number have joined the two temperance societies. The Lord is still carrying on his work. I do believe that the colored people are getting on better. Our churches are increasing and there is a good interest for the Redeemer’s cause. I still feel greatly encouraged to work for God. I preach twice each Lord’s Day and attend Sabbath school at three o’clock every Sunday, and preach sometimes twice a week, but always once a week, and attend prayer meeting. I sent you my last quarterly report on the 14th of last month, May the 14th, but have not heard from it yet. Mr Whipple, dear Brother, please send me a draft by the 20th of this month as I leave home again on the 23rd and will be gone for two weeks, for I am always away two weeks at a time. Please answer this as soon you can for I am in a great need. No more, but still remain your fellow labourer in the missionary cause of our blessed Lord. Yours truly.88

12 July 186089 These lines leave me well and family. I hope that they may find you and yours the same. I have just came home and I am happy to inform you how the good work is going on. Yours came safe to hand the 22nd of June with a draft for fifty dollars, which was received with much thankfulness to you. I got it the 22nd and left home to one of my stations on the 23rd. That was the next day. You stated that

refers to here is the Sabbath school scholar, not one of those drowned near Thamesville. 87 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-569. 88 This letter is annotated as follows: “dft sent June 18/60.” 89 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-570.

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I have not written plain enough. You will please pardon me. It was my intention to write plain. I thank you for your kindness to me for your plain mode of writing. I want to do what is right before the Lord. My mind is made up to work for God and I am glad to say to you, dear Brother, that the Lord doth bless me and my labour. I now will try to make my statement little plainer. I have now four preaching places; the names of the four places are as follows: first Gees Ferry, second Botany, the third place London, the fourth place Ingersoll. I preach at London every other Sunday twice a day. I preach in the morning at eleven o’clock; then I teach the Sabbath school at three o’clock, and preach at six o’clock in the evening. This is my labour on the Lord’s Day. I meet a class on Monday night and a Tuesday night I preach again. This is the way I employ my time at London. Then from London to Ingersoll I preach the next Sunday at eleven o’clock, teach in the Sabbath school at three o’clock, preach again at six o’clock. I preach at the same station Tuesday night and Thursday night; then from Ingersoll to London where I perform the labour as before; then home to see my family. I spend three days with them, saddle up my horse and ride fifteen miles where I preach at eleven o’clock.90 This place is Botany. I then get a bite to eat for my horse and myself and ride five miles and preach at Gees Ferry. Now these two places are both in private families. The people are few in number at both places and they are moving away, so I will not have many to hear me. But London I have a church, the number of members, that is church members seventy. I taken this station on the 4th March last.91 This society was in a poor state but since that time the Lord has poured his spirit on our church. There has been added four to the church at London and a Sabbath school; scholars number forty-seven in London. Ingersoll we have no church, but we rent a schoolhouse for a church. We have forty church members and a fine Sunday [school]. Scholars thirty-six in both of these schools. We have men and women who appear to be very anxious to learn. Dear Brother Whipple, I do believe by the help of God that London

90 He does not mention in the letters when he acquired the horse to ride between his preaching places. The convenience must have come as a great relief to him. 91 Possibly Bishop Nazrey had asked Chambers to succeed H.W. Johnson on an interim basis, pending the next conference of the bmec .

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and Ingersoll can be made fine places. The people are industrious. Ingersoll is eighty miles from my home. They pay my passage to and fro. Ingersoll is twenty miles from London and London is forty-five miles from Gees Ferry. Gees Ferry is ten miles. That is the place where I preach from my home. This leaves me well. Yours Truly in the Lord.

Figure 2.2 | Chambers to Whipple, 14 June 1860, Dresden: “Our churches are increasing and there is a good interest for the redeemer’s cause.”

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15 August 186092 These lines leave me and family well. I hope that they may find you and yours the same. Well, Dear Sir, I must say that this letter leaves me with more courage and a warmer spirit for the cause than ever. The last quarter has been a time of much joy and peace, although it has been a season of much hard labour, for I have travelled this quarter a eleven hundred and ten miles. And the eleven hundred and ten miles has been sometimes through rain and mud. The round trip has been twenty-two hundred and ten miles. It is from my home to London sixty miles; from London to Ingersoll twenty miles; and from my home to Botany fifteen miles. Gees Ferry is between my home and Botany, but there is other labours that the distance is not hard, for I have visited the sick and buried the dead. Well, I have preached at Botany in the morning eleven o’clock, then rode a horse back five miles and preached again at four o’clock. Then the next Lord’s Day at London at eleven o’clock, then I meet the Sabbath school at three o’clock and preach again at six o’clock. I meet a class on Monday night and preach again on a Tuesday night, and prayer meeting a Thursday night. This is my labour at London. I leave London on a Friday for Ingersoll where I preach the next Sunday at eleven o’clock, then meet the Sunday [school] there at three o’clock. I preach again at six o’clock and preach again Thursday night. Then on a Friday again I leave for London where I perform on the same labour as before stated. Then leave for Gees Ferry and Botany, then home. These appointments have been fulfilled punctually. I can say by the help of God I have not disappointed a congregation since I have been labouring in the missionary cause. I have earnestly prayed to God for grace and I know that he has heard my prayers for I have the witness that I love him and he is with me. O bless his name! He is with me! Well, Saturday and Sunday last was our quarterly meeting at Gees Ferry. It was held in the woods. We had about two hundred persons there to hear the word of the Lord, although the weather was not so good, but it was a day of joy. In our experience meeting the power of God’s spirit was felt in our hearts. The day will not soon be forgotten. I baptized three by immersion, seven children by sprinkling. The number of children baptized this quarter is seventeen. One of our

92 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-571.

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members has died at Ingersoll, a female. She said that she was willing to die for she was going home. At Ingersoll, there was a man who has been for a long time a desperate drunk, and about a week ago he came forward to join the temperance society. We made it a matter of prayer for that was the request of his wife, for poor woman she was in trouble. So he came forward and said will you let me join the church under your watch care?93 From that day to this he has been a praying man and the town is astonished at him to think he is such a changed man. So the work of God is going on. My heart’s desire is to God for his cause that it may a-prosper.

15 August 186094 I said an eleven hundred and ten miles. The round trip is 22 hundred and 20 miles. Pardon the wrong. The man that I spoke about was slave and came to Canada about ten years ago. He married a free woman. She was a fine woman, but drink has ruined him. Sometime after I had been there she asked me to do her a favour, to talk to husband and pray for him. So we made it a matter of prayer and he came and joined the temperance pledge the next night. He asked if [he] might join the church under my watch care. So, he joined, and from that day until this he has been walking upright. Well, as I written to you before the people at Botany are now getting ready to move for their lease is out, and at Gees Ferry there is three families that is going to move from there, but at London we have a fine church, there is about sixty good members. At Ingersoll there is a number of persons that I taken up and formed in a society;95 their number is about 45 members. The congregation at London is

93 Methodists were encouraged to keep watch over each other, encourage one another in Christian belief and behaviour, pray together, and act communally in the interest of spiritual well-being. Those in leadership positions – deacons and elders – were expected to be models to the larger worshipping community and to provide “watch care” over those with special needs. 94 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-572. 95 Society here refers to a worshipping group that met together for spiritual support. This group might be the foundation from which trustees would be chosen to build a church for members and adherents.

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about one hundred and fifty. The congregation at Ingersoll is about seventy-five.96 Now, Brother Whipple, I have spared no pains but by God’s grace I have laboured for the good of souls. I have been trying to preach and teach for the last fifteen years and never have I felt so much freedom to labour for the good of souls as I have done since I joined the missionary cause. But there is cause for it. I now get help; before I did not. The people at London and Ingersoll have always paid my fare. They have done it willingly. Well, the first of August was a great day among the people of colour in Canada.97 There was in Chatham on that day I am informed about two thousand and five hundred persons. Every [one] that I have seen say that they done well. They dedicated the finest church in Chatham on that day.98 Times is getting better in Canada. We have fine crops this year. Mr Whipple, if I have erred in anything it is in the head and not in the heart. Now I intend to move my family [to] Ingersoll about the first week in October. There they want me. You will [know] that I have formed two Sunday schools, one in London and one in Ingersoll where they never had one before. So, after you answer me, I will then get ready to move. I would like to move the last of September, but I must wait for the means. I believe I stated to

96 Methodist church attendance (congregation or adherents) and membership could be two different things. Members supported the church with their presence, donations, and often their readiness to be involved as trustees, officers, and Sabbath school teachers. Many of those who attended services were in the process of discerning their eventual formal membership in the church. 97 The anniversary of the date in 1833 of the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act in Great Britain. The legislation took effect on 1 August 1834 and brought an end to slavery in the British Empire. The Provincial Freeman frequently reported on 1 August celebrations in Chatham; many Black Americans from Windsor and Detroit would sail up the Thames to visit for the day. The 1833 date lives on in the commemorative calendar of Black history. 98 The church in Chatham had been under construction when the annual conference of the bmec was held there in 1859. At that conference Rev. William H. Jones, who was responsible for raising funds and supervising the construction of the building, reported on its progress and debt (bmec minutes, 1859, 7). Following the dedication to which Chambers refers, Jones told the 1860 conference that the final construction debt was $413 (bmec minutes, 1860, 7–8).

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you a long time ago the cause for leaving Dresden. There is thirteen preachers of colour. Well, in the place where I am going is none, and I know that God has blessed my labours at London and Ingersoll. Their hearts is warm to hear God’s word preached. So, I intend by God’s help to [preach] in his name. I have made it a matter of prayer. I believe it is well for me to go. So, I must stop. I will write to you in about two weeks. My prayer is that the Lord may bless you in your labour of love and mercy. Now as soon as I get this quarterly pay I will move. Yours in Gospel of our dear Lord.

13 September 186099 My wife came to London on yesterday to see the Prince100 and she brought this101 to me so I seat myself to fill it up. I trust that I have gave you the facts in the case. My place commenced on the 14th of November. The people at Gees Ferry [and] Botany are all getting ready to move away, so for the last six months I have been labouring at London and Ingersoll. I have a good church at London and a fine congregation. We rent a schoolhouse at Ingersoll. At these places I labour and fill all of my appointments at the one [time]. I am now getting [ready] to move so that I will be nearer to the people. [Following is Chambers’s annual report to Whipple made 14 September 1860, F1-574/575. It was submitted on the form noted in F1-573, with letterhead “Annual Report, Rooms of the American Missionary Association, 48 Beekman Street, New York, Sept 14/60.” The instructions on the form are in italics, and Chambers’s answers are in roman.] rev.

l . c . c hambers

dear sir : Your Report will be for the year ending August 1, 1860. Please fill up the blanks in the following form, and return it to us

99 Chambers dated this letter, F1-573, written in London, 14 August, but he obviously meant September. The connected report that follows dates from September. 100 Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), visited London on 12 September 1860, much to the excitement of the local population. 101 The annual report form sent by Whipple, F1-574/575.

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within three days after its reception by you, if practicable. Every blank should be filled explicitly, leaving nothing for us to determine. (For further suggestions on this and other points, see page 4.) Your name in full, Lewis Champion Chambers Names of Churches and Congregations to which you minister, their location – (Town & County), British Methodist Episcopal Church, Gees Ferry, Botany, London, Ingersoll Gees Ferry in the Township of Camden, Botany Township of Howard, London Canada West, Ingersoll, Canada West Date of Commission, that is when your year commences, November 14 Dollars of aid pledged by the a . m . a . , 10 dol.102 12 Months of labor herein reported, ten months Hopeful conversions, at London 2, Ingersoll 26 Additions to the Church on examination, or to each Church, if you minister to more than one, London 2, Ingersoll 26, 1 young man at Ingersoll wants to go in the ministry. Additions do. by letter, London by letter 3, Ingersoll by letter 12 Whole number of members in each of the Churches to which you minister, London members 65, Ingersoll members 45, Gees Ferry 26 members, Botany 9 members. Average attendance of each Congregation, Gees Ferry 12, Botany 7. These 2 places they are moving away; they do not own any land; their leases the most of them are out this fall and they must move away. [Number of] Church members pledged to total abstinence, London 32, Ingersoll 26 Contribution to benevolent objects (not local), former slaves 3 have come to London. 12 have come to Ingersoll. They appear to be very industrious. I want to build a house to worship in at Ingersoll. Number of Sunday-school and Bible-class scholars, Gees Ferry 1 scholars 11; London 50 scholars, 2 Bible class; Ingersoll, 45 scholars 1 Bible class. Our schools are all one with the whites. These is at London and Ingersoll. (See directions on page 4, for giving other particulars on the inside of this sheet.)

102 It is difficult to understand what the $10 referred to. By this time, Chambers’s stipend was $50 a quarter, or $200 per annum.

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di r e c t io n s f o r f il l in g the i nsi de pages Under the head of other particulars, please to state any facts of interest not embraced in the foregoing Report – such as organization of Churches, the time, and their location; also of Sabbath-Schools, Bible-Classes, and Missionary Associations; Revivals of Religion; young men having the Gospel Ministry in view; the erection of Houses of Worship; Providences apparently connected with moral results; Spiritual prospects of the Church; number of other Churches in the place, or immediate vicinity; present number of population; moral condition of the people generally; the character of the immigrants coming to your region, and what proportion of them are from slavery; the conversion of Roman Catholics; the observation of the Sabbath; efforts for the Anti-Slavery cause, in Church and State, and for the people of color; also, for the promotion of Temperance, and all true reforms; for Education and Missions; whether the “monthly concert of prayer” is observed with interest, and the enslaved are especially remembered on these occasions; what errors prevail, and whether progress is manifest in righteousness and all the highest interests of society; with any remarks or suggestions deemed useful to the cause. Use black ink, and be careful in your statistics that your figures, and the names of persons and places be written with great distinctness. Devote time enough to your Report to give us your best thoughts in a condensed form. Yours truly, Geo. Whipple, Cor. Secretary P.S. – Under the heads, “Number of Church members pledged to total abstinence,” “Contributions to benevolent objects (not local),” “Number of Sabbath-School and Bible-Class scholars,” in some reports, the statistics are indefinitely given, making it necessary at times to leave the blanks unfilled in our printed Reports, thereby doing injustice to the parties and to the cause. If the missionary has changed his field, and has not all the statistics to the date of his leaving, he should write to the officers of the Church to report them at once to him, or to send them to the Secretary here. We can not be thrown upon Quarterly Reports, but must depend upon the Annual Reports also for statistics.

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A daily memorandum book, kept by each missionary, would greatly facilitate the giving of accurate as well as interesting Quarterly and Annual Reports, and would have a happy influence upon his work. It is of much importance to the Secretary, that at the head of every letter, the Town, (P.O.,) County, and State, should accompany the date. [The following was added to the form in George Whipple’s handwriting:] I have used here a blank that was made for [ink blot made that name illegible]. Please give me the facts, so far as you can, that are asked for here. Take special pains to write the names of places and persons. Make the figures plain. I will, Yours. G.W.] [In Chambers’s handwriting: This will inform you that I am at London and will mail this today. Pardon the long delay as soon as I got it I have answered it. I will be at Dresden on the 18th and leave again on the 22nd. Please write before that time.]

11 September 1860103 These lines leave me well and hope that they may find you enjoying the blessing of God. I am in London. I arrived here on yesterday from Ingersoll where I preached twice on the Lord’s Day and uttered Sunday school at three o’clock. Well, Mr Whipple, these stations that I am now at they both are congregations the Lord has poured his spirit out on us and know of a truth that he owns and he blesses my labour in these places. I am bound to work for God. I sent my report104 on the 14th of Aug. and left home on the 21st of Aug. and have not been home since, and I have not heard whether you have sent a draft or not, so I will be home on the 18th, the Lord being willing. I will leave again on the 22nd for my station and I will be glad when I get home to find the draft for I want to move on the first of October if there being helpers, but have the house to fix before I can move in it. I want to move before cold weather. I will move

103 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-581. 104 He refers here not to the annual report that he completed on the printed form sent to him (F1-574/575) but to his regular quarterly report (F1-571).

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about eighty miles. I feel that it is God’s will that I should labour in these new places. I have long since made it a matter of prayer. Now I must tell you some facts about the colored people in Canada, what they are doing. On the first of Aug. in Chatham, I am informed that there was about three thousand coloured people meet and they had a good time. I have been informed by both white and black that they were very orderly, that they behaved well. At Ingersoll we had a fine turnout. It did credit to our people and as far as I can learn. The colored people on the first of Aug. have much praise given them at Ingersoll. I attended the white Methodist Conference. There was one hundred and ninety ministers there. They preached for me several times.105 On the 24th of Aug. I attended the British Methodist E. Conference, formerly called the African m.e. Church.106 They have sixteen churches and several other preaching places, fifteen ministers, fifteen hundred and seventy-seven members and thirteen hundred and fifty Sabbath school scholars. This will show that we are doing something for our Redeemer’s Kingdom. I believe that if our Ministers could be supported, that they would do well. Brother, pray for me. My prayer is to God that you may be blessed. Yours in the Lord.107

20 September 1860108 These lines leave me well and hope that they may find you enjoying the same blessings of God. Yours of 13th came safe to hand. I am thankful for I shall now get ready to move on the 9th or 10th of October if the Lord is willing. And Ingersoll will be my post office

105 The annual meeting of the Niagara Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada was held in Ingersoll in late April 1860. According to the Ingersoll Chronicle, it was customary for conference members to “fill the pulpits of any of the Protestant churches in town” on the Sabbath “when requested to do so.” Chambers may have applied for this favour. That newspaper also expected “about 100” ministers to attend rather than the 190 that Chambers reported (The Ingersoll Chronicle, 27 April 1860, 2). 106 The conference was held in St Catharines. 107 This letter has the following annotation: “Sent d[ra]ft for Fifty dollars to Dresden.” 108 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-583.

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address. The two congregations that I have written to you about, the one at London, we have a church and paid for,109 the membership is sixty-five, and the public congregation and members is generally in attendance from seventy-five to one hundred and ten – sometimes more, but they are mostly poor. In the city of London they cannot get much to do. Wages is 62 cents per day for carrying the load, and for [common] work 50 cents per day. Women get 25 cents per day for washing, sometimes 37. House rent is cheap and living cheap. At Ingersoll, we have no church, but rent a schoolhouse for to worship in at $2.00 per month. The $2 is paid every month. The number of members at Ingersoll is fifty-five. The members and congregation are about seventy-five. They attend very regular. This is a new place. Our people came here to Ingersoll about three years ago. There was four families but they are still increasing. But they are poor. Wages is about the same as at London but cutting cordwood is better. I have been preaching at Ingersoll twice a day every other Sunday, a Thursday night, and London the same. On the Lord’s Day and Monday night meet a class and Thursday church prayer meeting. I do not lose much time for I meet them as often as I can get them together. They think that they give me this year for support $50 and pay traveling expenses. I think that is as much as they can, and I do not know whether they can pay $50 and traveling expenses or not. My fare will be 62 cents a week from Ingersoll to London. These two places are twenty miles apart, but whatever they do pay I will inform you. It is poor times in Canada for money. Property is very cheap but I think in two years more times will get better. Well, we have a very sickly time now about Dresden. There has been several deaths in the neighbourhood. I feel still to labour on for God, let what will come may come, do I but gain the blessing of God in my labour. That is all, I trust. Yours in love and truth.

109 The trustees of the African Methodist Episcopal Church had purchased land on Thames Street in London in 1847 without mortgage.

3

London, Canada West

The American Missionary Association held its fourteenth annual meeting in Syracuse, New York, on 10–11 October 1860. In its published report for that year the organization defended its Canada Mission against the claim being made by some in the United States that formerly enslaved people making their way across the border were “indolent, degraded and vicious.” If such vices existed, the report asserted, they had been “encouraged and strengthened” by the institution of slavery and were an “outgrowth of the wrongs” endured by those on the run. Many of those Blacks seeing refuge in Canada were “moral, enterprising, industrious and thriving” and were “rightly” using the liberty they had achieved. In the circumstances, “missionary labor” had “accomplished all that … could reasonably be expected” of it, and its record encouraged “increased efforts to supply … educational and religious advantages.” The report also advised that “good schools, and a faithful ministry, ought to be liberally sustained among the “fugitives” in Canada.”1 Elsewhere it was noted that Rev. Lewis Chambers had “recently removed to Ingersoll” and was also preaching in London “to a church of sixty-five members.” In fact, following two big reverses in his life, Chambers had decided not to move to Ingersoll. On the night of 24 September 1860, a house he had built there to facilitate his planned move was deliberately torched and burned to the ground. Then, on 3 October, a son (unnamed in the documents but said to be about sixteen) was

1 ama , ar , 1860, 29–30.

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drowned in Big Bear Creek (the Sydenham River).2 Following these hard losses – there are moving accounts in his letters to George Whipple of 2, 14, and 22 November – Chambers decided that, for the good of his family, London would be a safer destination. In anticipation of moving, he had sold his property near Dresden earlier that summer. Next, he leased land on Lot 7 in Concession 1 of London Township, in an area known as the St Lawrence Ward adjoining the city of London to the east. The land in question was part of a lot that had been granted by the Crown to the Hon. John Hale, a Lower Canadian office holder; in 1852 the property had been subdivided by surveyor Samuel Peters into five-acre holdings. Chambers rented one of these holdings for about a year before moving to a larger piece of land a short distance away. The family of Gustavus Anderson, another Black of American origin and Methodist in religion, was living nearby on one more of those five-acre plots. The children of the two families were of an age to be playmates.

london More can be learned about the Chambers family and its new farm from the census taken on 14 January 1861, just a few months after the family had arrived in St Lawrence Ward. (It was the only Canadian census in which the family was enumerated.) Coincidentally, George Whipple was on a tour of Canada West at the time of the census and was himself enumerated while staying at J.M. Bennett’s hotel in London’s Ward Two. The purpose of his travel in the region was to visit the places where the ama supported missionaries and teachers; following his return to the United States, he detailed his observations in the March, April, and May issues of the American Missionary.

2 On 12 October the Ingersoll Chronicle (a weekly) reported the death by drowning in the Sydenham River near Dresden of a young man identified as Alexander Stedam. The name given does not connect directly to the Chambers family tragedy, but the date is suggestive. Perhaps the deceased had been a member of the party Chambers had led to Canada and was included in the family household and considered a son. Alternatively, Chambers may have used the word son here in a broad sense, i.e., as a general term of endearment, affection, and belonging. The name Stedam (or variation thereof) does not appear in the 1861 census for Kent County.

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Chambers was recorded by census enumerator Edward Robinson as being forty-three years old and by occupation a farmer (a designation that did not capture the full man). His wife, Ann, was forty-one years old at the time, and they had five children: Josephine (aged thirteen), Angella (ten), Carthagenia (six) – all born in the United States – Constantine (five), and Victoria (two), both born in Canada. Living with the family in the one-storey frame house it occupied was Jane House (aged sixty-two),3 and Lewis’s brother, George Chambers (thirty-five), and his wife, Rebecca (thirty-three), all born in the United States. In religion everyone in the household was listed as Wesleyan Methodist, and they were all Black.4 The Agricultural Schedule for London Township in the 1861 census gives insight into what could be produced on the first of the two farms Chambers leased there (though the actual production itemized would probably have been planted, and in all likelihood harvested by the previous tenant). The whole five-acre plot was cleared, with one acre in pasture. In 1860 the land under cultivation had produced twenty bushels of spring wheat and fifteen bushels of Indian corn (maize) on one-acre lots, and ten bushels of oats and twenty-five bushels each of potatoes and turnips on halfacre lots. The Chambers farm had one milch cow, one pig, and two horses; livestock was valued at $100, and farm equipment at $40. Fifty pounds of butter, it was noted, had been produced the previous year. This produce would likely be sufficient to support most nutritional needs of family and livestock with a surplus to market for necessary cash. Interestingly, the census taker also recorded

3 Ann Chambers’s mother’s name was Elvira J. Harris. Knowing the complexities of census taking at the time, it might well be the case that the enumerator misread her name on the form the household completed, and entered “Jane House” for “Jane Harris” on the cumulative Personal Census form. If this was so, it means that the mothers of both Lewis and Ann Maria had come with the family to Canada West. 4 Library and Archives Canada, Census of Canada, 1861, Middlesex County, London Township, Personal Census, Enumeration District No. 1, St. Lawrence Ward, 46, https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?app=Census1861&op=&img& id=4108146_00077 (accessed 17 June 2020). Gustavus Anderson and family are enumerated here as well.

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that there were no schoolhouses yet in the St Lawrence Ward, but that one was under construction.5 By the time of the visit of the township assessment clerk later in 1861, the Chambers household had moved a short distance northeast to Lot 3 in the south half of Concession 2, where Lewis leased twenty-five acres, and George fifty, their location for the next two years.6 When he eventually moved on to St Catharines in the summer of 1863, Chambers was interviewed by Samuel Gridley Howe, who was gathering testimonies for his report to the Freedmen’s Inquiry Commission, an American body.7 In his testimony Chambers briefly recounted his early life as a slave, his purchase of freedom, his life in Philadelphia and New Jersey before moving his family to Canada, and his missionary work. He also provided details of the farm he had worked for two years on Concession 2 of London Township:

5 It was being built in Concession B, London Township, to serve children in the townships of London and West Nissouri. See London Township, 215. 6 London Township Assessment Rolls, St. Lawrence Ward, 1861, Reel M1614; 1862, Reel M1615. The township clerk received the roll for 1861 from the enumerator on 30 November of that year. In his letter to Whipple dated 1 October (F1-631), Chambers noted that he was still living “in the same place that I was when you were to see me,” that is, on Lot 7 in Concession 1 of the township. He must have moved shortly thereafter. 7 After Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, the American secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, appointed the Freedmen’s Inquiry Commission to produce a study of emancipated slaves in the United States and Canada. This commission was intended to inform the government about Blacks released from slavery. Samuel Gridley Howe (1801–1876), a physician and abolitionist from Massachusetts, had established the first school for the blind in the United States. His effort on behalf of the abolitionist cause included funding for John Brown and advocacy for Anthony Burns (1834–1862). Howe was appointed to the Freedmen’s Inquiry Commission in 1863. His account of his travels as a commissioner and of his interviews in Canada were published in 1864 as The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West. Burns was a fugitive slave arrested in Boston in 1854 and, in the face of huge local protest, was returned to his owner in Virginia. Later “purchased” by the Baptist church where he worshipped in Boston, he attended Oberlin College, was ordained, and moved to St Catharines. His church there was Zion Baptist. For more on Anthony Burns, see Fred Landon, “Anthony Burns in Canada,” in oach , 284–91.

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I rent a farm of fifty acres at London, and pay $150 a year for it. Last year, I had 350 bushels of wheat, 150 bushels of oats, and 100 bushels of peas. I own a house on that place 22 by 28, & have a farm on it 22 by 70. All these improvements I get pay for when the lease is out. My farming utensils are second to none in the neighborhood. I own three horses, three colts, 14 head of sheep, 8 head of cattle, a new lumber wagon, that cost $68, a farming mill ($25), another light wagon ($40), a two horse sled ($18), a cutter ($14), and a sulky ($25). There is another man close by me, who came to this country six years ago, by the name of Henry Harris, who hires a lot of fifty acres next to me, and has two horses, a wagon, a fine colt, and two cows. There is another man, living this side of me, by the name of Corsey, who owns fifty acres of land, and has three fine horses, a flock of 25 or 30 sheep, and some eight or ten head of cattle. His land is all paid for. He is an old resident here. I know a man at Chatham, who came here seven years ago, and I gave him the first 25 cents he had toward buying an axe. He has now bought 30 acres of land, paying $15 an acre, and has a horse, a yoke of oxen, and two cows.8 It was characteristic of Chambers to rejoice in the accomplishments of his fellow Black farmers, Harris (possibly a brother-in-law) and Corsey (likely William Coursey). His generosity in contributing a quarter toward the purchase of an axe, likely for use by a newcomer to Chatham Township, speaks for itself about him. From either of the two locations where he lived during his time in

8 Blassingame, Slave Testimony, 413. The “farm of 22 by 70” probably refers to the dimensions of the barn on the property. A “farming” or fanning mill was a device for separating grain from extraneous matter (dirt, dust, weed seeds, straw, stones, etc.) to facilitate storage. The “two horse sled” would have enabled the Chambers brothers to haul grain to market in the winter. A “cutter” was a tool for cutting grain, e.g., wheat and oats. A “sulky” was a two-wheeled one-person carriage. Ann Maria Chambers’s maiden name was Harris. The Harris neighbour referred to here may have been related to the party that Chambers had brought with him from the United States.

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London Township, Chambers was about five miles away from the bme church to which he had been posted. As noted, the church building was located on the western edge of the city, close to the forks of the Thames, and adjoining the area known locally as “the hollow,” or worse. The Canada Conference of the amec had been established in 1820 in the wake of the arrival of free Blacks and formerly enslaved people in the Province of Upper Canada; in 1840 a preaching circuit was centred in London. Richard Warren, a former slave from North Carolina, travelled through Canada West in 1845. Stopping in London, he found the itinerant preacher Jeremiah Taylor and Rev. N.C.W. Cannon of the amec working diligently to “heal the differences that existed among our people, and to disseminate the pure Gospel of Christ.”9 His observation was evidence that Blacks were as prone as Christians generally to sectarian differences, a characteristic that Chambers eschewed. In 1847, Warren was ordained as an amec deacon and appointed to the London circuit, where he worked assiduously to build up church membership. With his and Cannon’s encouragement, trustees of the London congregation purchased land on Thames Street that October for the erection of the church with which Chambers would become acquainted while based in Dresden.10 That building – the present-day chapel relocated to Grey Street – measured twenty-four feet by thirty feet, stood twenty-eight feet at the peak and fourteen feet elsewhere, and could seat between 130 and 160 people.11 In 1848 the Oberlin Evangelist (the journal of Oberlin College, where so many Black students had been educated) published a table of the population and of the locations of schools and churches “of the coloured people of Canada West.” London was listed as having a population of three hundred Blacks, with three Black churches – two Methodist and one Baptist.12 Doubtless, the ame church on Thames Street was one of them. When many more Blacks found their way to London after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, some by way of the Underground

9 10 11 12

Warren, Narrative of the Life and Sufferings, 17–18. The land transaction was witnessed by Noah Calwell W. Cannon. For the later history of the building see my introduction. Oberlin Evangelist 10, no. 16 (1848): 128.

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Figure 3.1 | “We have a tolerable good meeting house to worship Almighty God in”: London’s British Methodist Episcopal Church on Thames Street.

Railroad, the new church on Thames Street was there to offer them succour, both spiritual and material. That welcome would likewise have been offered to the members of the amec Canada Conference when they met in London in 1851,13 and to visitors who attended a convention of “colored people and their friends” held there in April 1853.14 Chambers’s missionary letters highlight the great emphasis that the amec and, after 1856, the bmec put on educating the young, especially in places without local schools or where schools were not welcoming to Black children. The report of the Sabbath schools to the 1852 annual meeting of the Canada Conference of the amec , held in St Catharines, noted that London had one such school, with four teachers and thirty scholars.15 In 1857 the newly formed bmec

13 Warren, Narrative of the Life and Sufferings, 22. 14 Oberlin Evangelist 15, no. 11 (1853): 6. 15 Voice of the Fugitive 2, no. 17 (12 August 1852): 1; Voice of the Fugitive 2, no. 18 (26 August 1852): 4.

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appointed Deacon Thomas M. Kinnard as preacher at the church on Thames Street.16 Kinnard was both clergyman and dentist and well known as a speaker in the abolitionist cause. His tenure at the bme church in London was not long: in 1858 James Harper succeeded him there, with George Barkly as local preacher.17 The conference appointed H.W. Johnson there in 1859, but his unexplained absence set the congregation adrift, thereby creating an opening for Chambers. In March 1860 he accepted a friend’s invitation to preach on Thames Street, made most of the opportunity, and (while still working for the ama and collecting its stipend) was soon stationed to the church, no doubt with the blessing of Bishop Nazrey. What was London like in 1860? From a sleepy village at the forks of the Thames, thrust into sudden importance in 1826 as the administrative centre of the London District, it had grown to achieve city

16 Thomas M. Kinnard (Kinnaird, Kennard, or Kenard) had been born a slave in Delaware. After achieving his freedom, he joined the amec and practised as a dental surgeon in Philadelphia, where he advertised his practice in the Christian Recorder. He moved to Canada circa 1856 and ministered in the bmec, serving in London in 1857. Kinnard attended John Brown’s Chatham Convention in May 1858 that wrote a constitution for Brown’s new republic, and he preached a funeral oration at a memorial held for Brown in Toronto on 11 December 1859. The bmec stationed him in Hamilton in 1858 and 1859 where he was building a new church. He was absent from the conference for a few years, some of which time he spent back in London, where he was enumerated in the 1861 census, and then on a speaking tour in Britain where he raised funds for the Hamilton church. He was ordained elder and reappointed to Hamilton in 1863 (bmec minutes, 1858, 5; 1859, 10; 1862, 8; 1863, 5, 7). In 1864 he was listed in the directory for Hamilton as pastor at the bme church on Rebecca Street (Mitchell & Co.’s County of Wentworth and Hamilton Directory for 1865–6, 19). Handy, Scraps of African Methodist Episcopal History, 195, includes a photograph of Kinnard, but gives his name as Kennard. 17 bmec minutes, 1858, 6. Perhaps this was the same George W. Barclay (Barklay, Barkly) who, as superintendent of the Sabbath school in London, had presented Chambers with a commendation for his work in reviving that school. See letter F1-605. A local preacher was “a layman authorized by District or Quarterly Conference to perform certain ministerial functions” (Anderson, Methodist Dictionary, 57).

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status in 1855. When the Chambers family arrived, London was just starting to emerge from the depression of the late 1850s; its recovery was based over time on its strong agricultural hinterland, its prime location on the road and railway network of the region, and its developing manufacturing and financial institutions. Eventually London also became a refining centre for Lambton County oil. From the beginning of settlement, Blacks had been active on the local scene and productive participants in turn in village, town, and city life. From earliest days also there was a Black presence in the neighbouring townships of London and Westminster. (The latter lay south of the Thames and the city proper; settlement had spilled over into the area, which was home to several Black families.) When the Quaker abolitionist Benjamin Lundy toured Upper Canada in 1832, he stopped at London and noted that it had Black residents. He went on to visit Wilberforce, a community to the north in nearby Biddulph Township settled by freedom seekers from Cincinnati. When issues of land tenure eventually reduced the population of Wilberforce, many of its dispossessed Black residents found their way south to London. Until the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, London’s Black population had two distinct components: many Black residents had been born in Canada or had been born free south of the border or, like Chambers himself, had purchased their freedom in the United States; others had escaped slavery and fled north. After 1850, arrivals were either fugitives from slavery or free Blacks who feared a return to enforced servitude; overall, their numbers were greater than ever before, sometimes overwhelming goodwill in the white population and testing the ability of fellow Blacks and charitable societies to assist them. Having visited London in 1859–60 as part of a sweep through Black communities in Canada West, Rev. William Mitchell (himself a former slave, and author in 1860 of a book about the Underground Railroad) estimated that there were five hundred Blacks in the city out of a total population of twelve thousand.18 The published census of 1861 – a somewhat questionable source for Black numbers because of unreliable administrative practice – recorded Black populations of 370 in the city of London, 192 in London Township, and 60 in Westminster. It is worth noting,

18 Mitchell, Underground Railroad, 135.

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however, that over 40 per cent of those so enumerated had been born in Canada.19 Those who shared Chambers’s complexion in township, city, or church were as determined to make as good a life in London as their white counterparts did. The slave narratives gathered by Benjamin Drew in 1855, and the interviews of Black residents conducted by William Mitchell in 1859–60, William Wells Brown in 1861, and Samuel Gridley Howe in 1863, all told of hard work overcoming adversity and of modest – though in some cases substantial − economic success that mitigated the leaving of southern homes and family members.20 But the chroniclers of the Black experience in Canada West were under no illusions about the struggles faced in a hard climate and the prejudice encountered in church, school, and marketplace. Although Chambers never mentioned parishioners by name in his letters, we do know who some of them were: from the lists of trustees recorded in transactions relating to the purchase of land for the ame church on Thames Street in 1847, the sale of that property in 1869, and the purchase of land for the new bme church on Grey Street in 1864. In 1847 the trustees were William Hamilton (grocer), Benjamin Harris (cooper), John Osburne (cooper), Henry James

19 For population statistics see Census of the Canadas, 1860–61; for London and Township, 65; for Westminster Township, 60. See Wayne, “Black Population,” for percentage of Canadian born Blacks, 63, and for a discussion generally of variations in population numbers for “colored persons.” When there is a discrepancy between published census record and Wayne’s, which were based on a study of the manuscript schedules, I have trusted his numbers. In her study of African Canadian workers in London, Tracey Adams estimated that there were 582 “individuals of colour living in London City and London Township in 1861.” Her total, however, does not include Blacks living across the Thames River in Westminster Township. See Adams, “Making a Living,” 22. 20 See Drew, North-Side View of Slavery, 146–88; Mitchell, Underground Railroad, 135–7; William Wells Brown, “The Colored People of Canada,” a series of articles published in the Pine and Palm, 1862, and reprinted in Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, vol. 2, 466–70; and Howe, Refugees from Slavery in Canada West. Howe’s observations from London are scattered through his book.

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(labourer, wood sawyer, and gardener), Henry Logan (labourer), Thomas Wingate (plasterer and possibly church sexton), and George Winemiller (labourer). 21 Their 1864 counterparts were Moses Lane (a gardener living in Westminster Township), Thomas Southgate (teamster and church sexton, 1863–65), Cornelius Butler (farmer in London Township) and George W. Barclay, Henry C. Jackson, and William S. Cosby (all described as yeoman). Five years later, when the Thames Street property was sold, the trustees were William Simons (plasterer), Aaron Gibbs (yeoman), Cornelius Butler (a London Township resident listed in the 1871 census as a minister), John J. Evans (a farmer in London Township), Henry Williams (plasterer), and Joseph Bush Gordon (labourer).22 Many of those listed would likely have been directly involved in the construction and maintenance of the churches on Thames and Grey streets. Moreover, given their variety of skills, they were well placed to help newcomers find employment and to assist clergy in temporal matters. No doubt the professions, trades, or occupations of the trustees – farmers, tradespeople, labourers – typified London’s Black population generally, a hard-working and striving community but one that nevertheless carried the burden of racial prejudice. When William Wells Brown made his visit to Canada West in the fall of 1861, he was shown around London by Chambers, an “old acquaintance,” who must have given him an earful about racial prejudice in the city. Thus, in his Pine and Palm23 article published in 1862,

21 Some occupations were given as labourer or yeoman in the land transactions, but additional information has been gleaned from census documents, assessment rolls, and directories. 22 Middlesex County Land Registry Office, Records for Part Lot 26, South Bathurst Street, and for Part Lot 13, North Grey Street (Plan 178), City of London. Land records for Ontario are now available on the Onland website, https://help.onland.ca/en/home/. 23 A short-lived newspaper (1861–62) published in Boston and New York by James Redpath. It was “devoted to the interests of freedom, and of the colored races in America,” and promoted emigration to Haiti. William Wells Brown’s article was published there in 1862 It is reprinted in Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, vol. 2, 461–98. Ripley’s work is particularly useful for the detailed biographical information he assembled.

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Brown had this to say about London employment practices: “Amongst the colored men here, are some first class mechanics, yet none of these can get employment in shops where white men are at work. I have been informed by the best authority, in every place through which I have passed, that the introduction of a colored mechanic, in any establishment here, would be taken as an insult by the white men, who would instantly leave their work. A splendid carpenter has just gone by with his whitewash bucket and brush; unable to get employment in his trade, he resorts to the latter for a livelihood.”24 Brown was discerning: a recent study into African Canadian workers in London, based on census data collected between 1861 and 1901, has shown that more of them tended to work in lower-skilled jobs than did members of other definable groups.25 Perhaps this difference can be partly explained by the lower standard of education and skill development Blacks had experienced before coming to Canada, but there is no disputing the effect of racial prejudice in denying opportunity. This was attested to over and over in the responses by London’s Black residents to the inquiries of visiting abolitionists and commission members, Drew, Wells, and Howe among them. Nor had all London churches been welcoming to Blacks, who, understandably there as elsewhere, established their own places of worship, of which the bme church on Thames Street was one. In the American Missionary, Whipple paraphrased comments Chambers made in a letter explaining the reluctance of Blacks to attend white churches: “They cannot enjoy them, they are not heartily welcomed, and the preaching is not adapted to their minds, hence few go there.”26 London boasted many church buildings, and more would be built as denominations multiplied and the population grew. The Black Baptist congregation built its first church circa 1854 on the north side of Horton Street just west of Wellington Street, on land purchased for five shillings by the trustees of the “Second Baptist Church in the Town of London of the Canadian Anti Slavery Association” from Aby Bedford Jones, himself a trustee.27 The two

24 25 26 27

Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 466–7. Adams, “Making a Living,” 31. The American Missionary, September 1862, 206. Middlesex County Registry Office, land records for Lot 2, north side of

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Black churches, Baptist and ame , were only a few blocks apart. The Methodist New Connexion chapel on Clarence Street was welcoming to Blacks as well (being a denomination that was pro-temperance and anti-slavery), as was the Congregational church on King Street. But racial prejudice, which sought to restrict Blacks to their own congregations, was alive elsewhere in London’s Christian community. Chambers himself experienced that intolerance and bigotry, couched in unwelcoming language. One memory in particular (whether the incident happened in London, St Catharines, or elsewhere in Canada West) was fresh in his mind when he spoke to the visiting Samuel Gridley Howe of Massachusetts in 1863. “The prejudice here against the coloured people is stronger a great deal than it is in Mass. Since I have been in the country, I went to a church one Sabbath, & the sexton asked me, ‘What do you want here to-day?’ I said, ‘Is there not to be service here to-day?’ He said, ‘Yes, but we don’t want any n—— here.’ I said, ‘You are mistaken in the man. I am not a “n——,” but a negro.’”28 Nevertheless, Chambers valued honest Christian preaching and frequently invited ministers from other denominations, both Black and white, to address his congregation on Thames Street. In truth, he was an ecumenist long before the term came into common usage. Not surprisingly, school attendance was another fraught activity for Blacks in London. By provincial law, publicly funded schools were open to all, regardless of race or colour (often referred to as caste). But in practice some principals, school trustees, parents, teachers, and children preferred that races not mix in classroom and playground. A complicating factor was the provision made in the Common School Act of 1846 for separate schools based on “religious persuasion.” By Section 32 of this legislation, ten or more landholders could petition trustees to establish a separate school for Roman Catholics or for Protestants in their jurisdiction.29 Under pressure, this legislation was amended in 1853 to enable separate

Horton Street, #3805, 3 March 1854 (reel ed -10). 28 Blassingame, Slave Testimony, 413. Chambers often compared Canada and the United States in terms of anti-Black racial prejudice. 29 An Act for the Better Establishment and Maintenance of Common Schools in Upper Canada, http://www.archives.gov.on.ca/en/explore/online/ education/common-school-act-01.aspx (accessed 1 May 2020).

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schools also for “coloured people.” Such a school could be established “on application in writing of twelve or more resident heads of families” to a duly constituted board of school trustees.30 The issue of whether a separate school should be provided for Blacks was a matter hotly debated during Chambers’s time in the city. In 1859, the year before he arrived, the Colonial Church and School Society had closed its mission (or Lancastrian) school, in which Church of England bishop Benjamin Cronyn had been deeply involved. This school had taught some local Black children but had become overwhelmingly white, to the disadvantage of the Black community. Chambers’s letters do not state where his own children attended school, but Ann Chambers was a teacher, though a busy woman, and may have found time to give them lessons. The Chambers children might have attended a new school being built on the eastern edge of St Lawrence Ward, but it is unlikely that city schools were open to them. Trustees of the London Board of Education had decided in February 1861 not to admit non-resident students because, as things stood, there was not even enough room in schools for the children of city residents.31 In the same year, moreover, the trustees were looking into ways to establish a separate school for Black children. Josiah Blackburn, owner and editor of the London Free Press, was very much in favour of seeing such a school established in London. His editorial on the matter in July 1861 triggered an exchange of views between himself and Chambers. Blackburn expressed surprise that the subject of separating the races during their years of education had not been taken up aggressively by local parents, many of whom, he argued, did not want their children, particularly their youthful daughters “verging on womanhood,” to mix with “negroes of either sex” for fear that this would lead to “intermarriage between the races” and “cases of mésalliance.” Blackburn urged parents to “make their wishes known to the Board by petition or otherwise,” while assuring readers that

30 See Section III(XIX), “Duties of Township Municipalities,” in Common School Acts of Upper Canada, 1853, 21, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/ pt?id=aeu.ark:/13960/t7kp8kx6z&view=1up&seq=6 (accessed 1 May 2020). 31 Michael F. Murphy, “Schools and Society in London,” vol. 1, 352. I am grateful to the author for this reference and for much of the information that follows about the schooling of Black children in London.

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he had “no design to injure the prospects or wound the feelings of the coloured inhabitants of the city.”32 Outraged by these views, Chambers was quick to respond, pointing out to Blackburn and Free Press readers that in integrated schools Black children did as well as white children, and since Blacks paid school rates, they therefore had the right to education on equal terms. “Sir,” he told Blackburn, “you are one of Job’s comforters,” and he added: “the gentlemen and ladies who have coloured servants and wet-nurses, they do not prevent them [from association with African Americans]; but it appears you are dreadful afraid of Amalgamation. I did not know that such lessons was taught in the schools; but I do know that persons who exclaim against the liberties of the people of colour, are themselves the fond leaders of that cause. You say that a large number of the negroes, of both sexes, are rude in speech, uncouth in manners and address, and untidy in attire. If that be true of the coloured children, is it not true also of white children.”33 In the same issue of his paper Blackburn shot back, mocking Chambers for incoherent prose and then directing his fire − and advocacy for separate schools for Blacks − against Dr Alfred T. Jones, a successful London Black businessman (Baptist in religion), who had long lobbied for equal education for his children.34 For well over a year the trustees of the London Board of Education considered the issue of establishing a separate school for the Black children of the city, and in the fall of 1862 a lengthy report on the subject was received by the chairman, Thomas Webb, and then exhaustively debated at several meetings. The report argued that such separation was desirable and that recent case law on the subject showed it to be legal. But three dissenting trustees introduced a motion as follows: “That believing the colored population to be a portion of the human family, who have chosen Canada as the land of their adoption, and being loyal subjects of her Majesty the Queen, we consider them fully entitled to all the civic and religious rights of British subjects, and

32 “Shall We Have a Separate School for the Coloured Children?,” London Free Press, 22 July 1861. 33 “The Colored Children and the Common Schools,” London Free Press, 27 July 1861. 34 “The Coloured Question Again,” London Free Press, 27 July 1861. Alfred T. Jones and Aby Bedford Jones were brothers.

Figure 3.2 | Chambers’s indignant reply to London Free Press editor Josiah Blackburn. The letter reads:

The Colored Children and the Common Schools. To the Editor of the Free Press. Sir, – Will you permit me through the columns of your valuable paper to make a reply to the Free Press of the 22nd inst. A very unkind and uncalled for move made against us fellow citizens of London, in relation to driving our children out of the Public Schools. He says that he thinks it strange that a subject of so much consequence to the popularity of the Schools has not been forced upon the Board before this time. He says that many of the friends and parents have been opposed, but remained quiet simply from the fact that, up to the present time, only a stray child of the gloomy, or melancholy, or dismal race, has made its way to the benches [of] the Central School; that is as much as to say that our children did not get there honest, while the public knows that we pay our school-rates with the rest of the law-abiding citizens, and we are only enjoying our guaranteed rights. You say that if each of the neighbouring Republic throughout the world were to express his real feelings, they would not be willing that his daughter should be constrained to associate, for six hours in the day, with negroes of either sex. The gentleman and ladies who have coloured servants and wet-nurses, they do not prevent them; but it appears that you are dreadful afraid of Amalgamation. I did not know that such lessons was taught in the schools; but I do know that persons who exclaim against the liberties of the people of colour, are themselves the fond leaders of that cause. You say that a large number of the negroes, of both sexes, are rude in speech, uncouth in manners and address, and untidy in attire. If that be true of the colored children, is it not true also of the white children. Well, after calling us all the names you thought fit, then you conclude by saying that you have no wish to injure nor hurt our feelings – of us who has sought protection and safety under the aegis of the British Constitution and become true and loyal subjects of the Queen – to enjoy, to the fullest extent, the sights and privileges of Freedom, and the blessings of Just and equal laws. Sir, you are one of Job’s comforters.

L.C. Chambers, Pastor, British Methodist Episcopal Church London Free Press, 27 July 1861.

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reject now and henceforth the report of Messrs. Webb, Graydon, &c., which, if ever acted upon, would deny them their equal rights dear to every Briton, and subject them to a great amount of inconvenience and persecution.”35 This, however, was voted down. A supplementary report identified an unoccupied room in Ward School No. 5 for the purpose contemplated.36 In other words, the board was intending to segregate Black children in an existing facility under its jurisdiction rather than sharing resources with a separate board as intended in the 1853 legislation. In all the board’s deliberations, the parents of Black children affected seem not to have been consulted. In the event, the hotly debated issue was not finally settled by the school board until 1863 and then begrudgingly in favour of continued integration. In recent but yet unpublished research, Michael F. Murphy shows that the intensity of the campaign in London for separate schools for Black children rose and fell with the battles between the North and South in the U.S. Civil War that had started in April 1861, adding to the complexity of race relations in Canada West. Murphy also concludes that when the school board was unable to obtain sufficient support for a separate school, it redrew boundaries to make the common school in Ward Three – where most of London’s Black families then lived – in effect, a Black school. School segregation may not have been practised in London de jure but it certainly existed de facto.37 As Chambers well recognized, Black residents of London faced racial discrimination in church, school, and workplace. In his correspondence he expresses both sorrow for the diminished opportunities available to those to whom he ministered and determination to speak out in pulpit and public square for racial justice.

35 “The Colored Children and the Common Schools,” London Free Press, 10 December 1862. The motion was moved by Alex Johnston, seconded by John Ross, and also supported at the vote by Dugald McPherson. William Wells Brown had theories about the origin of prejudice against schooling Black and white children together that was held by parents of the latter in London. See Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, vol. 2, 468–9. 36 “The Colored Children and the Common Schools.” 37 See Murphy, “School and Society,” vol. 1, 304–12, for a detailed narrative of the attempt to establish a separate school for London’s Black children.

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A recurring theme in Chambers’s letters from London regarding the education of his own children was the cost of the clothing and shoes they needed to be able to attend school. He often wrote that provisions were cheap and his ground rent of eighteen dollars per quarter manageable, but that shoes and clothing were expensive. (The farms he and his brother tended would have provided much of the family’s food.) In pressing Whipple for money owing, Chambers dug the spur in not for himself but for his children.

in g e rs oll The village of Ingersoll (named after its founder, Thomas Ingersoll) is located in what was then called North Oxford Township, Oxford County. Chambers continued to minister there while resident in London, undeterred by the arson that earlier had prevented him from moving to the area. By his own reckoning, this second “ministering place” was twenty miles (32 km) east of London; city and village being connected by the south branch of the Thames River, the Great Western Railway, and, for that period, reasonably good roads. Oxford County today is an agricultural powerhouse, but when Chambers began his work there, the production of cheese, for which Ingersoll justifiably became famous, was just in its infancy. Blacks had been arriving in Oxford and its hinterland for a few years before Chambers’s time there. Located far enough inland that freedom seekers did not have to worry about itinerant slave-catchers, Ingersoll could be reached easily from points of entry on the Niagara Peninsula and ports on Lake Erie, where steamships from Buffalo (New York) or Erie (Pennsylvania) could land Black migrants unimpeded. Henry C. Jackson, a local abolitionist sympathizer, used his stagecoach to transport Blacks from Port Burwell on Lake Erie to Ingersoll, a service they would not have expected on arrival in Canada.38 His route would have taken him through Norwich Township (southeast of Ingersoll), whose early settlers were mainly Quakers, a sect renowned for supporting abolitionist causes and helping travellers on the Underground Railroad. As early as 1823 the Norwich Quaker monthly meeting recorded contributions from members “for removing free people of colour from North Carolina

38 Pettigrew, Safe Haven, 57.

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to free Governments.”39 Quakers showed hospitality to Blacks travelling through or settling in their community, and free Blacks were living in Norwich as early as 1833.40 In addition to working on farms, or cutting timber and clearing land – common occupations for newly arrived labourers of all backgrounds – Blacks also found jobs in road and railway construction. The 1861 census reported that there were 552 Blacks living in Oxford County, of whom 149 were living in Ingersoll.41 Occupationally, the latter included barbers, hotel waiters, servants, a porter on the Great Western, a gunsmith, workers in a tannery, and many labourers.42 The growing number of Black residents and their need for teaching and preaching called for the establishment of schools and missionary outreach. In 1859 the latter call was answered by the Colonial Church and School Society, which had been active in London for several years and now decided to expand its operations eastward. In the words of its annual report for that year, “a grant has been made for a Mission to refugees and other colored settlers at Ingersoll.” Rev. Stephen P. Kellogg was approved as the society’s missionary there.43 Chambers’s involvement with the village dates from May 1860, when he was recruited to visit, probably in answer to local demand to hear an evangelical preacher. In 1852 the small village of Norwich had been made part of the preaching circuit of the elder stationed at the ame church in London,44 and it boasted twenty adherents the following year; in

39 Manning, “Quaker Settlement,” 86. 40 Pettigrew, Safe Haven, 38. 41 Wayne, “Black Population,” 74. These population numbers are based on the original manuscript schedules, not on the published record, which recorded fewer. 42 Pettigrew, Safe Haven, 65. Joyce Pettigrew analyzed census data from 1861 to 1901, as well as genealogical material, to create profiles of Black families who settled in Ingersoll. 43 Colonial Church and School Society (ccss ), Mission to Fugitive Slaves, 51. Kellogg, a Church of England clergyman, was enumerated in the 1861 census in East Oxford Township. He was twenty-five years old at the time and was listed as having been born in Upper Canada. In the 1871 census a Rev. Stephen Kellogg, probably the same individual, was enumerated with his wife and five children in Saint John, New Brunswick. 44 Payne, History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, 295.

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1855 those worshipers were ministered to by the pastor in change of the Brant circuit.45 It is not surprising, therefore, that Chambers ventured forth to minister to Blacks in nearby North Oxford Township. His letters tell much about his ministry in Ingersoll but perhaps not everything. There is no mention of any further troubles that he and his flock, both Black and white, might have encountered in their desire to worship together – troubles, for instance, like the arson that prevented him from settling in Ingersoll. Chambers organized Sabbath schools and temperance societies and conducted Sunday services, but his larger goal, not articulated in so many words in the correspondence, was to launch a full-fledged church. He was indeed nurturing one, and a bme church building was opened in Ingersoll shortly before he left London for St Catharines in 1863.46 Chambers’s last letters to Whipple written from London in early 1863 focus on the successes of his pastoral and missionary labours both there and in St Thomas (a town south of London that he began visiting during the previous summer).47 But he also pressed the ama to decide whether it wanted him to continue his work for the association after June, when he expected to be moved by the bmec conference from London to another station. The Methodist Church had always practised itinerancy, in which ministers were moved usually after three years to a new pastoral charge. Chambers had begun preaching in London in March 1860 and fully expected to be sent elsewhere at the forthcoming conference.48

45 ame minutes, 1853, 4; 1855, 5. 46 County of Oxford Gazetteer, 134. That church had a short life, being destroyed by fire in 1864; thus Ingersoll reverted to the church’s London circuit in 1865. bmec minutes, 1865, 4. 47 Located in Elgin County and about eighteen miles (less than 30km) south of London. Chambers could have travelled there on the London and Port Stanley Railway, the first of many lines to or through what would become known as the Railway City. The l&ps was completed in 1856 and carried freight (mainly coal) from that Lake Erie port to London. 48 Minter, Doctrine and Discipline, 62: “No minister shall be allowed to remain in charge of any Circuit or Station longer than three years, except in particular cases; the General Superintendent shall have power to allow him to remain longer.” By the time Minter’s edition of the Doctrine and Discipline

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When no answer was forthcoming from New York, his letters took on a frantic tone. If the bmec conference moved him, he would have to uproot his family from the successful farm he and his brother had developed in London Township. But if the ama continued to support him, he could remain there and expand his missionary work, adding to his new mission in St Thomas the small Black community in Biddulph Township, eighteen miles (30 km) north of London, where, he knew, the people did “not go to church at all.”49 Successful as he was in his pastoral work at the rooted bme church in London, Chambers retained an appetite for missionary labour in places where societies could be nurtured, churches established, and where his brethren were not hearing the gospel preached. Over and over he made this clear to Whipple but did not get a response. Perhaps Chambers, always hopeful, had failed to read between the lines in his “little paper,” The American Missionary, about the direction in which the ama was inexorably moving. As early as September 1861, faced with a sudden decline in revenue, the organization had made an urgent appeal through the monthly paper for contributions, attributing its reversal of fortune to factors associated with the “Slaveholder’s Rebellion” (i.e., the Civil War). Those factors were “prostration of business” (the collapse of currency based on assets of slaveholding states) and the diversion of sums from missionary purposes to outfitting soldiers, and other military expenses. Compounding the crisis was the fact that missionary needs were rising, particularly in areas where slaves were being freed. “Some of our missionaries,” the ama acknowledged, “are suffering from the want of their appropriations, which we are not able to pay.”50

was published in 1892, the bmec was referring to its bishop as General Superintendent. 49 See letter F1-681, 14 February 1863. Biddulph Township is north of London Township, where the former Wilberforce settlement was located. Blacks from Cincinnati, fleeing from the Ohio Black Laws, moved to Upper Canada in 1829 and took up land controlled by the Canada Company. Ultimately the settlement was not a great success, and many families left. At the bmec annual conference held in June 1863, Chambers was appointed to the committee on missions; it eventually recommended that St Thomas and Wilberforce constitute a new Wilberforce Mission. G. Bartlet was appointed there (bmec minutes, 1863, 4, 8). (Likely this was George W. Barclay/Barkly/Barklay.) 50 G. Whipple and S.S. Jocelyn, “Appeal of the American Missionary

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Chambers was one of those caught in the squeeze and, in his own annual report dated 14 November 1861, had offered to work in the coming year for $150 rather than the $200 he had been receiving for the past two years. Writing on 23 December, having received a draft from Whipple, he offered to reduce his annual stipend by another $50, that is, to make it $100 for the following year. In September 1862, readers of the American Missionary were told that the ama “was in the most pressing need of ten thousand dollars”; receipts were not meeting needs, despite “the most economical expenditure of money for foreign and home missions.” At the same time, “anticipating the downfall of slavery,” the ama was ready to address the “field of usefulness” that was “opening among the freed slaves of this nation.”51 In time, as territories freed by Union successes on the battlefield grew in number, this call to action was heard, and donations rose to meet the association’s plans for expanded missionary outreach to them. The subtext here was that the need opening up in the liberated American South would take precedence over the long-established effort in Canada West, and that is exactly what happened, with Chambers’s appointment being a casualty of an understandable shift in focus. In October 1863, when the ama held its seventeenth annual meeting in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, its treasurer reported a satisfying balance sheet. The report received on this occasion from the Canada Mission listed Chambers as that body’s only missionary active during the previous year, paid homage to his service over five years, and noted his transfer by the “Colored Methodist Conference in Canada” to St Catharines, where he was said to have “a large church and congregation.” His commission from the ama had “terminated with his removal from London, about the first of July.” In a somewhat pessimistic afterthought, but very much reflecting Chambers’s observations on the reaction of Londoners to the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, Whipple made this striking observation about Canadian attitudes:

Association: To the Friends of Missions,” American Missionary 5, no. 9 (September 1861), 202–3. 51 “A Loud Call,” American Missionary 6, no. 9 (September 1862), 202–4.

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The hostility that has always existed in the minds of some Canadians against the colored people, has become exceedingly bitter since the proclamation of freedom by the President of the United States. An apprehension was felt that there would be a general irruption of the negroes into Canada; and as if to forestall this, the people in some parts of the province generally refused to give the colored people work, and renewed efforts were made to exclude them from the common schools, even where in past years they had been freely admitted. There is now, however, some reason to hope that the era of kind feeling, which seems to have opened towards the colored people in this country, may extend into Canada also.52 With this, the ama closed its books on the Canada Mission, and its first Black missionary there entered a new phase of life – events to which the letters that follow are a prelude.

52 ama , ar , 1863, 27. See also Chambers’s letter F1-691 of 22 January 1863.

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Letters from London

2 November 18601 These lines will inform you that I am well and family and hope that you are the same. Well, dear Brother, I have moved to London instead Ingersoll. The house that I fitted up was finished on 24th of Sept. and burned to the ground the same night. Some enemy done it. I have learned that they did not want a preacher to live in that place. It is a neighbourhood of much weakness. And on the 3rd of October my older son was drowned. He was about sixteen years of age. He taken the horse to water and fell over the horse head in Big Bear Creek and was drowned. He was a fine boy.2 So, London is my post office address. I have a protracted meeting going on now in London.3 We have a good time. The Lord is with us. The weather is fine. Yours in love. Remember me at a throne of grace for I do feel by the help of God, let what will come may come, I am bound to work for God.

1 To Rev. George Whipple, letter F1-584, ama Archives. 2 I was unable to find any reference to this tragedy in the Chatham press. The drowning victim was not enumerated with the rest of the family in the 1850 US census. At that time, assuming age “about sixteen” at death, he would have been five or six years old. 3 A protracted meeting could last several days (in this case, two weeks) and was an important evangelical tool for witnessing, prayers, praise, and conversion. Chambers was wise to hold such a revival after settling in London as it would have been a bonding experience for his congregation and would have probably attracted new members to the Thames Street church.

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My prayer is to God for you that you may do much good in the Redeemer’s cause. Yours truly.

14 November 18604 The quarter now ended has been one of much trials. Since I commenced this quarter I have preached every Sabbath twice a day and attended Sunday school once a day. I must say, although I have had much trouble and sorrow yet the Lord has owned his blessed word and my labour has been attended with much success. We have added to the church in London five more, four by letters and [one] by a profession of faith. We have had a two-week meeting, which ended at London the 9th. The Lord was with us and his spirit was felt powerfully among his people. There was one man that rose for prayer. The meeting was one of much interest. The Sabbath school is doing well at London. It is well attended. I am glad to say the interest among the members of the church in London to keep up a Sunday school is the best that I have seen for the people of color. The congregation at Ingersoll is prospering well. On last Lord’s Day we had a good meeting. The Sunday school in Ingersoll is doing well. Two have joined this quarter, one by letter the other by profession of faith. Five have removed from the society at Ingersoll.5 Although my trouble has been great this quarter, yet I must say thanks be to God that it is as well with me as it is — it might to have been worse. The Lord knows what is the best for me. When I got ready to move just at the very time my house was set on fire and burned to the ground on the 24th of September, but the hardest thing that I felt was the loss of my son who was drowned on the 3rd of October. He was about 16 years old. I must say that he was a fine boy. He was a lover [of] his Bible and a faith[ful] member of the Sunday school. He was very religious. Everybody loved him. He always said that he wanted to be a preacher. I never knew him to say a bad word or play with bad boys. Poor boy, the Lord has taken him home. Other troubles

4 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-587. 5 Those “removed” from Ingersoll were likely relocating to another place, and the use of the word here does not necessarily mean loss of faith or banishment from the society or church. Newcomers to Canada were mobile and moved as making a living required.

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I meet with in moving but I do know that there is others poor and many who are in worse state than what I am. But I have given a prayer to God for I know through trouble is the way to heaven. I have a large family, but I do know that since I have been labouring in the missionary field and been praying for more of the missionary spirit that my soul has been greatly blessed and my mind is made up. Come life or death, prosperity or adversity I will, by God’s help and his grace, labour for him. I will spend and be spent in doing good. Mr Whipple, do not forget me in your prayers for I never shall forget you. I am now at London. Our little paper I have not received it this quarter.6 Mr Whipple, please send all of my communications to London post office. I believe that this will make a good field of labour. Dear Brother, please write me some word of encouragement for I have had many kind words from you. These lines leave me well. I hope they may find you the same. Yours truly in good faith. Please do not forget my paper. London post office.

22 November 18607 When these lines come to hand they will inform you of my good health. I am well and hope that they may find you enjoying the same blessing of God. When I sent my report of the 14th I forgot to state the progress of our prayer meeting. The Thursday night prayer meeting at London is not well attended. The Monday night prayer meeting is well attended. The prayer meeting at Ingersoll Tuesday and Thursday is well attended. But I am sorry to say that our monthly concert prayer meeting at London is poorly attended.8 What is the cause that our colored people are so cold on the subject of liberty? I cannot tell. They have promised me again and again that they would try and have more energy. But Mr Whipple, you would be surprised to learn that there is more sympathy for the slaves in some of the States than is in Canada.

6 The American Missionary. 7 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-588. 8 Chambers remained devoted to such gatherings, where fervent prayers were said for the end of slavery, for those suffering within its grip, and for those working for its abolition.

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Although the colored man is free in Canada, the people do not love to employ them. They will not give them work in many places. The prejudice in Canada is great, is worse than it is in the States in many respects. This is one reason why some of our people [are a-scared] now. There is men who carried wood all summer for 50 cts per day and boarded themselves. But however, Canada is the best place the Black man can get to just now. My prayer is to God that Africa may soon become civilized and Christian life. There is many did want to go from Canada to some other place, Africa or the West Indies or Central America. If I was a young man, I would go to Africa. But my family is too large. My son that got drowned he was in great spirits for Africa. But I must stay in Canada. I know that there is a great field for to work in and much good can be done by the help of God. So what few days I have to spend I will try with my whole heart to work for God. Well, Mr Whipple, we have a fine fall, our first snow fell on a Monday 19th, and it was not much. Wood in London is 35 cts per cord. I written about my paper. Please send all of my communications to London. Mr Whipple, dear Brother, I will be glad to hear from you a word of encouragement from you. No more, but remain yours truly. I did not state the cause why my house was burnt at Ingersoll. In our small society there was a white man and his wife joined our church and they have been very vigilant attenders of church and Sabbath school, and their oldest son he also had a desire to attend church. But the two older daughters was opposed to them going to coloured meetings. So, when I made up my mind to move they were much pleased and wanted me to put up a house on their farm. He said that he would find the logs and haul them. So, he let me have a piece of ground and I found the lumber and we went to work and put up a house. The coloured friends all turned out and put it up. I bought the lumber. It did cost much, but it was my money in this hard country. It cost $40. Different ones have told me that they had not anything against me but they did not want our slaves and wife to attend our meeting.9 But they say under my preaching God

9 One could read between the lines that Chambers perhaps refers here to opposition to inclusion in his worshipping community of local mixed-race couples.

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blessed their souls and will attend. Their prayer is to God that I will continue. By the help of God I will.

8 January 186110 These lines leave me well and I hope that they may find you enjoying the same blessing of God. The weather is very cold at this time, fine sleighing, and the people are very busy bringing wood and grain into market, and among the farmers there is some coloured men who made their escape to the Canadas and are now farming. Rev. dear sir, since I written last to you my heart has been made to rejoice in the love of God. I have felt the outpouring of his spirit in [my] poor heart. On a Christmas day, it will be long remembered by many, I strove to deliver a discourse on the birth of our Redeemer. And while I laboured, the Lord’s spirit was felt powerfully, and on a watch night we had a powerful meeting. Several felt a great need of a Saviour. Three who left the church three years ago returned back and came forward last Lord’s Day and joined. It was a meeting of much interest: two men and one female. And on a Monday night, which was last night, we had a good turnout at our concert prayer meeting. I am happy to say that it was the best meeting of the kind that I have been in since I have been in Canada. There was but few dry faces in the meeting while we remembered our brother and sister [slaves] who is now in prison for killing [a] man while trying to get free.11 There was a deep sympathy for him, and while we remembered our enslaved downtrodden race and our white brothers who have labored for our care, and while we raised our voices to God there were many tears shed. We have lost one of our members. He met with us on a Christmas day, and on the 26th, the day after, I called to see him, and he said that he spent a happy Christmas day,

10 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-592. 11 Chambers is likely referring to the case of John Anderson who was then in jail in Toronto facing possible extradition to the United States for allegedly killing his slave master in Missouri while escaping bondage. See Fred Landon, “The Anderson Fugitive Case,” in oach , 275–83. Chambers would have been following this case in local newspapers. See “The Extradition Case: What the Judges Said,” Canadian Free Press, 21 December 1860, 2. This paper was published in London.

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but he did not think that [he] would see another. On a New Year’s morning he died in the Lord. He sent for his church brethren to come and see him. He said that he was going home. He sang this hymn “And must I be to judgment brought.”12 He leaves a wife to mourn his loss. He was much beloved by the citizens of London. Mr Whipple, I think I can say for a truth that I do try to preach so that God will bless my labours. I make it a matter of prayer to God that he would teach me. I know that I a poor writer, but bless God, I can read his word. Well, I have read the Bible through twice. I do not preach to excite my people, but my object is to teach them to love and obey God. My prayer to God is for the spirit of the truth of his word. I have not had the little missionary since I came to London I long for it now.13 I am with you heart and hand in the work. Yours truly.

13 February 186114 The quarter now ending has been one of deep interest. The spirit of the Lord has been felt powerfully among his people. I do not think that I have felt more of the love of God than I have this quarter. I have preached twenty-six times on the Lord’s Day, attended Sabbath school thirteen times, and preached seven times; on weekday prayer meeting seven times; class meeting seven times; concert prayer three times. Preaching as follows: at London on the Lord’s Day November 18 and 25 of November; Ingersoll Dec. 2; London 9 and 11; Ingersoll 22; London 30, Jan 6; Ingersoll 13; London 20 and 27; Ingersoll Feb 3; London 10. I have administered the Lord’s Supper four times. On Christmas Day we had a very solemn meeting. A New Year’s Eve was watch meeting. I don’t think it will be forgotten. Our concert prayer meetings have been very interesting indeed. The second one this quarter there was but few dry faces in the meeting that I was holding when you paid me the visit.15 The meeting house at Ingersoll has closed with

12 Composed by the prolific Charles Wesley, brother of John. It was included in his Hymns for Children (Bristol, UK: E. Farley, 1763), hymn 35, page 30. 13 Chambers is referring to the American Missionary, which had not yet found him in London. 14 This letter, F1-598, is not in Chambers’s hand and appears to have been transcribed and edited for publication. 15 In January 1861 Whipple visited the sites of the Canada Mission

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the blessing of God upon it. I never was in a meeting where there was a deeper feeling of God’s goodness than in that one meeting. There were eight who professed to obtain the blessing. They united with the church, stating that they had obtained the pearl of great price, and more desired to flee the wrath to come.16 And two women and three men were before desperate [drunkards] and intemperate, and one female was a prostitute, but she now prayeth. Her parents told her if she did stop going to meeting then she must leave. So she said that she would for before she would do as she had done, that she would beg her way through the world. She asked the church to pray for her. She has left the town and is two miles in the county, and comes to church every Lord’s Day. That is a blessed change. I have taken into the church this quarter at London by letter four, on profession three. Ingersoll by letter two, and profession of faith eight under the watch care of the church. The increase this quarter is [21]. We have lost one of our members this quarter. He died in the Lord. Our Sabbath schools are well attended. Ever since you have been here the average attendance at London has been every Sunday from twenty-five to thirty, and as many as fifty last Lord’s Day. Will you please send me some books lib[rary] and some tickets as soon as you can, second handed library books will do.17 The Lord be praised for his goodness. Yours truly.

supported by the ama . He wrote about his experience in the March, April, and May issues of the American Missionary. He reported on London and Ingersoll in the May issue, commenting favourably on Chambers’s work. As noted in chapter 3, he was in London when the 1861 census was taken and was enumerated there while a guest at J.M. Bennett’s hotel in Ward 2. 16 Matthew 13:45–6 likens the kingdom of heaven to a merchant discovering a valuable pearl and selling all he has to possess it. “Wrath to come” refers to Matthew 3:7 and Luke 3:7. John the Baptist told the crowds that came to him for baptism (in Luke) and to the Pharisees and Sadducees (in Matthew): “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” 17 Each church member was given a ticket indicating that its bearer was a member in good standing, eligible to attend the quarterly meeting and partake of the love feast. These were printed by the publishing arm of the bmec . It is curious that Chambers expected Whipple to supply them. See figure 1.2.

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14 February 186118 These lines leave me and family well. I hope that may find you and yours enjoying the same blessing of God. We have had some very cold weather since you were here last. The 31st was the stormiest day that I have seen since I have been in Canada. The snow fell very fast and deep so that the roads were stopped up with the snow. Sunday the 10th was a very warm day and Monday also. So the snow has decreased very much. I have been trying to get the number of persons of colour in London and the vicinity. I went to the headman that takes the census, and so I went from place to place and to the school, for I was informed that I could not get the information that I wanted until a full return was made, and that will not be until next June.19 I will give you the number of persons that belong to our colored churches and the number of children in public school, and the real estate owners as well as I could learn. I am glad that I can state only the truth that there is but two or three coloured persons who go about the state ask[ing for] aid and they do what work they can. They say sometimes they make twenty cents per day but there is many white beggars. Wages is very low here and has been for twelve months. Men 50 cents, women 20, 25 and 37 cents. The very low prices our people make out to live. I visit the jail on a Monday and I found thirty prisoners in there, three coloured persons and twenty-seven white prisoners. One of the coloured men for stealing a piece of meat and a pair of old boots, the other coloured men were in co[mpany] with a white man passing counterfeit money. I know them both. The white men are in prison for house breaking, for murdering and burning house, for stealing, robbing, fighting, for disturbing the peace, and for debt. This will show that the coloured people are not what our opposers say that we are. Well, the coloured people in London were very sorry when they learn from me that you was our true friend. They say if they had to have word there would have been more out, and you will pardon and forgive them and please pay London another visit. I have great faith in the children in our Sunday school, if we can but get books. I can say as for London and Ingersoll where our people times past

18 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-599. 19 As his later correspondence shows, Chambers was persistent in trying to get an accurate count of the local Black population.

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had so much strife that love seems to abound. I have been at these places since the 4th of last March and have had no trouble with people yet. I make it a matter of prayer for a heart to bear up under all things and I know that the Lord hears me. Well, how did you get home and how is times in the south? Yours truly.

8 March 186120 Yours of the first came safe to hand for which I return you my thanks, for if it was not for the aid that I have received through you and the society I should not labour with much success. For thus you have said, “Come to the Canadas, for our blessed Lord says that the gospel of his kingdom shall be preached to all the world.”21 I do feel a willing with or in my heart to work for God and for the good of souls. Well, Mr Whipple, Dr Delany has been in London and delivered three lectures on Africa and the cotton trade and culture of cotton in Africa.22 There is much interest felt in London with the white brethren, and many of our people want to go. I said to you that I did feel a deep interest in the civilization and the redemption of Africa. Now there is a chance for me to have my family sent out. Now I want to say to you will you send me out as a missionary by the American Mission Society? When I was in New York I stated to you my family were willing [to] go. That was

20 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-603. 21 See Matthew 24:14. 22 Martin Robison Delany was freeborn in Virginia, apprenticed with physicians in Pittsburgh, and briefly studied medicine at Harvard. An advocate of Black nationalism, he advanced his views as a journalist, public speaker, and organizer of societies and conventions, most notably the Cleveland Convention of 1854. That same year he moved his family to Chatham where he practised medicine and was active in local and international Black affairs. He attended the Chatham Convention organized by John Brown in May 1858. Delany wanted a homeland in Africa for Blacks emigrating from North America. He spoke widely on this subject, raising support and funds in North America and Britain for such a refuge, and journeying to Africa himself. His effort was aborted by the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861. He later worked for the Freedmen’s Bureau. His lectures in London were delivered at the city hall on 5 March 1861. London Free Press, 2–5 March 1861, 2.

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all that was in the way. At Ingersoll I stated the same thing: my heart is in the work. Please give me your advice for I need it. Mr Whipple, can you get the books that I written about? Please send a few books and tickets if you please. Our Sabbath school is still increasing. I am commencing a week prayer meeting for the outpouring of God’s spirit in London. One more request: there is a poor brother, a fugitive who came to London from [blank space in letter] and he has written to his wife but cannot hear from her. He thinks she is in Wilmington, Delaware. Her name is Susan Harmon. You will please re-mail her this note. His name is Charles Enes.23 He is now in London and will be until he gets a letter from his wife. She is free woman. Yours truly. I was thinking that you might send her word, do if you can. She is a free woman. The tickets I wrote about you did not send. I can get them in London from a gentleman. Please send a few books if you can, Mr Whipple. You will please write as soon as you can about Africa for my heart is in the work. Mr Whipple, what is the Civilization Society doing now?24 Is it sending out any persons to Africa? I would be glad to learn the facts in the cause. Yours. It is badly written. I hope you can make it out.

23 The 1861 Census for the Township of East Oxford (Enumeration District no. 2, 49, inmate no. 28) lists a Charles Ennes, labourer, born in the United States and living in Ingersoll. He was entered as thirty-four years old, Methodist Episcopal in religion, and married, and was counted in the “Colored Persons, Mulatto or Indian” column. Perhaps he was the man whose wife Chambers was seeking to contact. 24 Chambers is likely referring to the African Colonization Society founded by Black abolitionists Henry Highland Garnett and Martin Delany et al. in 1858. It promoted the migration of American Blacks to Liberia, where they would be free of the economic constraints and social barriers of life in the United States. This organization is not to be confused with the American Colonization Society, founded much earlier. Attempts to promote emigration were hotly debated amongst abolitionists and opposed by many who argued that Blacks should instead achieve full citizenship in North America. Chambers was attracted to the potential need for missionaries in the projected African homeland.

Figure 4.1 | Martin Delany visited London in 1861 and lectured on the prospects for a homeland in Africa for American Blacks.

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Presentation and Address of the b.m.e . Church Sabbath School London25 To the Rev. Lewis C. Chambers Pastor of the b.m.e . Church in the City of London Upper Canada Rev. and Dear Sir The officers, teachers, and members of the Sabbath School in connection with the b.m.e . Church would most respectfully upon the occasion of your departure from this city – approach you for the purpose of expressing the deep sense of their obligation & gratitude to you – for the unceasing diligence and labours which you have so manifestly exhibited and executed in their behalf. When you arrived amongst us, the Sabbath School had been discontinued, the scholars were totally neglected, and suffered to live without being permitted to enjoy the inestimable pleasures and blessings on that institution so justly styled the nursery of the Church of God, “The Sabbath School” under the pious teachings of which so many persons have been taught to read the Sacred word of God thereby being the means of saving their immortal Souls. As you will be informed through the proper medium of the number of Scholars &c. attending this School it is unnecessary to advert to – But permit us to inform you, that we feel your labours were not in vain – for now we have a School of which we are justly proud, and which we are solely endebted to you; we earnestly hope that the conference may deem it wise and expedient to return you to the scene of your present labours – where you have endeared yourself to us by all the ties of Christianity. You will please accept for yourself and conference the sum of $10, as a small acknowledgement of the appreciation and respect with which you are held by us. Praying that the almighty God may endue you plenteously with his heavenly grace – guide, protect and direct you – and grant you a long and useful life – We bid you we trust a short farewell.

25 This commendation, F1-605, was presented to Chambers as he was leaving London to attend the annual conference of the bme church in Windsor. See also the following letter of 14 May 1861, F1-609.

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[Signed on behalf of the Sabbath School:] G.W. Barclay, Superintendent James Thompson Hamilton, Secretary H. Williams, Treasurer B. Dolbeare Paul James Davidson Robert Albert Pope Mahala Gordon Lucinda Simons Martha A. Jones Chas. H. Pope Benjn Mosby Geo. B. Dunn John P. Shipton J.W. Shafer Chas. Williams Nathl. Williams Cornelius Butler Saml. Hamilton Jas [Anno] London

April 4th 1861 Reply To the Officers, teachers, and members of the Sabbath School in the City of London, c.w. Ladies & Gentlemen I cannot express the satisfaction I feel at this time – words cannot express the emotions which fills my heart at the reception of this token of your esteemed and respect. If I have been instrumental in the hands of God of doing this much for the propagation of the Gospel, I have been doubly repaid and you may be assured that I shall endeavour to do my utmost for the establishment of the Christian institutions connected with the church of God. I accept and thank you for myself and conference, for the sum of $10 which you were pleased to present me with. I earnestly pray that God may pour his choicest blessings upon you, and make you burning and shining lights in his church.

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Lewis C. Chambers London April 4th 186126

14 May 186127 These lines leave me and mine well. I hope that they find you and yours the same. The quarter now ending has been one of joy, yeah, we may say, one of great joy. The blessed Lord has heard our prayer and poured out his spirit upon us. We have had in London for five weeks the most interesting revival that I ever was in. Our meeting closed with the blessing of God upon it. There was twenty-four who sought the Lord; twenty-three professed to have found Christ; one still seeking the blessing. I have felt this quarter much of the blessing of God in my heart. I have preached thirty-three times; twenty-five times on the Lord’s Day; eight times during the week; prayer meeting ten times. Our concert prayer meeting is well attended with great interest. Our Sabbath school is well attended. I have added to the church at London twenty-three on profession of faith and one who is seeking the Lord, which makes twenty-four this quarter. We have lost one of our London members. She died happy. She sent for me to come and sing and pray with her.28 She said sing while I go to sleep for she stated that she did fear death. She was the happiest little sister that the eyes ever beheld. She said that she would soon be home to meet me in heaven. She was in her sixteen years of her age. She died in the Lord. I met our annual conference in Windsor. We had a good time. We have nine elders and six preachers and about 30 preaching places. I am still at London.29 I seen many of the poor people that fled

26 The commendation and reply are particularly valuable as evidence of the success of Chambers’s ministry and for the names of his congregants. Students of London’s Black history have reason to be grateful for the latter. 27 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-609. 28 Her request witnessed to Chambers’s ability to sing and his love of music – attributes that suffused his ministry. 29 The Sabbath school leaders had achieved one of their objectives – the reappointment of Chambers to London by the bmec conference.

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Chicago but they doing all that they [can] for them at Windsor.30 We have a very wet time. A great deal of rain has fell. Yours truly. [No date]31 The number of colored children in the public schools in London & its vicinity is sixty, the number of colored churches is two: one Methodist seventy-eight members, one Baptist forty members. The Methodists have an average congregation of about one hundred and twenty, the Baptist about thirty. Colored voters and real estate owners in the city of London is forty, in vicinity sixty, makes the average number of one hundred. The number of white churches is nine in the City of London. The number of coloured persons supported are none,32 the qualifications of voters by rent & taxation is about eighteen in the city of London.

16 May 186133 The report the 14th was badly written. Pardon it. It may be that you can understand this better. The quarter now ending has been one of great joy. I should have stated that the church at London prayed in earnest, praying for the outpouring of God’s spirit for some time. When I first came to London, the church was in a poor state. We have had one of the most interesting revivals in our church in London that I ever was in. After five weeks labour with the help

30 About three hundred fugitives from Illinois arrived in Windsor, Canada West, on 5 April 1861. They were fleeing an action by US marshals who were using a writ under the Fugitive Slave Act to return them to bondage. Local citizens and churches tried to care for them. See American Missionary, May 1861, 107, for more on the Chicago fugitives. See also Landon, “The Negro Migration to Canada,” in oach , 243–4. 31 This letter, F1-610, has no date or salutation, is not written in Chambers’s hand, and is on paper often used by the ama . Likely it was recorded by an ama official from an addition to Chambers’s half-yearly report (written on 14 May), which is not in the microfilmed collection. Note that in his next letter he apologizes for the condition of that report. 32 He refers to the fact that no Blacks were receiving relief or the dole from the city. 33 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-611.

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of the brethren the meeting ended with the blessing of God upon it. I have preached thirty-three times this quarter, twenty-five times on the Lord’s Day and eight times during the week on weekdays, and attended Sabbath school thirteen [times], and prayer meetings. Our concert prayer meeting has been well attended and very interesting. Our Sabbath school is well attended. I have added to the church in London this quarter twenty-four, twenty-three by a profession of faith and one who is seeking the blessing. Peace and love prevail. We had a church meeting last night. The members met to make arrangements to enlarge the church for it is too small for the present congregation.34 Offer has been made to do it for seventy-five dollars. The good work is still going on. We have lost one of our Sabbath school scholars. She died well composed. She sent for me to come and sing and pray for her. She said sing while I go to sleep. She bid all goodbye and said sing for she would soon be home. She had gained a good knowledge of the Bible. She was in sixteen or seventeen years of her age. She died in the Lord. Mr Whipple, will you please try and get a letter to Susan Harmon, the wife of the poor brother I written to you about in mine of the 14th of Feb. She lives in Wilmington Del. Write your letter to her in the care of Charles [Birsed?]. He has been in Canada two years and has had five letters from his wife, but she cannot get his letters. It may be that you can contrive a way to get her letters. He lives with me at this time. He is a good man. I hope that he will get his wife. She is a free woman. Please try and get a letter to [her] or word. Yours truly. She may live Wilmington Del. or Chesapeake City, Md., Cecil County.35

34 This is Chambers’s only reference to the size of the bme church in London. The congregation ultimately decided to build a larger church not on the Thames Street lot but on land they purchased on Grey Street. See my introduction. 35 Chambers’s letters do not relate whether Whipple was able to reunite Susan Harmon with her husband. Perhaps the Susan Harmon enumerated in District 2, Cecil County, md , Chesapeake City, 134, living with the family of David Palmer, bridge builder, was the person to whom Chambers was referring.

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30 May 186136 These lines leave me well. I hope that they may find you the same. I now send you our Sabbath address. I would be glad if you could have it invested in the paper.37 I am sorry to learn the death of Brother Rogers,38 but the will of God must be done. I now just dispatched for to come to Windsor in haste to help to settle some differences among our people.39 I am short of means, but I must try and borrow it. May the Lord bless you. I remain yours in truth.

8 June 186140 These lines leave me well but my wife and one of my children is very sick. We have lost us another one of our members. Her last remembrance was paid to her on last Sunday. She was a member at Ingersoll. When she was first taken with the fever she was in her perfect mind. She was well composed. Her death was a happy one. She died in the seventeenth year of her age.

36 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-613. 37 Chambers is referring here to the glowing commendation from Sabbath school officials in London. That panegyric did not find its way into the American Missionary. 38 In November 1860 Rev. E.P. Rogers, who had ministered in Newark, New Jersey, went on behalf of the ama to the Yoruba people of West Africa. He died early in 1861 at Cape Palmas, Liberia. See ama , ar , 1861, 2–3. 39 Chambers does not explain what these “differences” were, but he was often called upon to act as a peacemaker. It is possible that he was referring to a schism in the bmec over the legitimacy of Bishop Nazrey’s incumbency. Augustus R. Green, the elder at Windsor, led the opposition to Nazrey, which, though unsuccessful, triggered debates and disagreements in both the amec and the bmec . For this controversy see the minutes of the First General Conference of the bmec (1860), and Rev. William H. Jones’s Remarks Concerning the Origin of the British Methodist Episcopal Church… (Camden, nj , ca. 1863). (A copy of those Remarks are bound with bmec minutes at Wilberforce University Library, Wilberforce, Ohio.) Green had opposed Nazrey’s election to bishop in 1856 and objected to his continued membership in the amec . Eventually Green, who was American in origin, returned to the United States where he rejoined the amec . 40 This letter, F1-614, is annotated “Ex. Com.,” i.e., Executive Committee.

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Mr Whipple, I sent my report on the 14th of May and have not heard from you yet. I must say that [I] depend on my pay from your kind heart for the support of my family, for the people are poor and very poor, and devoting all of my time at London and Ingersoll and my losses last year has put me in a place by moving that at the [end] of the quarter that [I] must settle up with the stores and pay my house rent. They do not give me enough to board me. My rent must be paid, my children must go to school. Shoes and clothing all take money. All that disappoints me is the people whom I deal with. I promised to pay at such a time. Do not think hard of me for writing so much. I hope after quarter things will be better for I feel more and more like labouring for God. Dear Brother in Christ, I wish you when I think of your labour for the poor slave in Canada for I know that it was through you that I received aid to preach to my poor colored brethren. If it had not [been] for you I might today been chopping wood and other work, but bless God! I study the word of God and do more good for my people. May the Good Lord bless you. Send soon if you please, Yours truly.

1 July 186141 This will inform you that I am well but my wife is not well and two of my children are poorly. I hope that these lines may find you and yours well and the rest of the brethren all well. Well, Brother, I wish to let you know through these few lines how the good work is going on. On the 28th I held my quarterly meeting in London. It was a fine day and we had a good time. The Lord was with us. I baptized seven, five by immersion and two by sprinkling. One lady who left the church some three years ago felt so happy on that day that she came back to the church. She is a fine woman, one that I have long wanting to see herself and husband return back again. She is a good scholar. She left when there was so much trouble in the church before I came to London.42 I have laboured much

41 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-616. 42 When Chambers first went to London, he reported to Whipple: “The church was much to pieces, the members loving brawling, and many would not come to church.” See his letter of 14 May 1860 (F1-562). Evidently his dedicated ministry was drawing back to the church people who had left it.

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for the peace and harmony of the church at London, and, I believe through much faith and prayer, the Lord has heard and blessed me. Last Sunday our quarterly meeting was at Ingersoll. It was a fine day and I think that we had the best quarterly meeting that I have attended since I have been in Canada. In our “love feast” God’s spirit was felt powerfully among his people. There were many tears shed. One man who has been sick ever since this time last year came to our “love feast” and stated that he was forty years and more of age and had seen much and heard much but had never known the Saviour before. He stated through my advice and praying with him and for him he was brought to know Jesus. I did not expect [to] see him ever out of the house again. It seemed more like the dead coming to life again. Well, I never heard a more able testimony for my Redeemer. He and his wife joined the church. I baptized five, three by immersion and two by sprinkling. It was a meeting of deep interest, and will be long remembered. Dear Brother, yours was received with much pleasure. I thank you for writing so plain. I know that your heart is in the work of God but I am sorry that your funds is low. I have had from London and Ingersoll this quarter twelve dollars. My rent and wood this quarter, eighteen dollars. So, I stated before if it was not for your kind heart I would have to chop and haul cordwood. But my heart is in the work. I do feel if I live to see this year closed, which will be the 14th of November, you may cut my salary down to one hundred and fifty. Owing to my losses last year I am little behind.43 Please do the best for me that you can. Could you get word to the man’s wife that I written to [you] about at Wilmington, Del.? Please write soon and let me know your opinion about the war.44 Yours truly in Christ and will be until my work is done. May the good Lord bless you.

20 July 186145 I am happy again to take my pen in hand to write you a few lines to inform you of my good health. I am well and daughter is well. I do

43 The losses were incurred in building the house in Ingersoll that was torched. 44 The American Civil War began on 12 April 1861 when Confederate troops bombarded Union installations at Fort Sumter, South Carolina. 45 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-619.

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hope that these lines find you enjoying the same blessing of God. Everything seems to be going in peace at London and Ingersoll. Our meeting was very interesting indeed, but times is hard to [finding] money, and so it is with you. But the Lord will do what is best for us. Well, dear Brother, if you can send me my quarterly pay by the 30th for me, my wife will be confined on the 23rd, and must be paid cash. That is the rule in this country. Do not think hard of me for writing to you again for more, for I do feel that I am writing to a friend indeed. I know you be such. I have found you to [be] such. You will please write to me soon as you get these lines. Yours truly.

29 July 186146 These lines will inform you that I am well and my wife was delivered of a fine daughter on the 20th.47 I am glad to say that she getting along tolerable well. She is not so well today, but I hope that by the blessing of God she may get well again. Well, dear Brother, do not get wearied with me for writing to you so soon, for I have the confidence in you, for my love for [you] shall never be forgotten. But I am now in a straight at this time. I had to have a doctor for my wife and daughter and that must be paid cash, but he says that he will wait a few days. Well, London pays me on average about one hundred and fifty cts per week. And Ingersoll pays me five dollars per quarter. Well, my rent is eighteen dollars per quarter. I pay my own passage from London to Ingersoll and they pay it back again. Well, if it was not for my brother with my team I do not know what I should do.48 He as well as I have everything to buy, and they may that promised to pay me after I had received my quarterly pay. Now on the 10th of August I have money due, and who I can borrow [from] I do not know. I do hope that if you can do something for me before [August] by that time you will oblige me much. If I live to see next November times will better with me.

46 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-620. 47 Chambers did not mention his children by name in letters, and the American censuses I consulted do not give London, Canada West, as the birthplace of a daughter born in 1861. 48 He now owned a team of horses that his brother George used as a carter. Many London Blacks earned a living in that occupation. See letter F1-631.

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Dear Brother, the good work of the Lord is still going on and my heart feels warm for the work of God.49 I will station myself in London. Please write to me in a few days. If I have said anything pardon me for I do not want to do wrong. May the God of all grace bless, preserve and keep you50 so that [you] may live to do much good for the cause of the poor slave that makes his way to Canada. I do hope that you will pay us another visit in Canada. Yours truly.

14 August 186151 These lines leave me and family tolerable well at this time. I hope that these may find you and yours well. The quarter just closed has been one of some trouble owing [to] some bad conduct of some of the members at London and Ingersoll. At London three of the members went a fishing and taken with them a pint of ardent spirits. So they fell out and we had them up before the church. Two confessed their faults and we pardoned them. They would not at Ingersoll. Two I turned out for immoral conduct. This quarter I have preached twenty-six times on the Lord’s Day and attended Sabbath school ten times, prayer meeting six times, preached in the week four times. I have taken this quarter by letter three, and two on profession of faith; one at Ingersoll by letter and one on profession of faith; at London two by letter and one on profession of faith. The number added to the church the quarter is five, and two turned out by the rules of our church.52 Our Sabbath school is well attended. Our concert prayer meeting has been very interesting indeed and well attended. On last Lord’s Day I administered the Lord’s Supper. We had a very interesting time. The Lord was with us in our meeting. I am glad to say to you that I have a peace in my heart that this world did not give, and I do

49 Following his conversion experience at Aldersgate Church in London, England, John Wesley had written that his heart felt “strangely warmed.” Chambers was steeped in Methodist usage and lore. 50 Chambers echoes the words of blessing in Numbers 6:24–6. 51 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-622. 52 See “Trial of Lay Members,” in Minter, Doctrine and Discipline, chapter 5, section 7, 107–8.

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feel that it cannot take it away.53 Things is very quiet in our church now at this time. We had a very wet time. There is much grain and hay damage. Well, I have been looking ever since the 10th for a draft from you. I know that money matters is hard everywhere. My year will be up on the 14th of November, after which, the Lord being willing, I will labour for the cause or in the cause of missions for $150. That will be $50 less.54 I am bound by the help of God and the aid of his spirit to spend my days in the work. Dear Brother, pray for me and I will pray for you. Please send me a draft this week if you can. No more, but remain yours truly.

1 October 186155 These lines will inform you that I and family are well. I hope that this may find you and yours the same. Yours with the draft came safe to hand for which I was very thankful. Our Provincial Fair came off last week.56 Everything looked well. The cattle, hogs and sheep were fine, the best that ever I did see. There were crowds of people in London during last week [and] a great deal of intemperance. There was one hundred and twenty-eight persons taken before the magistrate last week for intemperance and gambling. Out of the one hundred and twenty-eight there was but one coloured man. All the rest were white. That will show that the Black man is not so bad.57

53 Here Chambers draws on the words of Christ in John 14:27: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” 54 Considering the precarious state of Chambers’s finances, frequently expressed in his letters, his proposal to continue missionary work at a lower stipend as his family was growing must have been an uncommon offer to Whipple and the ama . 55 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-631 56 This was the second time that Canada West’s Provincial Exhibition was held in London (the first was in 1854). The fairgrounds extended from Richmond Street to Waterloo Street, and from the present cpr tracks south to Central Avenue. There is a florid account of fair activities in the City of London Directory for 1863–4, 11–12. Thirty thousand people attended on the Friday, and the Crystal Palace, designed by architect and city engineer William Robinson, was much admired. 57 In Race on Trial, Barrington Walker explores how courts and the law

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On the 7th of September, I was helping the brethren to hold a camp meeting between Chatham and Buxton.58 I was there three days, and the Lord’s Day we had in there about four thousand persons and remarkable good order. The meeting was well attended. It closed with the blessing of God upon it. Thirty-five were added to the church on a profession of faith, and fifteen who appeared deeply convicted for their sins. But I am sorry to inform you that we have trouble in our church in Canada about the Bishop at Chatham and this for my prayer to God is that I and my people at London and Ingersoll may be kept from this church splits.59 Dear Brothers, my mind and my heart is still the same for peace. The work of God is still going on in love in my charge. Well, Brother, about this time last year my house was burnt and my son was drowned. Bless God that it is as well with me as it is. I love the Lord and his cause. I will labour in the field for him. Will you please send me last quarter pay, for I bought a horse and wagon, and I pay fifty dollars, twenty of this month and the other part 20th of December. I am still living near the same place that I was when you were to see me. I am doing as well as I could expect. Now I must stop. You promised to write me a long letter. I have been looking for it. You will please write soon. Please send me a draft by the 20th if you can. I called to see the Bishop of the English Church the other day, and he gave me great encouragement to labour on for my people.60 And he consented at last for Mr Tearne to labor in our Sunday school.61

both “supported anti-Black racism in myriad forms” and “served as vehicles through which Blacks asserted their rights to equal citizenship, cemented community bonds, and settled disputes” (44). 58 Buxton is south of Chatham in Raleigh Township, Kent County. 59 Chambers refers to the attempted schism in the bmec that was instigated by Augustus R. Green in opposition to Bishop Willis Nazrey. 60 The Church of England bishop was Benjamin Cronyn (1802–1871), who gave much support to the Colonial Church and School Society’s Mission to the Fugitive Slave in London, under the leadership of Rev. Marmaduke Dillon. See James J. Talman’s article in the dcb online, revised 1972, http://www. biographi.ca/en/bio/cronyn_benjamin_10E.html. 61 Walter Tearne (1827–1892) was an English missionary at the school established by the ccss . He is listed in the 1863 City of London Directory, 63. Tearne later moved to the United States and was ordained in the Episcopal

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I am glad of it. I am no party man.62 When I make my report for this quarter I will tell you all about our labours. You will please do me a favour when you get this, write soon next week. Yours truly in love.

14 November 186163 The quarter just closed has been one of much joy. I do not think I have ever felt more of the power of God and peace of mind. Although there is some disturbance in our connection in Canada about the Bishopric, two thirds of the members are at peace. More than two thirds of the members in my two stations at London and Ingersoll are quiet, except four members. I have delivered four discourses on love and peace, which has done much good. On the 13th of Oct., which was the Lord’s Day, our meeting was one of deep interest. The Lord’s spirit was felt powerful all day. On last Lord’s Day was our sacrament. I administered the Lord’s Supper at 6:00 in the evening to a large number of devoted followers of our Redeemer, whose hearts did seem to feel much of the burning love of God. I have preached twenty-four times this quarter, twenty-two times on the Lord’s Day, twice in the week; attended Sabbath school ten times, prayer meetings ten times. Our concert prayer meeting has been well attended excepting our last meeting owing to a wound that I got in the foot, which prevented me from uttering. Also, two Sabbaths I have not been able to attend. I have added to the church at London by letter one this quarter. The church in London has a membership of good standing members seventy-eight, congregation two hundred and fifty, and a good Sabbath school. Our congregation is on the increase in London. The church in Ingersoll has a membership of good standing members 50. The congregation is from seventy to eighty. The Sabbath school is poor, but the meetings are well attended as a general thing. The two churches has paid me this [year] $62 dollars. This finishes my year’s labour, with the exception of visiting the sick and

Church. He died in Philadelphia. Chambers spells his surname “Turn,” which I have corrected in later letters. 62 Chambers frequently described himself this way, and his friendship with clergy of various faiths testified to his sincere ecumenism. 63 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-632.

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baptizing. Every week I am engaged three days in visiting, reading God’s word to members that cannot read. Dear Brother, I have laboured with much prayers in secret to God for grace and strength, for which I do feel that God has answered my prayer. But I must say if it had not been for the aid of God through your kind hands I could not to of laboured with the same spirit of diligence. I never had for my service during the four years labour in Canada more than $60 a year,64 which always placed me in such a manner that I could do nothing only on the Lord’s Day. But for the last three years since I have been employed as a missionary by your board I have devoted pretty much all of my time. Now dear Brother, owing to the war and the lack of your funds I will by the [grace] of God and the aid of your prayers continue for $150 per year, for my mind is made up to die with you in this missionary field of labour. You will please send me a draft if you can without fail. When I get this $100 dollars it will please me. And write please. Answer this as soon as you get. Yours truly.

14 November 186165 These lines will inform you that I am prostrated under the care of the doctor, I having cut my foot very bad on last Wednesday trying to get a little firewood, but it is now a good deal better and I think by next Lord’s Day week that I will be able to preach to my people. They have showed great kindness [to] me by coming to see me, then taking up small contribution on last Sunday night. The amount was $2,19 cts. Well, dear Brother, I have been looking for a letter from you for this long time – you stated in yours before the last that you would write me a long letter. Well, I have been looking for it, but I know you are very busy. Well, Brother, I feel that the work of God is a-prospering in my hands. I written to [you] some time ago that there was a split in our church in Canada. It has just reached London, that is the party to form a new church. But I have prayed to God to give me a heart to

64 Here Chambers is referring not to money earned in Dresden from the sale of farm produce but to earnings from occasional preaching or Sabbath school teaching. 65 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-633.

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fear him and not to be found in taking any part in debate on the subject. I have but to concur with you that our people are too much for this small matter [?] the Bishopric. But stand the same, I am labouring for God and the good of souls. I am no party preacher, but I am glad to inform you that the members in [my] stations are at peace on the matter, except two. Therefore I am settled down in London to labour in the cause of missions for my poor & rejected people who may come to Canada. Now, Mr Whipple, so here is my heart and hand in the cause of Christ and liberty. Give me a place in your prayers. I hope that you will pay us a visit this winter. Will you come, Mr Whipple? Let me know when you will come. Dear Brother, will you please send me a draft next week by the 8th of the month for I am in great need of it this time. I have not wasted my little means. One year ago I was burnt out, or my house was burnt. Now I lease a small farm near London and built another log house on it and placed my family on it with brother so that my team may earn me something for my family.66 So I thank God that I have all paid for except 150 dollars will pay all that I do owe. I have 50 dollars now, 50 on the first of December. Please send me 50 as soon as you get this. I did not beg one cent of money, but my brother with the team has done well for a stranger. You know that I have a large family, and my salary is very small. The [congregations] at London and Ingersoll pay me about 125 cts per week. The people are poor, very poor. All my family are well. I hope you and yours are the same. I am now in the bed and I notified today for the fifty for 8th.67 Please let me hear some kind word from you. I remain yours truly in the Gospel. In haste.

14 November 186168 These lines will inform you that I am pretty well and family. I hope they may find you and yours the same. My year just ended the 14th

66 The extended Chambers family was now leasing land on Lot 3, Concession 2, London Township, land with more acreage and thus more potential for earnings from farming than the first plot they rented on coming to London. 67 This was money owing for his purchase of a team of horses. Chambers’s lender was pressing for repayment. 68 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-634.

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of November. Three years ago, you as a man of God was the friend that aided me, a poor African brother, to preach to the fugitive who have made their way to Canada, many without a minister or a Bible. I shall never forget you. I shall never cease to make mention of you in my prayers to God. I say again: “Thank God!” It was through your kindness and love that you always have made manifest for my poor Brethren. You are a tried friend for years. May God bless you, preserve you and give you a long life. I now enter upon another year with renewed energy to labour better by the help of the Lord. Although my family is large, God has made a way for me. I thank you for all of your kindness to me and my people. Dear Brother, you will please answer this as soon as you get it for I am in great need of money to pay my way. Yours in love and truth.

23 December 186169 It is with much pleasure that I pen these lines to you to inform you that yours was received with much joy. I would have answered before this time but I have been waiting to learn how many persons of colour there is in the Canadas. But it is hard to find out. I have written to the head clerk at Quebec to learn from him and if I find out I will inform you the numbers. Your letter it did afford me a great deal of satisfaction to hear you speak so plain. You say that you have no powder [sic] to make money. I believe that, for if you had, the poor fugitive should not want for the comforts of this life. For I know that your kind heart would be ready to help him and the cause of missions would be well supported. But you have not the means to do what you would love to do. But thank God you [have] a heart. My prayer to God is for you that he may bless and prosper you and fill your heart with gratitude. So, if you live to see the 25th that you may enjoy a happy Christmas. I am happy to say that our church is prospering and our congregation is increasing since the trouble we have had. I must say that I owe it to a prayerful reliance on God. On the first of Dec. was our quarterly meeting at London I had to help me the Rev. Mr Henderson,

69 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-639.

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the British Wesleyan minister.70 At three o’clock the Lord’s Supper was administered, and his spirit was felt powerful among his people. And on the 8th our quarterly meeting was at Ingersoll, although it was a stormy day. Our meeting was one of deep interest. On last Lord’s Day we had the Rev. Mr Tearne with [us] at eleven and at three o’clock.71 He has preached for me four times. My heart praises God, and by his help I will go on in his cause, for I know that my reward will be a glorious one. Well, you say that you cannot give but one hundred dollars per year. Well, I will not complain. By the help of God I will do the best I can. I am determined to spend and be spent in the missionary cause. My mind is made up. Money or no money I will be like good old Paul. With my own hands I will work and preach to my brethren. Dear Brother, pray for me. You will please send me the 50 dollars to me on the last year’s salary. That 50 I promised to pay on the first of this month. Please write and let me know when you can send it. I will look for the 50 dollars by the first of January. I hope that I may get it by that time and then the 100 per year after or for this year. I will be satisfied. There is great deal of talk about war with States now in London. I hope not. I hope that the north will not go to war with the British nation.72 Will you please write as soon as you get this and let me know what you think about the war. No more but remain yours truly.

70 Probably Rev. William C. Henderson, assistant to Rev. G.R. Sanderson at the Wesleyan Methodist church on North Street, now Queen’s Avenue. (See History of the County of Middlesex, 305; and Ken Russell, “Canadian Methodist Ministers 1800–1925,” under G–I, RootsWeb, last updated 24 April 2005, http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~methodists/genealogy/g-i.htm.) 71 According to the ccss annual report for 1860, 24, Tearne was still a “Scripture reader.” He was not ordained until he moved to the United States. 72 On 8 November 1861 an American naval packet intercepted the Trent, a British naval vessel, and seized two Confederate diplomats. In the aftermath of this incident, the “Trent affair,” there was fear that Britain would declare war on the United States. British troops were already being sent to Canada, and two thousand were eventually stationed in London.

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Bureau of Agriculture and Statistics, Census Department, Quebec, 21st Dec. 186173 The Revd L.C. Chambers, London, c.w. Revd. Sir: In reply to your letter of the 10th Inst. (only this day received), the number of Coloured persons according to the last Census returns are for Lower Canada 190, Canada West 11,223, total for Canada 11,413. I remain, Your ob[edien]t ser[vant], T. McNider, Chief Clerk

1 January 186274 I wish you a happy New Year. These lines leave me well. I hope that they may find you the same. We had last night a very interesting watch meeting. It was largely attended. The spirit of God was felt powerful among his people. It was the most interesting meeting that I have been in of the kind since I have been in Canada. I send you the answer but I do not think it is correct, for we have in our Methodist connection sixteen hundred and over.75 I do not know the numbers of Baptists in Canada, but I know that we have in our m.e. churches in Canada over sixteen hundred communicants, so the number I think is larger. I will [write] and find out if it is so. Dear Brother, tomorrow I want to pay 50 dollars that I owe. Please send it. That is the balance on last year. Our winter is fine. We have had no sleighing yet, but we have snow. There is a good deal of

73 Document F1-640, ama Archives. Both Chambers and Whipple had written to Thomas McNider, chief clerk of the Census Department, for population returns of Blacks living in Canada. 74 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-640, with the letter to Chambers from McNider. 75 Chambers doubted the accuracy of the number of Blacks as enumerated in the 1861 census. His “connection” had reported 2,313 members and 516 probationers in 1861. See bmec minutes, 1861, 12.

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sickness in London and deaths. Some three or four of my members is ill. Two of them is better now. Their fever is getting cool. How is times in the States? I wish you could pay us a visit this winter. Please answer this soon as you get it for I want to meet the claim against me. Yours truly in love.

Bureau of Agriculture and Statistics, Census Department, Quebec, 18th January 186276 Dear Sir: In reply to your note of the 13th Inst. this day received, 190 persons of colour are all that are returned in the last Census Returns for Lower Canada in the former Census there were only 18 returned. I am persuaded that there are a great many more in this section of Canada but the above are all that have been returned by the enumerators.77 I remain your ob[edien]t ser[vant] T. McNider, Chief Clerk

Geo. Whipple, Esq., a.m.a. 61 John St. New York. 22 January 186278 These lines will inform you that your favour of the 13th came safe to hand, for which I return my thanks to you. My dear Brother, I would to of answered before this time, but I have been holding a week’s meeting at Ingersoll, and just came home. Our meeting was well attended, although the weather was very snowy and stormy. But the best of all, the Lord was with us in our meeting, and the out-

76 Document F1-643, ama Archives. 77 For demographic issues in Canadian black history see articles by both Wayne, “The Black Population,” and Curtis, “On the Local Construction,” and the latter’s monograph Politics of Population. 78 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-644.

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pouring of his spirit was felt among his people. On last Lord’s Day it was very stormy, yet we had a good turnout, and while I tried to preach from the 21 of Jude: “Keep yourselves in the love of God,”79 the Lord owned his blessed word, and our meeting was one of deep interest, for the burning influence of his spirit was felt in our hearts. We have good sleighing now, and the people were busy getting wood and lumber. Everything is cheap in London. Our people get something to a long winter rest. Pardon me for my mistake. I said “powder to make money,” but it [is] “power.” My wife corrected me, instead powder, it was power.80 My prayer is to God for you that you may live long to do good. Yours truly. I had to send the draft as the Bank collects it for me. They seem to be a little doubtful of the States on the account of the war.81

15 February 186282 These lines when they come to hand they will inform you that I and family are well, hoping that these lines may find you and yours the same. The quarter now ended the 14th was one of much pleasure with me. I have felt much of the power and goodness of God to my soul while labouring in his cause. I have preached thirty-two times this quarter and attended prayer meetings eight times, visited the sick. There is a good deal of sickness in Ingersoll. I have taken in one by letter this quarter, and turned out two for living together in a state of adultery. There was a little child died at Ingersoll week before last. She told mother that she might give her playthings to her other sister for she was going home to heaven. Her aunt asked her if she was afeared to die. Her reply was no, for she was going home to Jesus. She died in the Lord. She was about eight years of age. We have had two deaths in London, but not in our church.

79 The Letter of Jude appears in the New Testament before Revelations. The whole verse reads: “Keep yourselves in the love of God; look forward to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.” 80 Chambers confuses powder and power in letter F1-639. 81 See note to letter of 20 September 1862 (F1-670) on issues faced by Chambers in redeeming his US drafts during the Civil War. 82 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-647.

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The coloured voters for 1861 in Essex Co. 900, in Kent Co. 600, in Lambton Co. 200, in London 100. There is great preparation making for war in Canada. They will soon have five hundred soldiers in London. I hope there will be no war in Canada. I had to pay $1.00 to get the draft collected, but I got it in good time. I intend by God’s grace to be faithful to the missionary cause. I do not feel too weary in well doing for in due season I shall reap if I faint not.83 Pray for me for you shall always have a place in my prayers. I would be happy to see you again. When will you be in Canada? Please write soon to me some kind word. I remain yours in the missionary cause. Yours truly.

14 March 186284 These lines will inform you that I and family are well and hope that these lines may find you and yours the same. It is very sickly at this time among the young children. The growing persons keep in good health, excepting colds. Well, we have got through another winter by the blessing of God. I have laboured with much pleasure this winter, although it had been through beating winds and rain and drifting snow. I live five miles from the church in London. This distance I walk it often times. It sometimes is very burdensome. But bless God, I do feel that he pays me. I hope not to rust out but to wear out in the service of the Lord.85 There is much to do in Canada for our people. Dear Brother, I do want to see you. When will you be in Canada? Do let me know. Please remit soon the last quarter pay of $25. Yours in good faith, truly.

2 April 186286 I am happy to inform you that I and my family are well. We had have been the most of us sick, but thank God we are at this time

83 His words here draw on Galatians 6:9. 84 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-649. 85 This was a favourite sentiment of the English Evangelical Rev. George Whitefield (1714–1770), an early proponent of Methodism and a leading figure in what was known as “the Great Awakening” in the United States. A transatlantic preacher of the gospel, he was greatly admired by Chambers. 86 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-651.

Figure 4.2 | Chambers to Whipple, 14 March 1862, London: “I have laboured with much pleasure this winter all though it has been through beating winds and drifting snow.”

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well. It has been a very sick time both here and in Ingersoll among the children. The people have suffered much this winter [from] colds and the sore throat. Two men fell dead in their houses. One was a white man, the other was a colored man. The white man got up well in the morning, and while washing himself he fell dead. He was a very nice man. He leaves a wife and three children, but he was wellto-do. The colored man was a hard-working sober man, labouring to pay for a home. He came into his house from work and fell dead. He leaves a wife and five children. The man at Ingersoll that I baptized last summer who has been in a decline for two years is now able to attend to his work. He praises God for his goodness. The good work is going on in Canada. The Lord is pouring out his spirit among us. At St Catharines and Chatham there is at both of these stations a great revival. They have sent for me to come to Chatham for to help them. Well, dear Brother, I do feel much encouraged to labour in God’s vineyard. Will you please to inform me what do they do with the black man when the north takes a fort, and has the bill passed for the freedom of the D[istrict] of Columbia?87 I want to hear your opinion about our liberty. I would be glad to see you. Do come out to Canada this summer. Let me know about your coming out. Well, our sleighing is just done. The snow is passing away very fast, and the roads will soon be bad. Please send the draft for the 25 dollars by the 10th or 15th of this month, if you please. No more, but remain your fellow labourer in the Lord. Yours truly.

9 April 186288 These lines leave me and mine well. I hope that they may find you and yours the same. Last Saturday and Sunday and Monday, Tuesday I have been labouring in a protracted meeting at Chatham. On a Monday night in our experience meeting the Lord’s spirit was

87 Slaves freed during the advance of Union armies did not always fare well. Some were housed near army bases in “contraband camps,” where conditions were difficult. The bill to end slavery in the District of Columbia was signed by President Lincoln on 16 April 1862, shortly after Chambers’s letter would have reached Whipple in New York. Chambers’s questions show that he was reading local newspapers and closely following events in the United States. 88 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-653.

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felt powerfully among his people. On a Tuesday night I administered the Lord’s Supper to a large number. It was a time of deep interest. We added nineteen to the church on a profession of faith, and three more who are seeking an interest in the blood of Christ. This is Brother W.H. Jones charge.89 The Baptists have a good time. God is pouring out his spirit among them. They have called twenty-five to their church in Chatham, likewise in Windsor in Brother Disney’s charge.90 God is carrying on his good work. He has added twenty-five to his church. Likewise in St Catharines the glorious work is going on. Brother Hawkins has added to his church sixty members.91 So you can see that our missionary work is going on by the blessing of God. Our concert prayer meeting is well attended, but I am [sorry] to learn that it is keep up in none of our churches, but in my charge. It is pretty hard times in the neighbourhood of Chatham for feed for the stock. A good many cattle and horses dying. At Dresden they have put a great deal of wood on the banks of the river this winter. Well, what [do] you think, Brother Whipple? Mr J.C. Brown, his the Dawn Institute and is on it.92 I learned that Miss Mary A.

89 Rev. William H. Jones (1818–1873) served the amec in Chatham, Canada West, and wrote about church activities in the Christian Recorder. After its Canada Conference separated from the amec in 1856, Jones was instrumental in recommending a governance structure for the new bmec . He was at the fore in raising funds for building churches, first in Chatham (1859) and then in Amherstburg. 90 Following the death of Willis Nazrey in 1875, Richard Randolph Disney (1830–1891) was elected the second bishop of the bmec . For an account of Disney’s life, see J. William Lamb’s article in the dcb , revised 1990, http:// www.biographi.ca/en/bio/disney_richard_randolph_12E.html. 91 Walter Hawkins (1809–1894) was born into slavery in Maryland. After escaping to Pennsylvania, he gradually made his way to Toronto, where he preached to the Black population, was ordained in the bmec , and served in many parts of Canada West. He led the successful opposition to Bishop Disney’s attempt to reunite the bmec with the amec in 1882. (That same year he was pastor of Beth Emanuel Church in London.) At the following bmec conference he was unanimously elected as the third bishop of the bmec. Robinson and Robinson, Seek the Truth, 25–9. 92 That is to say, he was a trustee of the bai . James Charles Brown (1796–?)

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Cary formerly Mary A. Shadd is out raising money for a church for the poor.93 If she is, it is wrong. Look out for her. Another man by the name of Stafford both from Chatham.94 In the Township of Chatham there is two Methodist churches and two Baptist churches: too many already.95 I feel it to be my duty to inform the truth. Please send the twenty-five dollars soon by the 10th or 15th. It is wanting at this time, and I will look for and answer soon. Yours truly.

was born a slave in Virginia. Having purchased his freedom through his earnings as a brick mason, he moved to Cincinnati, where he became active in the society that organized the Wilberforce settlement in Biddulph Township, Upper Canada, to which he relocated. Brown next lived in Toronto before moving again, first to the Dawn settlement and then to Chatham (Robinson and Robinson, Seek the Truth, 17–18). See Landon’s “The History of the Wilberforce Refugee Colony in Middlesex County,” in oach , 75–94; and Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, vol. 2, 73–4. 93 Mary Shadd Cary (1823–1893) was an influential writer, teacher, and journalist in both Canada West and the United States. Sponsored by the ama , she briefly taught school in Windsor. With other family members, she started the newspaper Provincial Freeman in Chatham. As Chambers’s cautionary words indicate, she had doubters as well as loyal supporters. For a succinct account of her eventful life see the dcb entry by Jason H. Silverman, revised 1990, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/shadd_mary_ann_camberton_12E.html. 94 Henry Stafford was a Baptist minister based in Chatham. He was a director of the Canada Colored Baptist Missionary Society at its establishment ca. 1850. 95 Part of Chambers’s claim of not being a party man was his preference for fewer churches. He was loyal to the bmec and appreciated colleagues of other denominations but was critical of congregations unable to meet their financial obligations, while engaging in petty theological squabbles. The Gazetteer (Kent) for 1864 listed Chatham as having two coloured Baptist churches, the bme church, the African Union Methodist church (coloured), and one church each for Primitive Methodists, Episcopal Methodists, and Wesleyan Methodists, as well as churches for Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, and members of the Church of England. Chambers’s comment “Too many already” reflected this reality and was no exaggeration.

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21 April 186296 I am happy to inform you that I and mine are well. I hope that this may find you and yours the same. The weather is very wet and the season backward. Some on the high lands have commenced plowing and sowing seed. Times have been good for our people for cutting wood at 50 cts per cord. Well, I see that the bill has passed the house for the emancipation of the dc . That is good. Thank God for that much of the abolition of slavery. But I do not love the act to colonize them.97 I my [prayer] shall be to the blessed Lord to make such provision for them as he sees best. You, dear Brother Whipple, have been labouring long with others for this great work. God has answered your prayers. May the God of all grace still bless you and preserve your life that you with many others may see the works of God a-prospering in your hands. O, I do wish that I could express my feelings. And Brother Tappan and Jocelyn,98 may your names live long in the history of liberty. I have just got home from Ingersoll. We had a large turnout all day yesterday, and the best of all, the Lord was in our meeting. Dear Brother, I am in much need of the last quarter pay 25 dollars. Please send it as soon as you get this if you can. Yours in the bounty of love, truly. Please write soon.

2 May 186299 Yours came safe to hand on the first inst. with a draft for twenty-five dollars, for which I return you my thanks for. But I am sorry to learn that you sent a draft. I have just seen about it, but can learn nothing of it. After this you will please register the next letter you [send] with a draft in it. The postmaster at London says that all of my letters ought to be registered. You have my prayers, yours truly.

96 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-654. 97 The District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act was signed by President Lincoln on 16 April 1862. It freed all slaves in the District of Columbia, compensated slave owners for their losses up to $300, and offered up to $100 to each former slave who chose to migrate to another country. It was this incentive “to colonize them” to which Chambers objected. 98 ama treasurer Lewis Tappan and corresponding secretary (Home Missions) Simeon S. Jocelyn. 99 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-655.

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14 May 1862100 This being the second quarter now just closed. I have preached twice a day and attended Sabbath school every Lord’s Day and preached every Th[ursday] night. Our prayer meeting has been poorly attended this quarter. Our concert prayer meeting has been well attended. We have not had any revival this quarter, but everything is quiet and the peace of God is with us. On last Lord’s Day I preached twice to a large congregation at eleven and at six. I felt of a truth that God was in our midst for his Holy Spirit was felt powerfully. Many gave great attention. Our congregation has increased at Ingersoll since last quarter.

Mr Whipple Rev. Dear Sir: 101 These lines leave me and mine well. I hope that they find [you] the same and your family and the brethren with you in the office. Dear Brother Whipple, you have been a long time praying and labouring through many sorrows and difficulties, but bless God, your prayers is heard it for our cause that you have laboured. When I think of your labour and Mr Tappan and Jocelyn, I cannot help but say, “O Lord, send forth more such men in the anti-slavery cause.” It pains my heart when I think how little we have done ourselves for the cause of liberty. I will not flatter you for I know if you had not aided me as [a] missionary I could not to of done the same amount of good. The means that I have received through your hands and your advice has been a blessing to me. My earnest prayer is that God may by his grace spare you to do good. O what poor creatures we are, bruised by slavery. But thank God there is a better day a coming. I must stop. Please register the next letter you send with a draft. Write soon as you can. Yours in the missionary cause for ever, until death us do part. Truly.

100 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-656. 101 Chambers’s letter begins with his quarterly report and, after a new salutation to Whipple, continues with words of gratitude to his patron.

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25 June 1862102 These lines when they come to hand will inform you that I and mine are well. I hope that they may find all of you brethren in the same state of health. The good work is still going on. Our annual conference met on the 17th. Our session was one of great peace. We had no trouble. The brothers seemed to all be in good health and good spirits. On last Lord’s Day we had the Mechanics Institute.103 It was announced that Bishop Nazrey would preach the ordination sermon at half past ten, and before the hour the hall was filled. Before he was through, the hall [was] densely crowded by both colors. At three o’clock the same, and at half past six. And a Monday night and Tuesday night the hall was full. We taken up a collection to aid some of the brothers to their stations. We number at this time 19 missionaries this year. And the best of all, the Lord is with us. I can determine by God to spend and be spent in God’s work. Today I buried an old woman one hundred and five years old. Within two years we have buried three old women, one a one hundred and fifteen, another one hundred and five, another one hundred. The one I buried today said that she has been trying [to] live a Christian [life] for a long time, but now she is going home to her Saviour. She told her son and daughter to meet her in heaven. She died a happy death. Dear Brother, you have my heart and hand. Please remit soon as you can a draft for 25$. Yours in Christ, truly.

102 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-657. 103 The bmec annual conference met in London, 17–23 June 1862. The Mechanics’ Institute was then on the west side of Talbot Street. It had a lending library and was used for lectures, concerts, and meetings and often as a worship space for congregations awaiting the construction of a new church. Conference secretary Benjamin Steward wrote that the London gathering had been one of “the best meetings of the kind we have attended” and that the “discourses delivered … disabused the minds of the people of London with regard to the ability of the coloured men to preach”; the meeting would “not soon be forgotten in that city” (bmec minutes, 1862, 12). The London Free Press made no mention of this conference, but, revealingly, in the same period covered conferences of the Methodist Episcopal, Wesleyan Methodist, and New Connexion churches and the Synod of the Diocese of Huron (Church of England).

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4 July 1862104 These lines leave me and my family well. I hope that they may find you enjoying the blessings of God. I have been looking for a letter from you for some days. The cause for asking you to register your next letter when I informed the postmaster, he stated to me that I ought to register. We have a very dry summer, and frost every month. Our meeting is still going on with much interest, and the best of all, the Lord is with us. I know that while we have peace that you have war and rumour of war.105 But I will pray for you my dear Brother, that God may of his great mercy bless and keep and strengthen your hands with the rest of the brethren. I feel under all of [the] disadvantages that I have to labour under that God helps me. Although to whom I labour for are poor, yet all the souls is precious in sight of God, and our blessed Saviour is doing a great work for us.106 I am glad to inform you that our missionary work in Canada is going ahead, and if we had means to carry on the work, God knows what amount of good that we could do. May the God of all grace bless you. Please remit the 12. Yours truly.

21 July 1862107 I pen you a few lines which afford me much pleasure to let you know that the Lord is still carrying on his good work. On last Thursday the 17th, I was sent for to go to St Thomas to preach to my brethren who had come to Canada so I sent an appointment and on the above date I went and at 15 minutes past eight o’clock we met in Mr. Steward’s house,108 and [I] preached from the first chapter of

104 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-658. 105 His words here echo Matthew 24:6. 106 That all are “precious in the sight of God” comes from Psalm 116. 107 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-660. 108 The 1861 census for St Thomas lists Bezaleel Stewart, a barber, born in the United States, Baptist in religion, and fifty-two years old. O.L. Fuller’s Counties of Elgin (1865 and 1866) lists him as operating a hairdressing establishment on Talbot Street in St Thomas. An accompanying advertisement offered “shaving, hair dyeing, shampooing, &c., done in the most approved style, at the lowest price. Please call” (31). If this is the same man who hosted

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Matthew and the last part of the 21 verse,109 and I do not know when I ever felt more of the power and goodness of God. For there was “good feeling” in the house. There was twelve that joined. Some said that they had been praying to God for some time to send some preacher. That way the condition of the black man is not good in Canada as some would think. If our people go to the white church they cannot enjoy themselves. You know the feeling is not good. So, this the great cause that so few of our people go to white churches. We are poor unfortunate class of people, but I am thankful that God has opened a way for us so that our people have the Gospel preached by men of our own.110 I bless God that you have been able to aid us in this great work. May the God of all grace bless and preserve you still to do good, and you shall have your reward in a better world where you and I shall meet again. When I think that it was through you and your kindness that I have been able to preach every Lord’s Day and in the week I cannot forget you. I am longing to see you more. On next Lord’s Day I will be in Dresden. They are trying to build a new church and have sent for me to help them on that day.111 Our people are making ready for the first of August. My support is poor. I don’t get much and I want to send my children to school, but I cannot go for want of means. But I know that the war has made things bad so far as money. But if [you] can, please send me a draft as soon as possible. Dear Brother, write to me for I do want to hear from you. No more, but remain yours truly.

Chambers’s visits, the worship in St Thomas would be yet another example of ecumenical spirit in Chambers’s ministry. 109 Matthew 1:21 reads: “She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 110 This is the first reference to Chambers’s belief that Blacks preferred pastors of their own complexion. 111 It was reported to the 1861 bmec conference that “the Society in Dresden have secured a fine lot, and have made arrangements to build” (bmec minutes, 1861, 10). Once built, the new chapel in Dresden was valued at $1,000 (bmec minutes, 1863, 12).

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7 August 1862112 These pen lines leave me and mine well. I hope that they may find you the same. Dear Brother, I am glad to inform you that I have been to Dresden and found the colored people doing well. Not much money but a fine crop of fall wheat. It does my heart good to find men who once were slaves but now free taking care of themselves. There is one more thing that made my heart rejoice, to see two persons that I gave Bibles to three years ago both of them now can read their Bibles well. I preached at Dresden on the 27th. There were two hundred and fifty persons out to hear me and it was a time of uprising from the power of the presence of God. I think on the whole, that our people are doing well for the chances that they have had owing [to] coming [to] Canada poor. But the Lord is doing well for the poor slave. Dear Brother Whipple: I have been looking for a letter from you for some time. I do not know when I have wanted money worse since I have been in London. I want to send my children to school, but for want of means to get them ready they cannot go. Thank God we all get a plenty to eat and pay rent, but clothing is much wanting in my family at this time, and my children cannot go to school. Dear Brother, if you can send me some money please do it in a day or two. Yours truly in the faith of our Lord. In haste.

14 August 1862113 The quarter just ceased has been one of great peace. On last Sabbath at St Thomas we had in the morning a nice little company of our people out at a 11 o’clock, and at six in the afternoon we had a large number out and a good many who had not been to church for some for years. God opened the way for us and we got the grammar schoolhouse to worship God in. They all paid good attention to discourse. The Lord was with us. Since I was there last, one has found the Lord precious to her soul. I do feel that God is with us and is blessing my labours. I have added to the church of God this quarter fourteen members, eight on a profession of faith and four on a desire to be free from the wrath

112 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-664. 113 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-665.

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which is to come,114 and one of them has found the Lord. I am sorry to say that many of our colored people do not go to church among the whites because they say that they are made light of. I must say that the prejudice is great in Canada against the black man. Church and school are opposed to him. And if it was not for God, what would we do? But bless God, he is a-helping us, although there is a power that works against us. But God is for us. Bless his name. Brother, pray for me and my people. I believe that you are doing all you can for us. Please send me a draft for I am in great need. My children have been kept out of school for clothing. My pay from these two stations amounts to $1.00 per week these two quarters. I do not want for provisions for they are cheap. Please do what you can. This is the third quarter and one is paid for. I have got pay for one. Dear Brother Whipple, do let me hear from you as soon as you get this. Good morning until we meet again if not in this world in the next where I am in. My prayer to God is that your days may be many and the day you have been looking for you may see at the [day] of freedom. Write soon. Yours truly in Christ. I have just received your very kind letter and am happy to hear from you. You are now at Fort Munroe115 looking after our people and you say that their trouble is great. I believe it and it does my heart good to find that you are seeing after our people. May God bless you and yours. My annual report will not be done until November 14th.

5 September 1862116 These lines will inform you that I and mine are well. I hope that they may find you enjoying the blessings of God. Dear Brother, I been to Dresden on the 27th to a convention to elect trustees for the Dawn

114 Another reference to Matthew 3:7 and Luke 3:7. 115 Fort Monroe guarded Chesapeake Bay. Although in Virginia, it was controlled by Union forces during the Civil War and sheltered former slaves, known as contrabands, in a camp built by the Union Army. The ama sent teachers to the children of those freed men and women. ama secretaries Whipple and Simeon S. Jocelyn visited the camp in the summer of 1862 and reported their findings in the July 1862 issue of the American Missionary, 147. 116 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-667.

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Institute.117 So, we put in 12 trustees. When I write again I will send you their names. On last Lord’s Day at Dresden I held their quarterly meeting and it was a glorious time. God was with us in our meeting. I administered the Lord’s Supper to about seventy persons. I am the Elder for them to hold the quarter meeting every three months, four times in the year. They pay my expenses there and back to London; 1.50 that is the fare each way. Dear Brother, I have been looking for a letter from you every day. There is two quarters due – $50. I know you have hard times to get money. Do please send me a draft as soon as you get this. I do not love to bother you so much about money. Do not fail to send me the draft soon as you can. You have my prayers. Yours truly.

5 September 1862118 I promised to send you the names of the trustees for the Dawn Institute. J.C. Brown he remains119 John Myres of Dresden the same120

117 The role of the Dawn Institute was in dispute at this juncture. Some (mainly local Blacks) who were suspicious of its manager, John Scoble, lobbied for local control of the Dawn lands and urged that resources be applied toward the original goal of training Black migrants from the United States. Others wanted close connections maintained with the various abolitionist organizations that had supported the institute. In his letters Chambers does not explain his own position. For details of the controversy see Winks, Blacks in Canada, 195–204, and Donald G. Simpson, Under the North Star, 340–5. 118 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-668. This is an undated addendum to F1-667. 119 See note to letter F1-653. James C. Brown’s testimony of his life as a slave and then as a freedman in Canada was recorded by Drew in North-Side View of Slavery, 239–48. Brown was living in Chatham at the time he gave this testimony. 120 John Myers was recorded in the 1861 census as a farmer, born in the United States, Baptist, and living with his family in a log house. His farm on Lot 1, Concession 3, Camden and Gore Township, adjoined that of Josiah Henson. (I am grateful to Marie Carter for this important local information.)

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Mr. Holden of Chatham121 Mr Dinney of Chatham122 Mr Berry of London123 Mr Dotter of Buxton Mr Mossell of Hamilton124 Mr Ellat of Dresden Mr Brown of Windsor125 Mr Chanely of Bear Creek, Township of Chatham126 What will be done by them I cannot tell. There is two others, I forget their names. May the God of all grace be with you in your labours and the rest of the brethren. Yours truly.

121 Isaac Holden hosted John Brown in Chatham when the American abolitionist leader was recruiting for his planned insurrection at Harper’s Ferry. The 1865 County of Kent Directory lists Holden as a carpenter; in the 1871 census for Chatham he is recorded as a grain dealer. 122 I could not identify all individuals listed here, possibly because of misspellings by Chambers. Mr Dinney of Chatham was perhaps Rev. Richard Disney, who succeeded Willis Nazrey as bishop of the bmec . I have been unable to determine if he was living in Chatham at that time. By Mr Ellat of Dresden he might have meant a Mr Elliot. 123 Richard Berry was an innkeeper in Westminster Township, across the river from London. He was recorded in the 1861 census as born in the United States, Methodist, thirty-nine years of age, and a Mulatto. 124 This may have been Aaron Mossell or Masselle of Barton Township, “on the mountain” above Hamilton, where many Blacks settled. A brickmaker with a large family, he later returned to the United States and became a successful businessman in Lockport, New York. 125 This may have been Rev. Samuel H. Brown, assistant to Bishop Nazrey. As “oldest Elder connected with the Church,” he chaired the 1856 meeting at which the bmec had been established (amec , Canada District, Minutes of the Annual Conference, 1856, 3). 126 The 1861 census of the Township of Chatham has no resident with the surname Chanely.

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13 September 1862127 It is with much pleasure in writing you these few lines to inform you that I am in much need of money, and if you can send me the 50 dollars due, my dear Brother, by next Wednesday 17th. You must write soon as you get this. Yours truly. This is done in haste for my need is such.

20 September 1862128 It is with much joy that I now inform you of the receipt of your very kind letter. It come just in good time but I had to give over eight dollars to have it cashed. No person would do it for less. So, this makes $9.75 that I have lost on two drafts. 17 per cent they all charge.129 I think it all may be for the better. The cause for why I did not send my annual report: my year is not up until the 14 of November. But I will send it you now up to this time. God has blessed my labour since 17 of June. I have made [a] station at Saint Thomas. First there was twelve joined. On last Lord’s Day I held a quarterly meeting in the hall of the Sons of Temperance. In the morning at eight we had a love feast, and while we spoke our experience the burning influence of God’s spirit was felt in our hearts. I preached at eleven to good congregation, and at three administered the Lord’s Supper to about seventeen persons and administered Baptism to twelve children and received in the church seven more members, making at St Thomas nineteen members. I have had for support this quarter twelve dollars. The full amount they have paid me these four months is about thirty-five dollars. I have had a hard time to get money. I have paid my own house rent. On the 14th of November I will inform you of the money

127 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-669. 128 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-670. 129 By this time in the Civil War, American currency – but not Canadian − had slipped off the gold standard. In consequence, the value of American money had depreciated relative to its Canadian counterpart, which explains why Chambers was unable to redeem his drafts from the ama at par. See James Powell, “The Canadian Dollar under the Gold Standard (1854–1914),” in A History of the Canadian Dollar (Bank of Canada, 2005), https://www. bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/1854-1914.pdf.

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that I have got this year. Brother, pray for me for I shall ever pray for you all. Yours in cause of Christ. You will bear in mind that my year is not up until the 14 of November.

20 September 1862, addendum130 Name of the Church

British M.E. Church a station at

Name of the town where the Church is

London Canada West St Thomas 17 miles from London

Number of members: recd. into the Church:

London 11 St Thomas 14

Number of members cut off:

London 5

Whole number of members in good standing: London 71, St Thomas 19, total: 90 Number of scholars in the Sabbath school: London scholars 59

31 October 1862131 It is with much pleasure that I now pen you a few lines, which I ought to have done before this time. Pardon my long delay. I am happy to learn that the cause of freedom is doing so well, that God has heard the prayers of his people. I know that your longing heart has been made to rejoice in the goodness of God for his kindness in hearing our prayer and aiding the cause of liberty. For you, with others, have longed to see the day, O happy, happy day, to the friends of the cause of freedom.132 O how I would love to see you and the brothers and friends of my poor brethren. If I were able, I would be in New York

130 This is the interim report, F1-671, that Chambers promised Whipple in his letter of 20 September in lieu of his annual report, due in November. 131 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-675. 132 On 22 September 1862, President Lincoln had issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which announced that all slaves in the states at war with the Union would be free on 1 January 1863 if fighting had not ended by that date.

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to see you, if I could stay but one day. Brother Whipple, you have my prayers every day. In God’s name, I wish you a long life. I know that you have done my people good, and I shall never forget such a dear friend. I believe that all things are working according to the providence of a good and all wise God. On last Lord’s Day I rode 22 miles to St Thomas. It was cold and dreary. There were not many out. Our numbers was small. But God owned his word and was with us. I came back to London again, and at six in the evening the Rev. T. Kenard preached for me to a good number,133 and God’s spirit was felt powerfully in our hearts. All is peace and quiet in my charge. I have been in Canada seven years today,134 and I have preached every Sunday except five. Three of them I was sick and the others were stormy, and I owe a great part of my success to you, my dear Brother. I am with you in the cause of Christ. My love to the brethren. Yours truly. Write soon.

18 November 1862135 These lines leave me better. I have been poorly. I hope that they may find you all enjoying good health. The quarter now ending on the 14th has been one of much labour, both of God’s and mine. I have spared no pains to do all good that [I] could in God’s name, and for his cause. I have had to labour much with mine own hands this year owing to my small support.136 There has one family left London this quarter. They moved to Windsor, four of my members. There is some four or five members who do not attend very regular, but the church in London is getting on pretty well. On last Lord’s Day we had a good meeting. God’s spirit was felt in the hearts of his people. On the 2nd we had two families come from London, England to pay us a visit at our church, and they were much pleased. My station at Saint Thomas is prospering. I have taking in nine members this quarter.

133 The aforementioned Thomas W. Kinnard; see chapter 3. 134 The documentary record shows that Chambers had then been in Canada West for eight years, not seven. 135 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-678. 136 Chambers is referring to his offer – accepted by the ama – to reduce his yearly stipend to $100. Because of the reduced payment he must have had to spend more time at farm work.

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We had a large attendance at our last concert prayer meeting. There was more love manifested for our brethren in bonds and the friends of freedom than I have seen since I have been in Canada. I am sorry to say that in my church is the only place where the concert prayer meeting is kept on. We have a great deal of sickness among the children at this time, and a great many deaths. They were dying very fast with the measles. On the 7th I was at Hamilton to help to dedicate a new church.137 We had a large number of our people together. We had a white brother to preach at 3. He is an able speaker. The collection amounted 545 cts. It is a fine church. There is an effort being made now in London and Chatham to raise colored regiments. I do not know what the people in Canada mean for the most of them seem to be in favour of the South.138 There is something wrong. Please write soon and let me have a draft. Winter is coming. Dear Brother Whipple, you have my heart in the missionary work. I stated to you next year little pay or much that I would labour to preach Christ among my people. My mind is the same, never to stop until God says it is done, and calls me from labour to reward. In God’s name you and the friends of freedom shall have my prayers. I would be happy to see you again. Favour me with a letter next week. Yours truly.

137 The building, of brick construction, that Rev. Kinnard had promoted. At the 1863 annual conference he reported that “he had collected and paid on the Britannia Chapel, Rebecca St., Hamilton, $1500.” The sum was “exclusive of his salary and travelling expenses” and settled “all demand on the building except about $125” (bmec minutes, 1863, 5). 138 London had Southern sympathizers, especially after the Trent affair in 1861, and Southern residents, spies, and recruiters for the Confederate army were domiciled at the Tecumseh Hotel. But the successes of the Union army were celebrated in London, and Lincoln’s assassination was deeply mourned in the city. See Dan Brock’s “The Richmond Hotel,” in McEwen, Carty Chronicles, 79–85.

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[No date]139 Quarter ending Nov. 14. Quarterly report of Rev L.C. Chambers How many times have you preached this quarter

average of churches congretation

london 16

100

St Thomas 8

25

1

number of members in the church

number received this quarter

64

2

14

7

number of members gone

2

11 December 1862140 Yours came safe to hand with a draft for 25 dollars. I paid 30 cts to have it cashed. You will please pardon me for the long delay in writing to you. The day that I read your letter I was on my way to Dresden to hold a quarterly meeting and a John Brown meeting, and I did not get home for a week.141 Then my meeting in London as soon as I got home. By some means I lost your plan for making out my report. I am sorry that I lost it. I wish you would please send another one. I have preached in London station on the Lord’s Day sixteen times and in the week five times, and attended prayer meeting and class meeting five times;142 and Saint Thomas four Sabbaths, preached eight times; Dresden one time, on one Sabbath preached two times. I have attended Sabbath school seven times in London. Please remit to me your plan once more and I will try and fill it up. On last Lord’s Day, our quarterly meeting was held in London and it was a stormy day. There was not many out but we had in our love feast a warm

139 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-678B. 140 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-679. 141 Chambers never forgot Brown’s devotion to freeing the enslaved. It seems likely a John Brown meeting was intended to remember the great abolitionist’s efforts and to pray for his soul. Chambers continued such meetings after he returned to the United States. 142 Class meetings were an opportunity for Chambers to witness the progress of Sabbath school classes.

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time. God was with us. At three of the clock the Rev. Mr Hoidge,143 Congregational minister preached, and assisted me in administering the Lord’s Supper. Our meeting was very solemn indeed. The Holy Spirit was felt powerfully in our hearts. At night, I tried to preach from the 7 of Matthew 24 to 27,144 after which I had to dismiss six from the church. In the number was a young woman about sixteen year of age. I was about to read her out for immoral conduct. She got up before the whole church, and with tears in her eyes and begged pardon and prayed the church to take her back again. It was a solemn time. And also, a man who had been an old sot came forward and joined the church. Dear Brother, by the help of God I am doing the best I can. I feel a love to work for God. Yours truly. Just as I was about giving all hope of finding your letter I came across it. I am glad you will see where I list Saint Thomas.

22 January 1863145 These few lines when they come to hand they will inform you that I and mine are well, hoping that they may find you the same. I wish you a Happy New Year and a long life. May God grant that you still may see better days open, and other friends have been made to rejoice in the wondrous works of God in the freedom of many. I know your labour, faith, patience with the rest of my fellows labouring for freedom.

143 Joseph Hoidge, an Englishman, though called a Congregationalist here, was the minister at the Bible Christian church located on the north side of Horton Street between Wellington and Waterloo streets. The Bible Christians, a fervent offshoot of Methodism originating in the west country of England, had sent missionaries into rural Canada West. In 1884 they joined with other Methodist sects in a union that made the resultant church the largest Protestant denomination in Canada. 144 Matthew 7:24–7: “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the wind blew and beat on that house, but it did not fail, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell – and great was its fall!” 145 This letter, F1-691, is filed out of numerical order in the ama Archives.

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The first of January was a glad day. We had a good time and God was with us. At 1:00 we sang “Blow Ye the Trumpet, Blow.”146 It was a solemn time. On the 5th we commenced a protracted meeting, and it closed last night with a love feast. It was a meeting of great joy. God’s spirit was among us. We had three there that professed faith in God, seven more who are deeply convicted for sin. I have laboured hard for these two weeks. I never felt more of the life and power of God than I have felt since the New Year. My soul says go on. Well, since the President’s proclamation there is a very bad feeling in Canada against the poor negro.147 It seems in four men out of five are in favour of the South. They think if all the negroes gets free, that they will come to Canada. They won’t give our people much work to do. They never would give them much except cutting wood and making rails.148 But they get less than ever. As to servants in hotels and house servants, they will not employ our people. They will in some families employ our women to wash but not to cook. They are about [to] turn our children out of school and church. They do not want our children to go to school with theirs.149 We feel that Canada is not the place for the black man. There never was greater need of teachers and preachers among ourselves than there is at this time. But how we will succeed without aid, God only knows. I now send you some of these durty [sic] bills that the trustees of the school put up on the corners of streets. The trustees are all religious men, three of them belong to the Methodist Church and one is a steward and a trustee in the M. church.

146 An evangelical hymn written by Charles Wesley and published in 1750. It was given many musical settings, including “Jubilee” (ca. 1779) by Oliver Brownson, and “Lenox” (ca. 1782) by Lewis Edson. The hymn was sung at John Brown’s funeral and was a favourite of Black worshippers. In its February 1863 issue the American Missionary reported that “Blow ye the trumpet blow; the year of Jubilee is come” had been sung at a New Year’s Eve Emancipation Proclamation prayer meeting in Philadelphia (American Missionary, February 1863, 29). 147 Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation took effect on 1 January 1863. It freed enslaved people in the Confederate states. 148 Rails for stairs or fences, not trains. 149 At the urging of trustee Thomas Webb, the London Board of Education was again investigating establishment of a separate school for Black pupils. The ama Archives do not include a copy of the bill denounced by Chambers.

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I wish you would please have a note of this bill put in the Tribune.150 There is a good many that takes papers. I also send you spirit and song remade by me.151 And will you please send this on to Brother Mr Lloyd Garrison, one to the Tribune, one to the Pine and Palm.152 We will trust in God. He is for us and I know that he is more than all can be against us.153 I have still a greater desire to see you, but here is my heart and hand to never stop until God may say my work is done. Yours truly in love. Write soon.

14 February 1863154 This first quarter now ended has been one of much joy. I have laboured with more courage this quarter than I have done for the last fifteen years. I have felt more of the spirit of God to enable me to labour. The proclamation, and the thought of many getting free, and many hearts being made glad, those who have laboured for freedom. O Bless God! We have lived to see the day so long looked for. It makes my heart leap with joy to think that I can meet so many at a throne of grace. In our concert prayer meeting, our last concert prayer meeting was well attended, and it was a very interesting meeting. The Lord was with us in our prayer meeting. I have preached every Lord’s Day at eleven in the morning and at six in the evening during this quarter except three Sabbaths, and those three I preached once a day. I preached a Christmas Day, watch meeting New Year’s Eve. Since the New Year’s I have preached as

150 The New York Tribune was established by Horace Greeley in 1841 to be a strong advocate for political and social reform. It was staunchly abolitionist. 151 Not included in this archival collection. Chambers prized singing in worship and wrote several hymns in the course of his ministry. 152 William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879) was an American abolitionist and journalist. He published the Liberator, a popular anti-slavery newspaper, which dated from 1831 to December 1865. The Pine and Palm was a weekly newspaper focused largely on news about Haiti and immigration thereto. It had already ceased publication when Chambers wrote this letter. 153 Chambers is referring here to Romans 8:31: “If God is for us, who is against us?” 154 In the ama Archives, letter F1-681 is in date rather than numerical sequence.

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follows: St Thomas: [January] 4th prayer meetings; at London 5th do,155 6th do, 7th preached, 9th do, 11th do, 12th do, 13th do, 14th do, 15th do, 16th do; 18th prayer meetings, 19th do; 20th preached, 21st prayer meeting, 22nd preached, 23rd do; St Thomas: prayer meeting 28th. Feb 1st preached at London taking in five members do; 8th preached, then one more. I have added to the church in London this quarter nine, seven on a profession of faith in Christ, two who do appear to be deeply converted from sin. I have had for support from my people this quarter eighteen dollars. I have to find my wood and pay house rent. I thank God that he has helped me. If you can, please make my draft a little more, for when I get it cashed there is not much left. Could send gold. They will charge for the next draft 40 per cts, but I know that you will do the best you can.156 Did you get a letter from me about three weeks ago? Please let me know about it. Dear Brother Whipple, our annual conference is next June and I will be removed from London.157 There is many coloured persons sixteen miles from London at a place by the name of Biddulph.158 The people do not go to church at all, and if you think it best I will locate from the conference and attend to this neighbourhood. It is a

155 Chambers used the contraction do for ditto. 156 Forty per cent was a steep rate of exchange for Chambers. 157 It was the practice of Methodist churches to follow the itinerancy system, whereby pastors were regularly moved to new stations. The bmec usually moved its elders every three years, such changes being announced at the annual conference. If Chambers had written an earlier letter explaining his concern about remaining in the employ of the ama , it is not in this collection. 158 If the ama decided to support him as a missionary in Biddulph Township, Chambers would not have to move his family from London, though he would lose his appointment in the bmec . The word locate had a particular meaning in Methodism. When applied to a minister it meant “that by vote of his Annual Conference he ceased to perform ministerial functions in the travelling connection. His location may be by volition on his part, sanctioned by the Conference, or by compulsion on the part of the Conference” (Anderson, Methodist Dictionary, 58). An example in the 1860 bmec minutes (3–4) concerns Rev. Richard Warren. He did not attend the conference but submitted an explanatory letter. On request, he was “located” and “made subject to the quarterly conference of the Windsor station.”

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pity for these people to be without a church. My next quarter will end on the 14th of May next, and our conference sits in June 1863. You will please inform me what you think is best for me to do so that I can get ready, either to locate or to still continue with your Board of Missions. I do not want to leave the American Missionary Society. God knows that my heart is with you all as I am the only black man in Canada aided by you. Let me not rust out but wear out in the service of God.159 I know well that since I have been employed by the Society that I have by the grace of [God] done a great deal of good. You will please write soon as you get this. Let me know if you got the letter three weeks ago. I remain yours truly.

17 March 1863160 Yours of the 11th came safe to hand and was received with much pleasure with a draft for fifty dollars for which I return my thanks for. On last Lord’s Day two weeks was our quarterly meeting. Although the day was stormy we had a large turnout. I do think it was the best meeting of the kind that I have been in. The Lord was with us. Two more men joined our society. God is still carrying on his good work. On last Lord’s Day week, one joined at St Thomas. Dear Brother, you will please answer my request about my labours after the first of June. Our conference sits on the first June and I must meet to render up my account, I will be in London station three years and six months. The conference will remove me this next conference from London. I have been labouring by the aid of Missionary four years and six months the 14th of May next. Now I want your advice to know what I had best do. There is a plenty of labour to be done in this part of the Canadas. I do not want to leave the Missionary Society. It may be best for me to locate, but my mind is made up to preach Christ if I have to do Gospel work with mine own hands. For Lo, these nineteen years161 I have been preaching every Lord’s Day or labouring in Sabbath schools, and God being my helper, I will spend and be spent in his cause. Let my days be many or few, God shall

159 See note to letter F1-649. 160 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-682. 161 By this reckoning, Chambers must have begun teaching in Sabbath schools in 1844, the year he bought his freedom.

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have them. You I love, and you shall never be forgotten. By your kind hand I have been able to labour for the good of my poor race. I thank God that I have tried to walk upright before the world, and if I should get no more aid from you after the next quarter, which will be on the 14th of May, here is my heart and hand to meet you when our work is done at the hand of God. You will please answer this as I have but two months and about fifteen days to get ready for the conference. Yours truly.

14 May 1863162 These lines will inform you that I and mine are well at this time and hope that these may find you and yours the same, enjoying the blessings of God. The quarter just closed has been one of much pleasure to me for I have released much of the life and power of God to my soul. I have preached and attended prayer meetings and Sabbath school, preached every Lord’s Day twice, experience meeting every Wednesday evening. Our concert prayer meeting has been well attended. I have taken in two members by letter. A white sister from Arcade, Wyoming Co[unty], New York, she brings a letter from Mr John Dodd, pastor of the Congregational Church. She is engaged in teaching the settled women of colour. I think that she will do much good. Her name is Harriet Arnot. She brings also a letter from Mr Shepard who says that she is a sincere friend of the fugitive, and the free.163 Dear Brother, my time is short. On the 22 of June our annual conference sits in the city of Hamilton, c.w. , at which time my labours will cease in the m.e. Church. I will be here three years eight months when the conference sits, which is the longest term of any preacher in London amongst us. When I leave I can do it with peace. I am at peace with God and all mankind. When I came to this place, there was six members, now there is a one hundred and two. Many who did not come to church have been coming since I have

162 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-683. 163 Rev. John Dodds was another Oberlin College graduate, and pastor of the Congregational church in Arcade, Wyoming County, New York. He died in 1864. I have not been able to identify either Harriet Arnot or Mr Shepard, but the fact that Chambers was approached to help her is indicative of his standing in the wider missionary world.

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been here. Now I am to be removed and I do not want to leave the Missionary Society. There is very many Blacks who do not go to white churches. Sixteen miles from London there are many of my people who do not go to church at all. Such is the bad feeling among the whites that our people will not go to church. I would locate and see after scattered sheep. My family is large and I do not want to be sent away from home. If you will still aid me, I [will] locate and spend and be spent in God’s cause. Now will you please write when you receive this and let me know what you think is the best for me. If you say continue it is “amen” with me, but if you say “stop” it will be sorrow. Please send the draft the same way that you sent the last one. Yours truly.

26 May 1863164 After the Queen’s birthday, which was the 24th, there was a vast number of persons in the city of London, and a very peaceful time. I am glad to say to you that the Separate School Act is dead. Dear Brother, I feel uneasy in mind. I know that according to the m.e. plan I will be removed this year. My family is so large that I do not feel able to leave home unless I could get supported. I could labour at places near London by locating, and if you think well of it, please write and let me know soon, for I do not want to stop working for God. There is enough to be done in Canada if you can allow me the same pay, one hundred per year, I preach every Lord’s Day and at other meetings. I love the Missionary cause, and I wish that I was capable of doing my duties as a minister of the Gospel, but I do feel that God has called me to the work. I hope and pray that the committee will not cut me off. If I should live to see next November the 14th, I will have been in the Missionary cause five years, and I want to die in the American Missionary Society. May the Lord bless the American Missionary Society. And if we must part this year, I hope the love may ever remain, and you shall hear from me. Dear Brother, write as soon as you get this. Yours forever in the work of God. Yours truly. Do not fail to write to me as soon as you get this. Please send a draft as same as you did last.

164 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-684.

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10 June 1863165 These lines leave me well. I hope that they may find you the [same]. Will you please answer my last letters for my time is short as I stated before that I labour for small pay and take a local part. Please answer by the return of the first mail, for I am now waiting. Please do the best for me that you can. Yours truly.

165

Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-685.

5

St Catharines and Hamilton, Canada West

s t c at h a r i nes There are but sixteen letters in the Chambers-to-Whipple archival file written from the town of St Catharines and the city of Hamilton. Fourteen were written from St Catharines (three of them by Ann Chambers) and two from Hamilton. Fewer letters tell a sparer story. Having been dropped by the American Missionary Association, Chambers no longer owed organizational statistics or annual reports. Nevertheless, he continued writing to its headquarters in New York, partly out of loyalty to Whipple (their emotional and spiritual bond was strong) and partly to secure small financial favours and keep alive the possibility of future employment. Given the nature of the correspondence, this chapter will read between the lines to describe the final years of the Chambers family in Canada. When Chambers attended the June 1863 annual conference of the bmec in Hamilton, he knew he was about to be transferred from London to minister to another community. Though no doubt disappointed to have failed in his efforts to remain in London under the auspices of the ama , he must have been gratified to be posted to St Catharines, a town about which he would have known much from conversations with fellow clergy and where he had attended bmec meetings.1

1 The record is silent on if or what Chambers heard from Whipple about his desire to remain in London, supported by the ama . On the second day of the bmec annual conference he “made application to be left without an appointment for one year,” and the decision was held over to the following day. In the

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St Catharines differed from London in many respects. Geographically, it was a busy port town located at one end of the Welland Canal, which ran from nearby Lake Ontario to Port Colborne on Lake Erie, thereby detouring the turbulent Niagara River and its famous falls. Historically, the settlement of St Catharines predated that of London by twenty-five to thirty years, thanks to the arrival of the first Loyalists (to Americans, the hated “Tories”) who fled the nascent United States, having found themselves on the losing side in the Revolutionary War between Great Britain and the Thirteen Colonies. Some of the Loyalists (known more grandly as the United Empire Loyalists) arrived with slaves, who gradually achieved freedom after Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe introduced legislation in 1793 to phase out slavery in the new province of Upper Canada; the province had been established in 1791 to accommodate the influx of Loyalists. Eventually, the entire Niagara Peninsula became a conduit to freedom for Blacks, and, as in London, there was a great increase in the number arriving after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850. Black settlers and transients were a familiar presence in Lincoln County and its county town of St Catharines. The 1861 published census provides numbers, not necessarily accurate, of “colored persons” among the populations of county and town. In that decadal count, Lincoln boasted a population of 27,625, and St Catharines 6,284, with Blacks in the county and town numbering 625 and 472 respectively (according to another source, more likely totals were 911 for Lincoln and 609 for St Catharines).2 There were multiple opportunities for employment and entrepreneurship in St Catharines. Maintenance of and shipping on the Welland Canal required many hands, as did two railways, the Welland and the Great Western. Canal and river both provided a source of waterpower for

event, his application was withdrawn or denied, and he was appointed elder to the church in St Catharines. While serving on the committee on missions, however, Chambers succeeded in having a Wilberforce Mission established to serve that place and St Thomas (bmec minutes, 1863, 4, 5). 2 Census of the Canadas: 1860–61, for total population, 62; for “colored persons,” 63. The more likely numbers, based on a study of the 1861 manuscript schedules, are given in Wayne, “Black Population,” appendix A, 73. For a discussion of issues in the enumeration of the Blacks in Canada West, see Wayne, “Black Population,” and Curtis, “On the Local Construction.”

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mills and industrial establishments and, by extension, employment for numerous labourers. The town also attracted tourists – it was a port, after all – and boasted comfortable hotels (not all of which welcomed Black workers). One of them, the Stephenson House, was built around an artesian well and compared its facilities to “fashionable German Spas” like those of “Wiesbaden and Kissengen.”3 Mitchell & Co.’s General Directory for the Town of St Catharines for 1864 listed heads of households alphabetically with address and occupation, using the designation “colored” as required. Of the 121 Blacks so noted, many were in menial and manual occupations; fifty-one were labourers. This was a period in which many men entered the world of work as labourers but who over the course of a lifetime were able, through the acquisition of skills, to move up the occupational ladder to, say, blacksmith and then mechanic. In this regard, the Blacks of St Catharines had a mixed experience. In Mitchell’s compendium some of their number were recorded in skilled occupations – barber, blacksmith, brick maker, cooper, fireman, mariner, mason, millwright, shoemaker, and omnibus driver (one) – and many others were listed as washerwoman, porter, yardman, waiter, and teamster. Such data lent credibility to the frequent complaints of Blacks that they were systematically kept out of skilled work and relegated to menial jobs. Rev. William Wells Brown, himself a former slave, stopped in St Catharines on his tour of Canada West in 1861 to gather material for the articles he would later publish in the Pine and Palm. He found pleasing evidence of hard work and diligence in the Blacks he met, including many who farmed nearby and marketed their goods in town. His survey of their occupations included a greater number of skilled jobs than were noted by Mitchell, whose directory (published in Toronto) may have been compiled by someone who did not have comprehensive first-hand knowledge of the local scene.4 Brown

3 Mitchell & Co.’s General Directory of the Town of St Catharines, 1864, 40–1 (advertisement). Kissengen here is the German Kissingen. 4 For example, John W. Lindsay was listed in the directory as a blacksmith. In fact, he owned much property and ran both a dry goods store and a beer company. For information about Lindsay and the geographic area of Black settlement in St Catharines, see Broyld, “‘Justice Was Refused Me,’” 34, 39, 40, 43.

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commented favourably on the neighbourhood where many Blacks lived; known locally as the “Colored Village” or “Black Town,” it was then on the outskirts of St Catharines and included streets such as North, Geneva, St Paul, and Welland (then called Concession). Black residents had built small, neat cottages, cultivated productive gardens on their land, and often raised fowl and pigs. Most properties were owned outright, and their owners were not in debt. Clearly, Brown’s impression was that the freedom seekers he met were doing very well in St Catharines.5 Brown was in town during Sabbath observances and took advantage of the occasion to visit its two Black churches, both located on Geneva Street in St George’s Ward. In the morning he attended the Zion Baptist church, where he heard Rev. Anthony Burns preach.6 A Black Baptist parish had been formed in St Catharines as early as 1838, and Zion dated from 1844. Burns (1834–1862) was Zion’s most notable pastor. A fugitive from slavery himself, he had been arrested in Boston in 1854 under the authority of the Fugitive Slave Act and, in the face of huge community protest, was returned to his owner in Virginia. Subsequently, his freedom was purchased by members of the Baptist church in Boston where he had worshipped. He then attended Oberlin College and was ordained, whereupon he moved to St Catharines in about 1860. (He died there on 27 July 1862 and was buried in the Victoria Lawn Cemetery, where a historical plaque honours his memory.) In the evening of the Sunday he spent in St Catharines, Brown preached at the nearby bme church. Known as the Salem Chapel, this structure had its own complex history. Its origins lay in the amec , whose adherents had started arriving in Upper Canada before that church established its Canada Conference in 1820. A society was organized at St Catharines in 1838 when there was already a population of forty in need of ministry; in the same year, Rev. Richard

5 Brown, “The Colored People of Canada,” in Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, vol. 2, 464–6. 6 For biographical information about Anthony Burns, see Landon, “Anthony Burns in Canada,” in oach , 284–91. See also “The Reverend Anthony Burns 1834–1862,” Ontario Heritage Trust online plaque guide, https://www.heritagetrust.on.ca/en/index.php/plaques/reverendanthony-burns-1834-1862 (accessed 30 April 2020).

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Williams of the New York Conference licensed two preachers to serve them. In 1840 the Canada Conference made St Catharines a circuit and appointed Alexander Helmsley to it: he was responsible for both the town and a number of small settlements nearby.7 In 1848 the trustees of the ame congregation in St Catharines acquired land from William Hamilton Merritt and Oliver Phelps,8 and in 1852 it was reported that the “Black Methodists” of the town had built “Bethel Church.” In July of that year the Canada Conference of the amec held its annual meeting in St Catharines, with Bishop Willis Nazrey presiding.9 The local congregation quickly outgrew its new quarters, as evidenced in a report two years later of the opening of a second church building, probably on the same site: “The members of the St Catharine’s Station have erected an edifice, which, for neatness and taste, is surpassed by few in that part of the country, and it is to be dedicated about the last of July. A very large choir is attached to this church also.”10 This new place of worship was eventually dedicated on 4 November 1855 and became known as the Salem Chapel. It stands to this day and was the church where Chambers served for three years.11 The proximity of the ame and Baptist churches on Geneva Street was indicative of camaraderie in the local Black community rather than sectarian rivalry. Chambers

7 Payne, History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, 119–20, 129. See Alexander Helmsley’s narrative in Drew, North-Side View of Slavery, 32–40. 8 Niagara Land Registry Office, land records for Lot 44, Block D on Geneva Street, plan 24, no. 751, 12 June 1848. 9 Voice of the Fugitive 2, no. 17 (12 August 1852): 1; Voice of the Fugitive 2, no. 18 (26 August 1852): 4. 10 W.H. Jones, Recorder 1, no. 16 (July 13, 1854): 62. In his Pine and Palm article, 466, William Wells Brown called it “a very commodious church.” In the year after the bmec had been created, a census of property was taken at the annual conference; St Catharines reported two chapels valued at $3,800. In the following year that value had risen to $6,000. (bmec minutes, 1857, 3; bmec minutes, 1858, 5.) 11 This church was designated a National Historic Site by Parks Canada on 28 March 2000. See the Parks Canada Directory of Federal Heritage Designations entry at https://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/dfhd/page_nhs_eng.aspx?id=1900 (accessed 30 April 2020).

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Figure 5.1 | Salem Chapel, St Catharines, described by William Wells Brown as “a very commodious church.”

exemplified this unity of purpose, frequently sharing pulpit and podium with his Baptist colleagues down the street. When Chambers became elder at the Salem Chapel, it boasted 172 members and 10 probationers; in 1864 those numbers were 206 and 10; in 1865, 150 and 40, with forty-eight scholars in the Sabbath school.12

12 bmec minutes, 1863, 12; bmec minutes, 1864, 3; bmec minutes, 1865, 12.

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If the Blacks of St Catharines were graced in establishing places of worship, they were less fortunate in influencing how and where their children would be educated. Although Black ratepayers wanted their children to attend the regular common schools in the town, in 1846 the school board, acting unilaterally, had established a coloured school on a part of Geneva Street that was in St Paul’s Ward. Black parents soon found the standard of teaching there to be woefully inadequate. According to Fuller’s St Catharines Directory, the teacher at the school in 1863 was James Brown, who was fired in the same year for drunkenness.13 It was not until 1871, however, that schools in St Catharines were in practice desegregated, and that change only came about when local labourer William Hutchinson, who was backed in a petition signed by parents, brought a suit against the town.14 On being appointed to the Salem Chapel in June 1863, Chambers did not immediately move his family to St Catharines. No doubt, before doing this, he wanted to finish his lease in London Township, harvest and market his crops, and sell his livestock, farm vehicles, and implements. Also, that summer, on 26 July, Ann Maria Chambers gave birth to her eighth child, a daughter named Adele Marie; before making the strenuous move to a new home, she would need time to recuperate.15 In his first letter to Whipple from St Catharines, Chambers wrote that he was “a great way from home, and must try and get home as often as I can.” As he planned the family move, he was also concerned about the education of his children, in particular where his oldest, Josephine, would go to school once relocated. Rev. Rufus Perry, Burns’s successor at Zion, had opened a “select school” and intended “to teach the higher branch,” and Chambers asked if Whipple could help to enrol her there. In the event, Perry did not minister long in St Catharines, and it is not clear whether Josephine Chambers ever attended his school. But her mother also felt called to teach the Black children who

13 Fuller, St Catharines Directory, for 1863–’64, 91; Broyld, “‘Justice Was Refused Me,’” 46. This latter article, on John Washington Lindsay, discusses in detail the education of Blacks in the town. 14 The legal case, decided by Justice Curran Morrison, was Hutchinson v. St Catharines; see also McLaren, “‘We Had No Desire to Be Set Apart,’” 47n111. 15 Recorder, 3 February 1881.

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were neglected by the common schools of St Catharines, and, once established there, she started her own school, petitioning Whipple for financial support in three letters written between 15 June and 27 July 1864. She had begun, she told him, with twelve scholars, but there were many more whose parents could not afford to pay the tuition who wished to attend. If given aid from the ama , she could embrace a larger cohort of needy students. Her husband, she ventured, had encouraged her to apply, and she did so with confidence that her request would be favourably received. But no funds were forthcoming; the ama was now very busy opening schools in American territories won from the Confederacy and was no longer investing in, let alone expanding, its former Canada Mission. In the winter of 1865, Chambers was again reminded of the financial divide that now existed between his ministry and the ama . The “Colored Village” or “Black Town” where his church was situated was on the eastern fringe of St Catharines, perhaps beyond the regular oversight of civic authority. Two rum shops “occupied by Roman Catholics” had opened nearby, with their wares available for purchase and consumption on Sunday. The traffic in “ardent spirits” caused disruption to Chambers’s worshipping flock and offended his temperance sensibilities; his answer was to purchase one of the premises.16 To this end, he wrote Whipple, not for a handout but for a loan of thirty dollars toward the purchase price. When the loan was not forthcoming, he renewed his appeal, reminding his old benefactor of the poverty of his people and of the charity he himself was personally dispensing to the needy of St Catharines. This plea was also ignored, but the dogged Chambers persisted. In his fifth pleading letter on the same subject, he reminded Whipple of his credentials as a missionary, his record of Sabbath school and temperance society formation, his diligence in building up church membership, and his passionate devotion to the Lord. “Come up higher, Brother, do not turn me away empty,” he implored.17

16 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-716. Chambers does not record whether he discussed the issue with the Roman Catholic priest whose congregants were causing the trouble. 17 See Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-715 (10 January 1865), F1-716 (12 January 1865), F1-718 (31 January 1865), F1-720 (1 March 1865), and F1-721 (13 March 1865).

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This time Whipple did reply but with an assurance of continuing friendship rather than money. Chambers was mollified and in any event was now consumed by the terrible news of the assassination in Washington of Abraham Lincoln, the president of the United States who had fought back the forces of slavery. (Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth on the evening of Friday, 14 April 1865, and died the next day.) On hearing of the assassination, Chambers rushed to the office of the St Catharines Journal, only to be rudely taunted by an office boy for the colour of his skin. He immediately exhorted William Grant, the Journal’s editor, to make amends for this insult, and on Monday, 17 April, the paper printed an apology to him: “On Saturday last some of our boys insulted the Rev. Mr. Chambers, pastor of the b.m.e . Church. We are sorry that any one connected with the Journal should insult any person for either their creed or their color, and on the occasion in question, if the rev. gentleman could have pointed out to us the delinquents, we would have made an example of them.”18 In the same issue the Journal reported this news: “The b.m.e. church on Geneva St., was appropriately draped in mourning yesterday on account of the sad death of President Lincoln.” British North Americans everywhere were shocked by the assassination of Lincoln, and formal gatherings in many cities allowed them to express public grief. The worthies of St Catharines were not slow in organizing such a civic event. A public meeting was held at Fowler’s Hall on 17 April to enable citizens “to give expression to their sympathy with the American nation.” The meeting was attended by five hundred to six hundred people, and many local clergymen were on hand – but not Chambers. As he told Whipple, “I was invited to address the meeting. But I was not able.” Although an articulate and experienced public speaker, perhaps at this terrible moment he could share his grief only with family and parishioners and not with the public at large. Lincoln’s funeral was held on Wednesday, 19 April. The next day the Constitutional, another local paper, reported on how St Catharines had publicly mourned that event: “It was decided to suspend business for a couple of hours. In this town all the stores were closed from 12 to half-past one o’clock; flags were hoisted half-mast high on various public buildings, and on

18 St Catharines Evening Journal, 17 April 1865.

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the shipping in the canal; the town bells were tolled; people assembled for worship at one or two of the churches; and the colored people appeared with black crepe on the right arm.”19 Chambers ended his own account to Whipple of events in St Catharines following the Lincoln assassination with this stinging assessment of the Journal: “This paper is no friend to the position of the Black man.” Editor William Grant was known for opinions tainted with racial prejudice, and much of the paper’s American content came from the New York Herald, whose editor, James Gordon Bennett, was a known supporter of the Democratic Party and said to be “racist, pro-slavery, and anti-abolitionist.20 On 22 April the Journal followed up its own coverage of the local observance of the Lincoln obsequies with this report: “We omitted to mention yesterday that religious services were held in the b.m.e. Church, Geneva street, between 12 and 1 o’clock. A very large congregation attended, appropriate prayers were offered up. The church was neatly dressed in mourning, and had the Union Jack displayed at half-mast over the entrance. The residence of the pastor, Rev. Mr. Chambers, was also draped in mourning.”21 But the same issue of the paper printed – just below the text of motions of sympathy to the American people that had been adopted by St Catharines citizens at their public meeting – a racially tinged account of the activities of “colored juveniles at the east end of the town.” They were said to have formed a “Corps d’Afrique” and were practising their drills for a possible future engagement with “white juveniles,” who might soon learn that “there’s a n—— in the fence.” Chambers knew whereof he wrote in his many complaints to Whipple about the prejudice experienced by him and his people in Canada. With the Civil War over (and slavery abolished in the United States under the Thirteenth Amendment, which was ratified on 6 December 1865), Chambers’s thoughts gradually began to return to his native land. In September 1865 he told Whipple that a number of St Catharines’s Blacks, including members of his own congregation, were returning to the United States and that he

19 St Catharines Constitutional, 20 April 1865. 20 For Grant’s attitudes, see Broyld, “‘Justice Was Refused Me,’” 36n51. For Bennett, see Crouthamel, Bennett’s “New York Herald,” 112. 21 St Catharines Journal, 22 April 1865.

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himself would like to do something for the freedmen. “Canada is too cold for me,” he admitted. “Dear Brother, make some provision for me, for I must [not] rust out but wear out in God’s service.” In the following February he reminded Whipple of a conversation they had had in New York two years earlier and asked him whether it was advisable for Blacks in Canada to consider returning to Delaware or Maryland. He wanted to see Whipple again soon – perhaps in hope of rejoining the ama missionary workforce and ministering to freedmen. On this particular Chambers’s missive, Whipple scrawled a note, likely intended for a clerk to draft a reply: “I would not advise any of the colored people who can get a decent living in Canada, to return now to the States. It would be safe, I have no doubt, for them to go into Maryland and Delaware, but in the present unsettled state of the public mind, there is entirely too much uncertainty as to labor, wages, &c. to warrant the return of those who are comfortable in Canada. Expressions of Ch[ristian] Love, &c. G.W.”22 George Whipple’s advice in early 1866 mirrored that of Bishop Nazrey in his address to the bmec annual conference held at the Salem Chapel in St Catharines in June 1865. “Some of our people,” he had admonished his flock, “have heard of the victories of the Union armies, and the abolition of slavery, and are now ready to run back again to the States, without waiting until the condition of their future progress and prosperity, and the great question of ‘Negro Suffrage,’ that is now being discussed, is finally settled. Many have already gone, and some have come back again under far more unfavourable circumstances than when they went.” 23 Chambers considered both messages carefully, but his own mind was made up in favour of returning to his home country. At the annual conference held in Toronto in May 1867, Brother Walter Hawkins complained that Chambers had used “persuasive language to induce some of our people to leave Canada and go to the United States.” Chambers pleaded not guilty, “stating that he had never persuaded any person or persons – nor used any persuasive language – nor held out any inducements to any person or persons to leave Canada and go to the United States, but [had] only said that he was going to the United

22 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-768, 15 February 1866. 23 bmec minutes, 1865, 3.

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States himself.” A sharp debate followed on a divisive topic, but he was “exonerated from the complaint.”24 Chambers’s last two letters to George Whipple were written in January and February 1867, but from Hamilton where the bmec conference had posted him the previous summer.

h a m ilton Geographically, the city of Hamilton, Canada West, involved an easy transition for Chambers. Only thirty miles (48 km) west of St Catharines along the Lake Ontario shore, Hamilton was but a short journey via the Great Western Railway. It seems that Chambers did not move his family when he was posted there. The St Catharines assessment rolls located him on Geneva Street (in the neighbourhood of the Salem Chapel) on a property valued at $400; his name was also recorded on the Reserve Militia Roll. Following his appointment in Hamilton, none of this changed; he continued to be assessed on the same property through 1868, meaning that his family was still living there and that he was a commuter, just as he had been while based in Dresden and London.25 His Hamilton ministerial move did not trigger a domestic upheaval of the sort that had happened when he had left Dresden for London or when he had moved from there to St Catharines. Hamilton was as different from St Catharines as the latter was from London. At the head of Lake Ontario, it was then a busier port than Toronto and was developing into an industrial centre as well, known for foundries and iron and steel fabricating; it was home to the Great Western Railway and its rolling mills, which produced the rails that criss-crossed southwestern Canada West. Hamilton offered a variety of employment opportunities to newcomers from all countries and of all complexions and, because of its rapid economic growth, was a thriving centre for small business. Owing to the disadvantages of race and often limited education, Black migrants to Hamilton had moved more slowly than their white counterparts had from lower to higher skilled jobs and from poverty

24 bmec minutes, 1867, 4–5. 25 St Catharines Assessment Rolls, 1854–99; microfilm held at the St Catharines Public Library.

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to comparative comfort. In the period between the censuses of 1851 and 1861, the Black population of the city had increased by 64 per cent, but the proportion living in poverty had remained the same.26 In 1851, 67 per cent of Hamilton’s Black men were classified as barbers, rising in 1861 to 75 per cent. In all likelihood, this increase had more to do with factors restricting Blacks occupationally than with an increased demand generally for tonsorial services. Ameliorating this negative trend somewhat was a small rise in Black participation in skilled trades, as well as in commerce and the professions.27 Chambers would minister to congregants in Hamilton who were as varied as the ones he had known in London and St Catharines. The Black citizens of Hamilton had originally settled in two areas: in the southern section of the downtown between Dundurn and Wentworth streets below the “mountain,” and above that escarpment around Concession Street, where on small plots of land they produced crops to market in the city.28 Before Hamilton expanded and annexed the latter area, the address of those residents would have been in Barton Township, and their numbers would not have figured in the statistics calculated from the censuses mentioned earlier. It is quite possible that Hamilton’s first ame church was built in that settlement atop the mountain. By 1839 an ame church was certainly being planned in Hamilton, and the town figured frequently in the itineraries of ministers and missionaries.29 Its first Black Baptist church dates from the same period and was affiliated with the

26 The 1861 census manuscript schedules enumerated 476 Blacks in Hamilton and 140 in Barton Township. See Wayne, “Black Population,” appendix A, 75–6. 27 Michael B. Katz studied poverty and ethnicity in Hamilton. See his People of Hamilton, 64–8. His statistics for the Black population of Hamilton in 1851 (actually taken in January 1852) are based on interpretations of ethnicity because that census did not report on race or caste. 28 Etoroma, “Blacks in Hamilton,” 94. The area of Black settlement above the mountain was recognized by the Hamilton Historical Board with a plaque entitled “Early Black Community on Hamilton Mountain,” which was mounted in 2012 on the Concession Branch of the Hamilton Public Library. Much of the excellent research leading to the installation of the plaque was done by Adrienne Shadd. 29 Payne, History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, 124.

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Amherstburg Baptist Association.30 In 1854 a church was built on land sold by Joseph P. Williams – who, according to the 1851 census, was both a gardener on the mountain and a Methodist minister – to trustees of the ame Society of the Township of Barton. The building they erected could accommodate one hundred worshippers and was situated at the top of the Jolley Cut.31 The first ame church below the mountain was likely a log structure on Cathcart Street. The congregation built a new church in 1856 (the same year that the amec in Canada became the bmec ) a short distance south, on Rebecca Street. A few years later, the growing congregation built a brick building that could seat 250 persons. It was the dedication of this church that brought Chambers to Hamilton in November 1862, and it was the Rebecca congregation that he served during his two years there.32 Following his tenure, the history of this particular church in Hamilton was mixed. On 1 August 1879 it burned in a conflagration known as the McInnes fire. The congregation then took over a former Methodist Episcopal building on John Street, which they named St Paul’s after the great missionary of the New Testament. According to Sutherland’s directory for 1870, it was “built of wood and capable of seating 250.”33 In 1905 its plain clapboard exterior – in this regard, the building resembled many early Methodist churches – was “reclad with brick masonry and the façade remodelled in the Gothic Revival style.”34 In 1884

30 Etoroma, “Blacks in Hamilton,” 97. 31 1851 Census, Canada West: Wentworth County, Barton Township, Enumeration District no. 1, Personal Census, 29; Agricultural Census, 75. See also Adrienne Shadd, Journey from Tollgate to Parkway, 113. The Jolley Cut was begun by James Jolley (1813–1892), a Hamilton saddler, harness maker, and politician, who carved out a switch-back road leading from the top of the mountain, where he lived, to the town below, where he worked. The cut is now the site of a multi-lane route between the upper and lower sections of Hamilton. 32 The new church was valued at $3,000 (bmec minutes, 1862, 12); Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-678; Sutherland’s City of Hamilton Directory for 1870. 33 Sutherland’s City of Hamilton Directory for 1870. 34 Corporation of the City of Hamilton, By-Law No. 93-089, designating Stewart Memorial Church at 114 John Street North. A plaque was erected by

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some bme churches reunited with the amec , and St Paul’s was one of them. Having encountered financial difficulties, the congregation became non-denominational in 1937, whereupon the building was renamed Stewart Memorial Church in memory of a former pastor.35 It stands there today. The school history of Hamilton followed a different trajectory from that of St Catharines. As in many other places, the first common schools in Hamilton turned Black children away, reflecting the sentiment of some white parents against racial mixing of children in classroom and playground. It took a concerted effort by Black citizens in 1843 to bring change to this situation. This involved a petition to the Governor General, who referred the matter back to the Hamilton Board of Police, which then ruled that “the law ought to be enforced without distinction of colour.”36 When Samuel Gridley Howe visited Hamilton in 1863 as part of his tour to gather data on how Blacks had adjusted to a life of freedom in Canada, he interviewed Archibald Macallum, principal of the Central School.37 Macallum had been working in Hamilton for four years and had come to the city after more than a decade

the Ontario Heritage Foundation to commemorate the church in 2003. See “Stewart Memorial Church,” Ontario Heritage Trust partners, https://www. heritagetrust.on.ca/en/pages/our-stories/slavery-to-freedom/partners/ stewart-memorial-church (accessed 6 May 2022). 35 See Hamilton Public Library’s Local History and Archives for “Stewart Memorial Church Scrapbook,” vol. 1, and Dr. A. Jeffers Toby, “A History of Blacks in Hamilton.” For the bme /ame division in 1884, see Castell Hopkins, Canada, vol. 4, 136. After that year, Hamilton directories describe St Paul’s Church as ame . According to Richard P. Wright’s Centennial Encyclopedia, 297, the first Ontario annual conference after the “reunion” was held at St Paul’s in June 1885. 36 George S. Tiffany (president of the Hamilton Board of Police) to Governor General Lord Elgin, quoted in Winks, Blacks in Canada, 367. See also Shadd, Journey from Tollgate to Parkway, 86–8. 37 Howe used “McCullum,” but the spelling is “Macallum.” Mitchell’s County of Wentworth and Hamilton City Directory for 1865–6 included his Christian name, Archibald, 13. See Freda F. Waldon’s biography of Macallum in the dcb online, revised 1972, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/macallum_ archibald_10E.html.

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as superintendent of the Provincial Model School in Toronto. He praised the decorum and moral conduct of the Black children in his school and said that he always took special care to spend time with newcomers in the playground, “just to show that I made no distinction whatever; and then the children made none.”38 Howe was impressed: Macallum understood both his leadership responsibility in the community and the necessity of modelling good behaviour and insisting on it in others. Hamilton was one place in Canada West where “comparative liberality and kindness” was shown toward Blacks; by contrast, London stood out for its record of discrimination, explicable by a “different spirit which children imbibe in the public schools under different head masters.”39 (This, perhaps, glossed over deep-seated prejudice at the forks of the Thames.) In this striking passage in the account of his findings in Canada West, Howe highlighted the necessity of good public education for children, irrespective of background or colour: “Underlying the great institution of the common school are two primal ideas, one of individual culture, the other of human brotherhood. In the common schoolhouse is held the first gathering of the Demos, in primary assemblage, never to be dissolved, only adjourned from day to day, through all time. The little people trained in the exercise of family love at home, come together in the schoolhouse to enlarge the circle of their affections by loving other children of the greater human family, in its wider home – the world. Strange perversion, if the first moral lesson should be that of exclusion and caste!”40 When Howe had interviewed the St Catharines Black businessman and education advocate John W. Lindsay, he had heard the exact same sentiments, expressed all the more ardently because Lindsay was thinking of his own children: “Here are our children that we think as much of as white people think of theirs, and want them elevated and educated.”41

38 Howe, Refugees from Slavery, 47. 39 Ibid., 49. 40 Ibid., 58. 41 Broyld, “‘Justice Was Refused Me,’” 47. Broyld is quoting from the 1863 American Freedmen’s Inquiry Commission interview of Lindsay, found in Blassingame, Slave Testimony, 397.

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Chambers’s personal educational sphere was that of the Sabbath rather than of the common school. In all of the lumber camps, villages, towns, and cities where he plied his missionary labour, the development and nurturing of Sabbath schools was one of his main activities, and he had built a record of which he was justifiably proud. “I do not wish you to think that I have a boasting spirit,” he wrote Whipple on 13 March 1865, “but I have laboured more in the capacity of missionary in Sabbath schools . . . and the cause of education more than any man of color in Canada.”42 At a time when common schools proved cold and unwelcoming to Black children, and separate schools (if they existed at all) were poorly staffed and equipped, church Sabbath schools offered a safe haven to Black families. In the Sabbath school all children were equal, and pastors, parents, and teachers had a common educational goal: to ensure that children would learn to read the Word of God and come to understand how to integrate faith and wisdom into their daily lives. Many Blacks, both children and adults, whether in servitude or in freedom, first learned to read in Sabbath schools. Parents who had never had the opportunity or privilege of attending a real school knew how important it was for their children to be educated in the classrooms of both church and state. This concern was felt all the more urgently as Black settlers gravitated to urban areas, where higher literacy skills were often required in the workplace. In the amec /bmec tradition, in which Chambers had long been immersed, deacons and elders had particular responsibility for Sabbath schools, which increasingly were expected to be organized and run according to the detailed instructions in the Church’s Doctrine and Discipline: Duty to Children and Sabbath Schools 1

2

Every pastor shall gather in the children; and wherever there are five or ten whose parents will permit it, he shall meet them once a week, or in two weeks, for the purpose of giving them instruction and training them in the Catechism. He shall expressly preach on education, talk with the children at home, explain the nature of religion to them, and impress

42 Chambers to Whipple, 13 March 1865, ama Archives, F1-721.

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the necessity of it upon their hearts. He shall earnestly pray for them and exhort their parents at home. He shall take the names of those who have been truly awakened, and admit them to the Society. But if he should say, “I have no gift for this,” he should pray for it, and use every other means to obtain it. He shall, so far as it is practicable, take the children of his congregation and form them into Sabbath Schools. He shall take their names and form them into classes for the purpose of giving them religious instruction, and to do this as regularly himself as his other duties will allow him. He shall teach them the nature of religion, and also the nature, privileges, design and obligations of baptism. He shall appoint a suitable leader for each class, to instruct it in his absence, and recommend to him those who are suitable to be admitted on trial. He shall leave his successor a correct account of each class formed, and the name of its leader.43

bmec pastors were expected to keep statistics on the number of their Sabbath school students and to report these at annual and general conferences. Chambers’s letters demonstrate how seriously he took the gathering of statistics about the Sabbath schools under his watch, whether for the ama or for the bmec . Over time, the bmec established a convention for its Sunday schools, to be held during the church’s General Conference. In the same spirit, it also worked out a constitution for the management of the schools. That document described how Sabbath schools were to be organized at the society or church level; it specified leadership qualifications and recommended links between such schools, temperance instruction, and mission activity.44 Although little of that kind of corporate oversight was evident in Chambers’s time, the importance of Sabbath schools was foremost in his ministry, as his many letters attest. He organized schools where none existed, re-energized those that lay fallow, and, with sincere devotion, preached and taught in them as

43 Minter, Doctrine and Discipline, 69–70. 44 For information about the Sunday school convention and constitution see Drake and Wright, Doctrine and Discipline, 129–40.

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required. He wrote songs for the children and praised their singing, found books for them, organized annual celebrations and concerts on their behalf, and took pride in their efforts and his own. His letter to Whipple of 13 March 1865 disclaiming a “boasting spirit” sounds like a rare personal trumpet blast.45 In neither of the two letters he wrote to Whipple from Hamilton – one in January 1867 and the other in February – did Chambers mention anything about returning to the United States, but he did note that “large numbers” of his congregation had “left and gone” there. In his February letter he enclosed a clipping from the Hamilton Times reporting on an assassination in Tennessee, and another of anti-Black propaganda.46 The Dominion of Canada came into existence on 1 July 1867, an event not mentioned in Chambers’s sparse correspondence to Whipple of that year. At the bmec annual conference held at Toronto in May, Chambers was appointed to committees on Ordination and Admission, Tobacco and Temperance, and Missions. The statistics for the past year of church activity showed that the number of members in Hamilton was falling, from ninety-five in 1865 to sixty-eight in 1867, but the local society was still able to contribute well to its preachers’ support, providing board, fuel, house rent, and travelling expenses.47 Chambers was undoubtedly popular with his Hamilton congregation: a letter from its members to the 1868 bmec annual conference, held in Chatham from 13 to 22 June, gave a glowing account of the “prosperous condition” of their church and asked for the continuation of his services. But Chambers himself had a different plan; he requested the conference to transfer him to the Philadelphia Conference of the amec . His request met with the unanimous support of his fellow clergy. Having been graciously accommodated, Chambers “arose and thanked the Conference for the favour conferred upon him and presented the ministers with certificates that he had interceded for and procured from the managers and cashier of the Great Western Railway entitling them to return tickets over the aforesaid

45 Chambers to Whipple, 13 March 1865, from St Catharines, ama Archives, F1-721. 46 See Chambers’s letters to Whipple, 4 January 1867, ama Archives, F1-773, and 12 February 1867, ama Archives, F1-774. 47 bmec minutes, 1867, 17.

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road to their homes.” The conference then tendered Chambers a vote of thanks “for the faithful discharge of his duty in our Connexion as Elder ever since his relationship and identity with us” and resolved further that “our prayers and best wishes shall go with him, bidding him a hearty God-speed, and hoping that the labor of his future life may be attended with happiness, prosperity and peace.”48 It is likely that the Chambers family left St Catharines soon after his attendance at the third General Conference of the bmec , held in Hamilton that September; he was no doubt anxious to connect with members of the Philadelphia Conference as soon as possible.49 That body had already held its 1868 annual conference, but with his transfer in hand Chambers must have hoped that not all its appointments had yet been made. The ame and bme churches had a solid history of clergy transferring membership and credentials back and forth. Chambers had begun his studies toward ordination under amec auspices in the Philadelphia district and was likely still known to the clergy and bishop there. The Church’s Doctrine and Discipline described a straightforward procedure for the “reception of preachers from other denominations,”50 which he would easily have met. As events unfolded, Bishop Nazrey facilitated his departure from the new Canadian province of Ontario, and Bishop Jabez Pitt Campbell (1815–1891) immediately appointed him to Mount Zion ame church in Bridgeton, New Jersey. That town is in the southern part of the state, inland on the Cohansey River, which meanders a lazy twenty-three miles before flowing into Delaware Bay. It had once been on a well-travelled route of the Underground Railroad. Lewis Chambers had come full circle.

48 bmec minutes, 1868, 5, 6. 49 bmec , Minutes of the Third General Conference, 1868, 6. 50 See African Methodist Episcopal Church, Doctrine and Discipline, 126.

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w r it t e n f ro m s t cathari nes 3 August 18631 It is with much pleasure that I send you these pen lines. They will inform you that I am well and am appointed to St Catharines station. It is a large society, one hundred and seventy-five members, a congregation of two hundred and fifty, many young members who are mostly females. It keeps me very busy visiting the sick. July 29th I buried two little children, both in one grave; first child died 27th, and her little sister said to mother that her sister was gone to see her little [sister] that died last fall, and said that she wanted to go home too. The mother is a Christian, but the father is [a] drunkard. She says that she has seen much trouble, but that she will still trust in God. It is a very sickly time in this town. On the first of Aug. we celebrated by picnic. We had good speaking Mr Simpson,2 Mr H. Wilson3 and Mr Perry.4 We have a good Sabbath school in

1 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-686. 2 J. Simpson was recorded as a local preacher in St Catharines in 1863 and 1865 (bmec minutes, 1863, 13; 1865, 6). 3 Hiram Wilson died the following year. 4 Rufus L. Perry (1833/34–1895) was minister of Zion Baptist Church, which was located near the bme church to which Chambers was posted. A member of the African Colonization Society, with Henry Highland Garnet (who had recommended Chambers to the ama ) and Daniel Payne (historian of the amec) he helped found many schools in the United States. See Rufus L. Perry,

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our church. Our Annual Conference closed with the blessing of God upon it.5 I am a great way from home, and must try and get home as often as I can. Brother Whipple, there is in this town a Baptist minister who has Mr Burns’ charge.6 He has opened a select school and is going to teach the higher branch. I got one girl that is my oldest daughter.7 I want to send her. Could you please aid? I learn with much sorrow the trouble of my poor brothers and sisters in your city. Please send my paper to St Catharines. Please write. Yours truly.

15 February 18648 These lines leave me and mine well. I hope that they may find you and yours the same. Since I last written to you, we have had a protracted meeting, and we had a time of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. There were six that professed faith in the blessed Lord. On the first of Jan. we had a good time, although the weather was very cold. We had a good turnout of the people. I had the Rev Mr Burns White Committee come.9 The brothers were all with me and

Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rufus_L._Perry (accessed 24 April 2020). 5 At the 1863 annual conference Chambers was named to a committee “to deliberate upon the use of tobacco and spirituous liquors.” It favoured “a prohibitory law” and urged co-operation “with the several orders of Grand Templars and Sons of Temperance in their praiseworthy efforts to bring about this glorious reform in Canada.” Chambers was also elected as a bmec delegate to the amec General Conference to be held in Philadelphia in May 1864 (bmec minutes, 1863, 6, 13). 6 Rev. Rufus L. Perry, who succeeded Anthony Burns at Zion Baptist Church. 7 Josephine Chambers, born ca. 1847 in Philadelphia. A “select school” was private and offered an enriched curriculum. Such schools usually did not have Black pupils, but Rufus L. Perry was no ordinary educator. 8 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-698. 9 Probably referring to Rev. Robert F. Burns, pastor at the Canada Presbyterian Church on Church Street near James Street. Chambers had been raised a Presbyterian and liked to describe himself as “no party man.” As such, he reached out to preachers of all sects. The White Committee could have been a group from Burns’s church, drawn to Chambers’s celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation either in solidarity or out of curiosity.

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did not forget you while we were meeting to join with our brother and sisters celebrating the Emancipation. It was a cold day but there was a many a glad heart. I see that you are calling for missionaries and teachers to instruct my poor downcast brothers, but thank God the day long looked for is come. Dear Brother, you know me. Can you give me something among my freed brothers? I feel that I wish to spend and to be spent in doing what little good I can for my master. Please write and let me know. Yours truly.

15 June 186410 I have seated myself for the purpose of communicating a few lines respecting the school I have opened for several families who will not send their children to the government school.11 I commenced the 1st of June. I have twelve scholars and there is a great many more who wish to send their children but are not able to pay. My husband informed me that if I would continue my school you would render me some assistance. I would be very glad to continue provided you can do so. Without I cannot. If you could aid me with some one hundred and forty-five or fifty dollars a year by the help of God to keep up the school. My husband says make my report quarterly. You will pay me quarterly as I suppose that that will be the terms. My husband, L.C. Chambers, sends his love to you and says the dear little missionary has not come to hand yet. You will oblige me by answering this soon if you please. Yours with respect, Ann M. Chambers

6 July 186412 I again write to inform you that I written to you somewhere about the 12th, and have received no answer. I written to you concerning a school I have started. I stated the time I commenced, on the 1st of June. There is some 12 scholars. There is many more that would like to send but are not able to pay & I cannot afford to teach unless

10 Ann Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-698. 11 By “government school” she means the school for coloured children opened in St Catharines in 1846. Ann Chambers might have inherited her own school from Perry. 12 Ann Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-701.

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I could get some assistance from you. My husband informed me that you would give me some aid. I shall need 145 or 50 dollars, or I shall have to stop. My husband, L.C. Chambers, sends his love to you. You will oblige me by answering this soon as you can make it. Write if you please. Yours with respect, Ann M. Chambers

27 July 186413 Yours of the 18th came duly safe in which I feel sorry that you cannot comply with my request so far as the number of scholars is concerned. There is a vast number [of] children who do not go to any school, & their parents will not send them to the caste school.14 The manner in which this school is conducted no laws of [society] would support it. Then again, I have not only been informed by my husband that you would aid me in my school, but there is a lady from Oberlin that feels interested in the school [who] informed [me] that there was a gentleman that left a considerable portion of money for Canada, & she thinks we ought to reap some of the benefit of it, if you allow me fifty dollars a quarter. Please aid me with such as you have. Please answer this. Yours with respect, Ann M. Chambers

6 January 186515 These lines will inform that after a long illness in my family, four of my children have been very low with the diphtheria and the scarlet fever, but thank God they are after four months illness getting along well now. It is a very sickly time in this town. I have buried thirty-one corpses, sixteen children, two old men. The rest was young persons. Two little boys before dying said to their mother not to weep for they were going to rest with Jesus. A little girl about nine years old died in the Lord. She bid her father and mother farewell, and said she was going home, and when she found that she was a dying she clapped her [hands]. “I am dying. I am a dying. I am going home to heavenly Father. Mother you mustn’t cry after me

13 Ann Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-705. 14 The segregated government school, whose principal was fired for drunkenness. 15 L.C. Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-715.

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for I want to go home to heavenly Father.” We have had some very happy deaths since I have been in St Catharines. On the 2nd of Dec., John 1 Sunday,16 we had a good meeting, but on the first of Jan. we had the best meeting that ever I was in. Me, the Rev Burns, Pastor Simpson, [Sargent] Jack17 who is here drilling soldiers for the frontier and Mr Sparrow of the 54 [Militia].18 We had good time indeed. Well, Brother Whipple, wish you a happy New Year. I hope the cause of freedom will be glorious in this year. Well, Brother Whipple, will you please let me have a thirty dollars? I have bought the corner house next to our church, which has been occupied as a rum shop,19 and it has cost me something to get possession of and money is hard to get at this time. I would not to have got it if it had not been for the peace of our church. If you can help, I will be thankful. Please let me know. Please lend it me. Yours truly. $30. Write soon.20

16 In 1864, 2 December was a Friday, not a Sunday. Perhaps on the fourth Chambers preached from the first chapter of the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” 17 “Jack, James, H.C. drill instructor,” is listed in Mitchell & Co.’s Directory for the Town of St Catharines, 1865, 41. 18 Mitchell & Co.’s Directory for the Town of St Catharines, 1865, 63, lists “Sparrow, George, mason.” Chambers is mistaken in the number he gives for the militia unit. According to Wikipedia, the 19th Battalion Volunteer Militia originated in St Catharines in March 1863, served on the Niagara frontier during the Fenian Raids, and was designated as the Lincoln and Welland Regiment in 1936. “The Lincoln and Welland Regiment,” Wikipedia, https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lincoln_and_Welland_Regiment (accessed 25 April 2020). 19 The tavern frequented by Roman Catholics. My research at the Niagara Region Land Registry Office failed to identify the property Chambers had purchased. 20 This letter is annotated: “Asks for $30. I should be pleased to help him, but cannot without submitting the matter to the Ex. Com, and I think they will hardly feel it right to vote it. Am sorry to write so, but it is best for friends should not be kept in suspense.”

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12 January 186521 This will inform that your very kind letter came to hand today, and it did afford me much pleasure to read so kind a letter. When I remember seven years ago, I came to you in your city, and you gave me your hand in the cause of missions, and for some time I reap on your hand a real support. I have been cut off because I was removed.22 Well, so it was. I am still labouring for God and my work has been heavy. I am doing all that I can for my injured and healed people in St Catharines. I formed a temperance society. It has been doing well. I stated to you in my letter that in front of our church there has been two rum shops occupied by Roman Catholics. Every Lord’s Day these two houses were opened and ardent spirits sold at the time of our Sabbath worship. And for the good of our Church and God’s cause, I have got one of the houses and we have peace on the Sabbath and at the time [of] our prayer meeting. But our people are poor this winter. Many will suffer. I have calls every day for aid. Today I had to give a dollar to bury a little child. Now to save this coin for a passage is a praiseworthy act,23 an act that God will smile upon, and as I am labouring for Christ the Committee cannot help from doing this favour. I am your fellow labourer in the patience of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Our funds is very low, and if we stop our missionary labour what will the poor negro do in Canada? My prayer is that you will not turn me away, for with mine own hands I have laboured and preached and teached Sabbath school every Sunday for these several years. I now come to you, my dear Brother, and ask for help. I pray you to heed this time if you please. Your Brother in Christ. Write soon.

21 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-716. 22 Chambers is referring to his move to St Catharines and the end of his ama support. 23 He refers here to the ancient practice of placing a coin on the mouth of a deceased person, enabling the departed to pay for the journey from the land of the living to that of the dead. In noting that he had dipped into his own meagre funds to bury a child, Chambers indirectly confronts Whipple and the ama executive committee with their lack of charity and concern for no longer supporting his ministry.

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31 January 186524 I pen you a few more lines. They will inform you that I and mine are well and hope that this may find you and yours the same. I am now having a protracted meeting. It has been going on for two weeks, and the best of all, the Lord is with [us]. On last Sunday nighttime I had a congregation of about five hundred persons. One man found peace with God. On last night, the Lord poured out his Spirit on us, and it was a melting time. We remember you in our prayers and the rest. There is a good deal of sickness among our [people], and a great deal of destitution. There is so many white runaways in Canada.25 They take the work from our poor people. Many have no wood and no money and the snow is deep, and what we will know [sic], God only knows. I have calls every day for aid. I give away the first York shilling one day that I had.26 I feel to have a claim on the missionary fund of Canada. Now I am working for God, and by his grace I will work for him. You must help me to do so. I pray that you will. May [God] assist you so to do of the dear friends. I hope that the God of all grace will bless you and warm up your precious soul. Well, Brother, times is hard in Canada, and money here scarce. I must entreat you to send me thirty dollars. If I could see my way clear without begging this again, I would do so. But the Lord knows it is a needy time. If you lend me the money I will pay it back in six months. You will please answer these lines. I hope and pray that you will grant me this favour unto me. No more, but I remain, Yours Truly. There is many mean persons in Canada to our people. They are discharging our people, servants, teamsters and so forth. And what must we do? The war is felt in Canada forcefully, but we must trust in God.

24 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-718. 25 American men wishing to avoid the draft often fled northward. Citing contemporary sources, Robin Winks notes that by the end of the Civil War, upwards of ten to fifteen thousand deserters, draft dodgers, or in the phrase of the time, “skedaddlers,” had fled to British North America (Winks, Civil War Years, 201). 26 A York shilling was British coinage issued before the American Revolutionary War (1775–83) and still in circulation when Chambers was young.

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1 March 186527 I pen you a few lines to inform you that I am still going on with my post, and meetings is still going on. We have added to our Church twenty-eight on confession of faith. Many last night professed to find the Lord, and the good work is still going on. But we have a very hard winter. The poor are in want. They are suffering in this town for wood and the necessaries of life. There is a cause for all of this. So many from the States have flocked to St Catharines. It has made hard times for our people to get work. Now I must still beg you for to let me have thirty dollars. I pray you to grant me that mickle a money if you please.28 And I for ever [will] remember you. God will bless you if you will do so. I remain yours truly.

13 March 186529 I thought I would call your mind to several facts. I do not wish you to think that I have a boasting spirit, but I am sorry to say that I have laboured more in the capacity of missionary in Sabbath schools, and the temperance cause, and against use of tobacco, and the cause of education more than any man of color in Canada. Brother W. P. Newman laboured more for the cause of education,30 but for temperance nor the Sabbath schools neither against the use of tobacco as I have done. Wherever I go, I form a Sabbath school where there is none. In this town my Sabbath school average in attendance every Sunday from thirty to forty scholars. I have formed a temperance society in this town numbering one hundred and twenty-five members. The anniversary will be held on the 17th. I cannot help but saying that God is with me for I feel him precious. Yesterday we added three more to our church, which makes forty-five since my protracted meeting commenced. When you first employed me, I then had my family and a farm, but since that time I have given up the farm, and

27 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-720. 28 Chambers uses the archaic term mickle to mean “a small amount,” while the original meaning was a large amount. The expression many a mickle makes a muckle is an example of how the use of those two Scottish words changed on this side of the Atlantic. 29 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-721. 30 For William P. Newman, see note to chapter 2.

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now I am a coworker with you in the Missionary field. I do feel that I have a claim on you I think at this cold Canada. Well, I may say cold, for the hearts of the people are cold, but thank God more of our people are looking up to a brighter day that is now dawning, when freedom shall triumph. My prayer to God that he will hasten on the time. You may depend my heart is in the work with you and will remain until God say it is enough. Come up higher, Brother, do not turn me away empty.31 But as for your part I know that you have a warm heart for the poor coloured people in Canada, and you know our wants. No more, but for you I am bound to pray. Yours truly.

1 May 186532 These lines will inform you that your kind letter came safe to hand and was received with much pleasure. But it found me in a poor state of health, and I have been too poor to work. I did think that my master was coming for me. These leave me better; I hope that they may find you the same. Well, you speak of my being disappointed by not finding a draft. Not much, for I knew if you had it that you would to of sent it and believe further more if Lord blessed you with any funds that you will send me some help. But I am not so much troubled about the money as I am about the death of our dear friend President Lincoln. When the news fell upon my ear I was struck with a pain from my head to my feet. I went into the printing office of the evening Journal, and the boy in that office then carrying on at a great rate, saying that the n—— friend was dead and it was good. There is one of his n—— friends now; that was me. The editor made no reply to them. I bore it as long as I could; then I informed him if he did not rebuke them about that I should complain to higher powers. So he did rebuke them. From that there was a great spirit taken place in that office. They published that they were sorry that I should be insulted in their office. It ran through the town. A public meeting was got up and I was invited to address the meeting. But I was not able. The whole town was sad. My church has been draped for some time. O Brother, we have lost our all. But

31 His words here echo Luke 14:10 or Revelations 4:1. 32 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-724.

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I trust that God may give Mr Johnson a good heart.33 Well, he is a small article. This paper is no friend to the position of the Black man. He is taking from the same paper the evening Journal. Please let me know the truth about it as soon as possible for I do not think that the colored troops did [know]. Yours truly with love.

21 August 186534 These lines leave me and mine tolerable well. I hope that they may find you all the same enjoying the same blessing of God. Since I last written great has been my trials, but thanks be to God that is it as well with me as it [is]. I have buried two of my members. They died in the Lord. The first was an old Mother, eighty years of [age]. She died happy. The last one was a little girl, thirteen years. She laboured hard to find Jesus, and how happy she was when she found Christ. Well, I hope that you will not forget me. Remember me, a poor missionary labouring for a poor people. But on the whole, I must not complain, for the work of God is prospering in my hand. There is a large number of my members going to the States. That makes it hard. I hope that the good work is going on with you. No more, but remain your Brother.35

30 September 186536 I pen you a few lines and they will inform you that I and mine are well, and hope that they may find you and yours the same. The work of the Lord is prospering among us. On last Lord’s Day was our anniversary of the Sabbath school. We had a large turnout of the members of our society. The children sang sweet. After some very appropriate remarks made by the Superintendent, he then presented

33 Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s vice-president, was sworn in as president on 15 April 1865. 34 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-732. 35 Whipple had secretarial help, and his annotation to this letter delegated the drafting of a reply to Chambers as follows: “Ach. The letter/exp. int./We sh be glad to aid him in his work, but just now the colored men of the S[outh] become most needy, GW.” 36 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-733.

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a new Bible to the school. The whole business passed off well. I still feel that God blesses my labour, and I feel indeed a strong mind to work for God; let times go as they may. The best of all, the Lord is with me, and it is my meat and drink to do my Master’s will. Dear Brother, there is a soldier who has just returned home from the war from North Carolina, Wilmington, who wants me to go with him, for he says that they want a minister very bad. He has married a wife and is a going back south within two weeks. He has written to [me] three months ago to come there and feed them with the word of God. Now I want to go and help to do something for the freedmen. Canada is too cold for me. There is fourteen of my members gone, and three more are getting ready for the States. You will please answer this as soon as you get this. I am your brother in the missionary cause. Dear Brother, make some provision for me, for I must [not] rust out but wear out in God’s service. No more, Yours Truly.

15 February 186637 These lines leave me and mine well. I hope that they may find you the same. Well, dear Brother, it has been some time since I have heard from you for some time, but I seen your name in print and good things is spoken about which makes my heart feel glad. Well, I am happy to inform you that the work of God is still going on in the midst of his people. We have added one convert on confession of faith this quarter. Some of our people are very sick at this time, and it is very cold and our people are poor this winter. Times is bad and money scarce. A number of my congregation has moved to the States, which makes our membership small. The cause of Christ is the best cause that I can think of spending my time at or in, let my field of labour be small or great. Well, Dear Brother Whipple, what do you think of our people removing back to the States. Is it not too soon yet? Do you think it is all right in the state of Maryland and the state of Delaware? It may do in them two states, but I am not satisfied. So I wish you to inform me. I see that the American Missionary Society is doing a good work. My prayer is to God that he may bless you in your labours of love for

37 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-768.

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my poor downtrodden race. For I do thank God since I seen you in your office almost two years ago,38 that you have by the help of God done a great work, and if I live until next summer I shall by the help of God see you again. O Brother, God he knows that [I] do love you, for you shall always have a warm place in my prayers. And if we meet no more I hope that we shall meet in the better world. Remember me in your prayers. Write soon. Yours truly in love.39

w r it t e n f ro m h ami lton 4 January 186740 These few lines after a silence will inform you that I am still alive, and hope that you [are] living likewise, and that I may live in the better world. I wish you a Happy New Year, and both hope and pray that you will live long to do good. Well, dear Brother, I am now in the City of Hamilton in charge of God’s people.41 Things is peaceful with [us] and the best of all, the Lord is with [us]. A large number of my members have left and gone to the States, which has left me a small membership. But I am still trying to preach Christ with all my heart. I love my master’s work, and by his grace, which was not delivered to me in vain, I intend to [practise] the work of a minister. Mr Whipple, please write to me and let me hear you speak one more time and it will do my soul good. I hope to see you again. Please send the missionary to Hamilton.42 I am a missionary for Christ. Within

38 Chambers must have paid a visit to New York, probably in the hope of being employed in ama missions in the South. 39 In an annotation on this letter Whipple gave instructions for the drafting of a reply: “I would not advise any of the colored people who can get a decent living in Canada, to return now to the States. It would be safe, I have no doubt, for them to go into Maryland & Delaware, but in the present unsettled state of the public mind, there is entirely too much uncertainty as to labor, wages, &c, to warrant the return of those who are comfortable in Canada. Expressions of Ch. Love, &c.” 40 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-773. This letter is very faint. 41 Chambers was now posted to the bme church on Rebecca Street in Hamilton. 42 The American Missionary. Through its pages he was now following the ama’s outreach in the South.

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his cause I hope to live and die. May the Lord of all grace who is good friends of the oppressed who have come to Canada. You have fought well. Slavery is dead. Thank God for it, and I have lived to see the day. No more. I love you in my heart. I give you my heart and hand.

12 February 186743 This leaves me well. I hope they may find you the same. Yours came safe to hand and it made my heart feel glad to hear from you. I am happy to find that the Lord is still with you and blessing your labours. My prayer is to God that he still will bless you and carry on the great work that he has begun. Well, Brother, I send you this slip of paper.44 Please let me know if it is true. It is clipped from the Hamilton Times. The paper is not good. Let me know soon. The Lord is with us. Pray for me. I will ever remember you. Yours truly.

43 Chambers to Whipple, ama Archives, F1-774. 44 The “slip of paper” was actually two clippings. The first, entitled “Horrible State of Affairs in Tennessee,” was originally from the Nashville Press and Times. It detailed events following the 11 January 1867 assassination of state senator Almon Case, his son, and two deputy sheriffs by a Confederate guerrilla fighter, Benjamin Frank Farris. Having committed these murders, Farris and another “villain” preyed upon “Union” men in the area. The article also described the persecution faced by freedmen in Logan County, Kentucky. The second was a list of harsh rules and regulations for local Blacks in an unnamed place in the United States. Its contents, indicative of a rough road ahead for many former slaves, shocked Chambers.

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b r id g e to n , n e w jers ey Given his calling to missionary work, in his return to the United States from Canada, Chambers would have preferred a new appointment with the ama , and in the fall of 1868 he applied to Whipple for city missionary work in Baltimore or Washington – but to no avail.1 Meanwhile, thanks to his adaptability and resilience, he was making a smooth transition to pastoral work at Mount Zion ame church in Bridgeton, New Jersey.2 There he and his family were warmly welcomed by “good friends of the cause of Christ,” who, to quote Chambers, made their hearts glad “with donations ... as an expression of their good desires for my success as their pastor.” In the spring of 1869 the donations grew to include a “roll of cloth to make me a suit and suits for my wife and little daughter,” as well

1 I am indebted to De Boer’s “The Role of Afro-Americans” for this information. She cites letters that Chambers wrote from Bridgeton, dated 27 November 1868, 22 April 1869, and 17 September 1869. 2 Morgan, History of the New Jersey Conference, 61. When the appointments of the Philadelphia Annual Conference were published in the 25 July 1868 issue of the Christian Recorder, an elder for Bridgeton, New Jersey, had yet “to be supplied.” After the post was filled, the 31 October issue of the newspaper reported as follows: “Rev. Mr Chambers, lately of the Hamilton Canada charge, has arrived, and has entered upon his work at Bridgeton, nj . He was most cordially received by his people.”

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as “four large chickens” from “a good old sister, between 60 and 70 years of age, living in the country.”3 On 14 January 1869, Chambers organized a gathering at Sheppard’s Hall, Bridgeton, to celebrate the sixth anniversary of the coming into effect of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation (1 January 1863). The event began with a “colored choir” singing “Blow Ye the Trumpet, Blow!,” followed by both a reading of the proclamation and addresses by several speakers, including Chambers himself. The Bridgeton Chronicle gave this account of proceedings: We are most heartily glad to see our colored friends celebrating the anniversary of their freedom. If for nothing else, we are glad to think that they appreciate the fact that liberty is precious. But such meetings will do greater good. They must educate themselves; as their excellent pastor, Mr. Chambers, is doing his best to impress upon their minds. Soon or late they will have the ballot given them. That way gravitates the wheel of political progress, which knows not retrogression. Whether this is to be a curse to the country, is dependent upon no one so much as themselves. The first step towards a desire for improvement is self respect and such meetings as this very creditable one cannot fail to produce it.4 For the rest of his life Chambers remained faithful to Lincoln’s effort to atone for America’s original sin, playing a public role at many Emancipation Proclamation anniversaries. Such events provided opportunities for him to relive with other participants the profound feelings of the moment of emancipation and to recall the hard history that had preceded that blessed time. To commemorate Lincoln’s announcement of the forthcoming emancipation (22 September 1862), Chambers organized a joint event for 15 September 1869 with Rev. Henry Harrison Lewis, his

3 Recorder, 1 May 1869. This newspaper frequently reported gifts to pastors of cloth or suits, as amec clerical garb was perhaps becoming more standardized. 4 Recorder, 23 January 1869, quoting from the Bridgeton Chronicle. All citizens of the United States were guaranteed the franchise by the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, ratified on 8 February 1870. The Bridgeton Chronicle did not anticipate future Jim Crow laws.

Figure 7.1 | The Christian Recorder, 22 November 1877. Chambers called the weekly “a pleasant visitor” and worked to increase subscriptions.

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counterpart at Mount Pisgah ame church in Salem, New Jersey. This time he arranged with the West Jersey Railroad Company, which ran trains between Philadelphia, Salem, and Bridgeton, for excursion tickets on “reasonable terms.”5 This was the first of many such expeditions – usually to wooded groves or designated campgrounds – that he organized either for his own congregation or on behalf of several church communities. These outings often involved travel by train or steamer and were almost always held in summer, when the heat of the day could be stifling. Chambers had a gift for organization of this kind and became well known and greatly appreciated for it. After his return to the United States, one pleasure that awaited Chambers every week was the arrival of the Christian Recorder, the amec weekly newspaper. In a January 1870 letter to that journal from Bridgeton he described the paper as “a pleasant visitor” and thanked the editor in particular “for introducing among us as a race, the beautiful little visitor, the Child’s Recorder.” The “glorious future of our race,” he asserted, “lies in our children.” But it also lay in the quest for righteousness and justice, which in turn meant abstinence: “let us support our churches, associations and papers, the cause of temperance, [and] total abstinence from rum and tobacco. Can a man be a Christian and drink rum? I think not − for nature has certain laws that must not be violated. Rum and tobacco are both injurious.”6 This was a continuing cause in Chambers’s long ministry. Though Bridgeton was his only posting in New Jersey, Chambers’s energy for preaching, Sabbath schools, expeditions, and temperance quickly made him well known in the state, and when the New Jersey conference of the amec was split off from the Philadelphia District in 1872, he was appointed a visitor to it; this appointment was renewed in 1874.7

f r a n k f ord Meanwhile in 1870 he had been posted to Campbell ame church in Frankford, a northeastern Philadelphia suburb in the Twenty-third Ward. His family was living there when, on 18 June, an enumerator

5 Philadelphia Inquirer, 19 August 1869 (hereafter, Inquirer). 6 Recorder, 22 January 1870 7 Morgan, History of the New Jersey Conference, 103, 107, 131.

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for the 1870 national census gathered information about them, some of it inaccurate. Lewis and Ann were both incorrectly recorded as illiterate, and Josephine was recorded as Joseph. At the time of the census Lewis C. (aged thirteen and born in Canada) was attending school, while Julie (aged fifteen and born in New Jersey, likely Carthagenia) and Adele (aged seven and born in Canada) were at home.8 The census gave no record of Angella (born 1850 in New Jersey), Victoria (born ca. 1859 in Canada), or the daughter born in London, Canada West, in July 1861. (Sadly, son Lewis Constantin Chambers died on 2 October 1871 of tuberculosis and was buried in Frankford.)9 By the time the Chambers family moved to the amec parsonage there, Frankford had grown from a small manufacturing town specializing in textile production to a thriving borough of Philadelphia (annexed in 1854). Several of the residents listed in the 1870 census and living near the Chambers household were categorized occupationally as weavers, wool spinners, or mill workers. Dating from 1807, Campbell had the distinction of being the second ame church established after the much-loved Mother Bethel was built in downtown Philadelphia. It was probably named for Jabez Pitt Campbell (1815–1891), the eighth amec bishop, who had served in Frankford early in his preaching career and had been an early editor of the Christian Recorder. During Chambers’s first year in Frankford, the Campbell congregation employed a Black contractor to erect a new church building, an imposing structure that stands to this day.10 A “grand rally and cornerstone laying,” involving both parishioners and interested “white persons” from the general community, was planned for 14 August 1870. For the occasion, a visiting cleric had been invited to speak, but when he did not show up, Chambers did the honours, his remarks evoking this commendation in the Christian Recorder:

8 U.S. Federal Census, 1870, Philadelphia, Ward 23, District 75, Roll: M5931410, page 140A. 9 Pennsylvania, Philadelphia City Death Certificates, 1803–1915 (accessible on Ancestry.com) 10 Hooper, From Refuge to Strength, 27. Confusingly, I have found four different dates for the founding of Campbell ame church: 1805, 1807, 1817, and 1836.

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[H]e came forward and delivered one of the most interesting discourses we have heard for some time, holding the audience, disappointed as they were, almost to a man, until he had gotten through. And independent of taking sixty dollars more out of the audience, he proved by his stoic disposition and indefatigable effort, that [neither] things present nor things to come, (even if they were ministers) could daunt him in his exertions, nor separate him from his purpose. We say, therefore (judging the future by the past,) we believe that the Bishop has favored Frankford, and that L.C. Chambers is now inhabiting just the right spot on this little planet. His untiring zeal, his sharp, short and decisive action, together with his physical construction and mental ponderability, is indispensable in his present arduous undertaking. And his friends say, they intend to bolster him both while he blows the horn and builds the temple.11 A few days later, to mark work on the installation of the roof, Chambers organized a “grand musical convocation” at Smith’s Grove, where a day of speeches, choir performances, and “festive, social and various athletic pleasures” resulted in a “net profit of seventy-five or eighty dollars to be added to the church fund.” Later the same month, he sponsored a meeting in the Odd Fellows’ Hall, at which the speaker was Isaiah C. Wears, “the great political economist of the age.”12 This event was also a fundraiser for the new church building. Little wonder that the Christian Recorder praised Brother Chambers for performing “the work of an itinerant minister with Herculean strength,” noting that he paid all his contracts as work proceeded “and sometimes in advance.”13

11 Lewis N. Bedford, “A Great Day in Frankford,” Recorder, 3 September 1870. Bedford was secretary of the Frankford amec building committee. Lists of subscribers to the new church, published in succeeding issues of the Recorder, show that many “white gentlemen” were generous donors to the building fund. Bedford knew his Bible well. In his description of Chambers’s coming to the rescue, he paraphrased Romans 8:38–9: “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 12 Recorder, 24 September 1870. 13 Recorder, 17 September 1870. In 1879 both Wears and Chambers were

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w e s t p h il a d e l p h ia a n d germantown In 1873, Chambers was assigned for one year only to the Germantown circuit in Philadelphia, an area west of the Schuylkill River that included Mount Pisgah and the West Philadelphia ame church.14 That September, he and Rev. Theodore Gould organized a “Grand Union Excursion” to Atlantic City, New Jersey, for the parishioners of Mount Pisgah and the Allen Chapel in downtown Philadelphia. Tickets cost $1.50 for adults and $0.75 for children, and the event was promoted in the Christian Recorder: “That Christian Pic-nic ought to be patronized by Christian people especially for the pains [that] will get taken to guarantee the peaceful celebration of the day. They will be permitted to look upon Old Ocean for upwards of nine hours, and snuff in the pure breezes that he carries before him.”15 From 18 to 23 September 1873 Chambers was back in Frankford for a “village camp-meeting.” Prayer meetings and services were scheduled, with the public invited to attend. A “Grand Rally” on the last day was intended to raise funds “to meet the debt on the church, which is fourteen hundred dollars.” Not surprisingly, Chambers was one of the preachers at this event.16 Though he was now busily engaged in ministry away from Frankford, his daughter Josephine probably still lived there; she was secretary of the “Campbell’s Chapel Sunday school” and an active member of the Sunday School Teachers’ Union.17 While Chambers was posted to Germantown, the local amec congregation, which was outgrowing its existing church building, bought the adjoining lot for the purpose of building anew. Chambers, by nature a builder, was confident of success, writing in the Christian Recorder,

on the publishing board of the Recorder, which could explain why Chambers’s doings in Frankford were given so much press. 14 Recorder, 15 May 1873. The 12 June 1873 issue included Chambers’s notice of quarterly meetings to be held at both churches that month. The issue of 11 December 1873 gave notice of meetings in December 1873 and January 1874. Chambers always gave priority to holding quarterly meetings on schedule. 15 Recorder, 24 July 1873 and 21 August 1873. 16 Recorder, 11 September 1873. 17 Recorder, 26 March 1874.

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“It is a handsome property; the people are a working people: they have money now in hand to commence building at an early day.” He likewise encouraged the congregation at West Philadelphia to raise funds to purchase an organ and saluted the raising of almost $300 for support of the church’s school. However, he was not long in West Philadelphia to enjoy its music; nor was he in Germantown when the new church building was constructed. By that time, he was pastor at Asbury ame church in Chester, Delaware County, where he had been reassigned in 1874 by Bishop James A. Shorter.18

chester Connected to Philadelphia by two railroads, Chester was an old settlement located southwest of the city on the Delaware River, well known for shipbuilding and allied industries. Asbury ame church had been organized in 1845, and when a new church building was erected by the congregation in 1863, it was named to honour Francis Asbury, an English Methodist minister who had greatly influenced religious life in the area. (Richard Allen, the founding father of the amec in Philadelphia, had been ordained by Asbury.)19 In his new posting Chambers assumed leadership of a church steeped in Black history, but he also inherited a congregation with a debt of $400 and a church building that “looked more like a barrack than a place for the worship of God.” The congregation was “disenheartened,” and the county sheriff “had threatened to sell them out within six months.” With encouragement, good preaching, and careful stewardship, Chambers rebuilt morale and confidence, which led to larger collections and successful fundraising efforts. In short order, the debt was retired and an organ bought for use by the church and Sabbath school.20 Subsequently, the outside of the church was

18 Recorder, 18 June 1874. 19 For the history of Asbury Church, see Ashmead, History of Delaware County, 345. Asbury had preached in Chester in 1772–73. For an account of his life see “Francis Asbury,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Francis_Asbury (accessed 12 May 2020). 20 Recorder, 11 May 1876. The article describing Asbury’s success in retiring its debt was written by R.H. Hamilton who was hired by Chambers as church organist. See Recorder, 3 February 1876.

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rough-casted, the inside repaired, and the street paved and curbed. All of this was accomplished, moreover, without “spiritual interest” being neglected. In the Christian Recorder for April 1877, Chambers had this to say on the subject: “We feel the deliverance of God and he has poured out his spirit upon us and we have had a glorious revival which lasted about three weeks; at which time there were about forty or fifty conversions, thirty-five joined our Church.”21 This was but one of many special events that Chambers organized while he was pastor at Asbury, often with fundraising in mind. Early in his tenure there, he preached at a “woods meeting” held just outside Chester on Mr Gearey’s property. The event was “well attended by people of both colors” and was “orderly and successful.”22 In July 1874 he and the superintendent of the East District Sabbath schools organized a grand excursion to Riverside, New Jersey, for which they chartered the steamer Ariel. An announcement of the forthcoming event in the Christian Recorder made known that the ship would “touch at Arch St wharf at 9:00 am for the accommodation of those Philadelphians who may wish to go. The affair promises to be one of real enjoyment. Adult tickets 60 cts, children under twelve 30 cts.”23 In August 1874 Chambers and his trustees at Asbury Church held a “Temperance Harvest Home” with lunch at “the grove” and addresses given indoors by various amec preachers.24 In the summer of 1875 he again chartered a steamer to transport Philadelphians ready for a day downriver to Chester for a “Grand Rally.”25 Another busy summer season followed in 1876. In July, with friends and fellow elders Theodore Gould and Henry H. Lewis, he organized a celebration of Sabbath schools at Glenolden Park.26 Trains left Philadelphia and Chester in time to deliver children, parents, and teachers to the pavilion for planned exercises and much music.27

21 Recorder, 19 April 1877. 22 Wilmington Daily Commercial (Wilmington, Delaware), 14 September 1874. 23 Recorder, 25 June 1874. 24 Recorder, 27 August 1874. 25 Recorder, 8 July 1875. 26 Glenolden is a borough in southwestern Philadelphia. Its picnic grounds were popular with church groups. 27 Recorder, 27 July 1876.

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From 10 to 17 August, Chambers was one of the organizers for his amec district of “a Grand Fraternal Centennial Camp Meeting,” held at the Chester Heights Camp Ground. This venue, situated on the “Baltimore Central Railroad, 21 miles from Philadelphia” and about 20 miles north of Chester, had been established only four years earlier but had quickly become a popular venue for excursions and religious camp meetings. Chambers and his committee promised prospective attendees a week that would be profitable “to both soul and body.”28 His colleagues in this particular effort included Bishop J.P. Campbell (for whom the Campbell ame church in Frankford had been named) and Henry H. Lewis (with whom Chambers had organized the Emancipation Proclamation anniversary celebration in Salem, New Jersey). Clearly, he was making a mark in his amec district as someone who could get things done, and who relished outdoor celebrations. He organized Emancipation Proclamation commemorations that were held in the church on New Year’s Day of both 1876 and 1877. Those assembled in 1876 heard the choir sing a work composed by Chambers himself,29 and the next year the event was well attended in the face of adverse weather conditions.30 Chambers also found his way onto the executive committee of the amec publication department, known as the Book Concern. During his time as a missionary in Canada he had frequently mentioned in his letters the importance to him of the American Missionary, the monthly journal of the ama . Now the amec ’s weekly, The Christian Recorder, was playing the same role in his new life. It was brought out by the Book Concern, which also published hymnbooks, the Doctrine and Discipline of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the minutes of amec conferences, and much more. Chambers promoted subscriptions to the Recorder among his congregants and in August 1876 was one of a group of elders who signed up to sell twenty-five copies per week.31 That same year, he became vice-president of the amec ’s publishing arm, and in 1877 he became its

28 Inquirer, 9 August 1876. For the history of the campground see Matthew Simpson, Cyclopaedia of Methodism, 202. 29 Recorder, 13 January 1876. 30 Recorder, 4 January 1877. 31 Recorder, 31 August 1876.

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president.32 In this role he gave priority to institutional finances and, in August 1877, campaigned for more subscriptions to enable the paper’s debt to be retired in a timely fashion. “We ought,” he urged, “to procure five thousand new readers between this and the first of next January, and we ought to do it from principle, love of church, love of race, and not from the standpoint of individual profit.” His appeal brought a gratifying response from across the country.33 Chambers’s Canadian correspondence had highlighted his concern over domestic accounts, with the many claims on Whipple for the payment of his stipend figuring prominently in his letters. His zeal for financial rectitude carried over into his ministry in Philadelphia and area churches, and at Asbury and elsewhere it was evidenced in his concern for retiring debt, his enthusiasm for fundraising events, and his ability to persuade others to reach deep into their pockets for worthy causes. Versatile and dedicated, Chambers made a mark early in his American ministry as a man of many talents. At some point in his time at Chester, Chambers invited Edwin N. Yelland to preach at Asbury. Yelland had been a Methodist lay preacher in England and had had a mixed career in business there. In his early manhood he experienced a call (by his own recollection) from “the great Head of the Church,” telling him that he would be inspired “to preach to the colored people and be a messenger to them.” Around 1876, Yelland emigrated to the United States and, while “sick and broken down,” visited his sister in Chester. It was on this occasion that Chambers invited him to preach at Asbury. Thus began a long and fruitful connection between Yelland and the amec. He later set himself up in business in Philadelphia and was ordained in the Congregational Church. Thereafter he preached as a guest minister in many Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congregational pulpits and became a generous donor to Wilberforce University, an amec educational foundation.34

32 Recorder, 16 November 1876 and 21 June 1877. 33 Recorder, 2 August 1877. Subsequent issues of the Recorder published lists of clergy, giving the number of copies they had agreed to sell to their congregations. 34 “Wiping the Color Line,” Recorder, 2 April 1885. The Recorder frequently printed articles by and about Yelland, who published a memoir in which he mentioned Chambers. For more information about Yelland see “Edwin

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m o u n t p i sgah At the Philadelphia District ame conference held in Wilmington, Delaware, in May 1877, Chambers was appointed to three church committees (those dealing with temperance, finance, and public worship)35 and was reassigned to Mount Pisgah Church in West Philadelphia.36 In announcing his move, the Delaware County’s Chester Daily Times described him as “a positive, self-possessed, practical business man, a worthy preacher and a good church and school master, much beloved by his people, who would have desired his continuance; but the disciplinary regulations of the church ordered otherwise.”37 In fact, he was back in Chester during the next month for an all-day temperance meeting in the Tuscarora Hall. In the words of the promoters of this gathering, the “great question of temperance” required that “each church, temperance organization, or society of any kind whatever willing to take hold of this work” should send members to the meeting, where they would be addressed by “eminent and able speakers,” with a full choir present, and lunch provided for visitors.38 Chambers was one of the speakers and, the Daily Times reported, one of the pastors who had called for the day of “prayer, praise and consultation.” His involvement was in keeping with a central cause of his ministry: the belief that temperance pledge and practice were the means of breaking physical and spiritual enslavement to the forces of evil. Black migration from the southern states had long favoured Philadelphia and continued to do so after the Civil War as part of a demographic shift that foreshadowed the great migration of the twentieth century. Although originally Blacks had largely congregated downtown in Philadelphia’s seventh ward, during Chambers’s lifetime the growth of their numbers was evident in newer boroughs

Yelland,” Liz’s Family Tree, https://www.lizandstu.com/getperson.php?personID=P9180&tree=hooper (accessed 30 May 2020). 35 News Journal (Wilmington, Delaware), 10 May 1877. 36 In the Bible (Deuteronomy 34:1–4), Moses is shown the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob from the summit of Mount Pisgah. 37 Chester Daily Times, 28 May 1877. 38 Chester Daily Times, 13 June 1877.

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like West Philadelphia, across the Schuylkill River.39 The origins of the Mount Pisgah congregation date from around 1831; its members began meeting in a home on Ludlow Street in 1833, and a church building was constructed on Locust Street in 1847.40 This was a common pattern of development in ame churches – one that Chambers well understood, given his experience while serving with the bmec . A few months after becoming elder at Mount Pisgah, he organized a Grand Rally, held there on 30 September 1877, “for the purpose of raising funds to liquidate the indebtedness” of the church.41 On 1 January 1878, Philadelphians remembered the enactment of the Emancipation Proclamation in two sessions held at the Concert Hall on Chestnut Street. The chairman of the organizing committee was William Still, a leader of the Underground Railroad and the archivist of its records. Chambers introduced Still, the Emancipation Proclamation was read, an amec choir sang, and many stirring speeches were heard. Those who attended in the evening heard from Isaiah C. Wears, a close associate of Still and a public figure who had long advocated for Black suffrage, Black representation in city employment, and Black participation in local politics.42 In its report on Wears’s speech, the Philadelphia Times gave this account of his thinking about the broader implications of the end of slavery: “The emancipation meant more than the setting at liberty of 4,000,000 slaves, it meant the moral disinthrallment of 30,000,000 whites. Not alone was the negro benefited. The white race can now feel

39 Hooper, From Refuge to Strength, 16. For a far more detailed analysis see also Du Bois, Philadelphia Negro. 40 For the history of the church see “Church History,” Mount Pisgah African Methodist Episcopal Church website, https://www.mtpisgahamec.org/church_ history (accessed 12 May 2020). In 1867 the church had 116 members, had property valued at $4,600, and paid its minister $430. See Du Bois, Philadelphia Negro, 200. The present-day church, built 1943–44, is at 428 North 41st Street. I have traced church locations through city directories and press reports of amec Philadelphia Conference appointments. 41 Recorder, 20 September 1877. 42 For biographical information about Still see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ William_Still (accessed 14 May 2020). Isaiah C. Wears was an almost exact contemporary of Chambers. For his political career see Silcox, “Black ‘Better Class,’” 45–66.

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self-respect. But the value of the negro is not yet understood, not even by himself.” The Black American had not yet reaped the benefits of emancipation and had much work to do: “He must go into the stores, the factories, the whole business world. Education is desirable, but are not the schools – the very schools built by his labor – closed to the negro?”43 This was a clarion call to political action, something in which Chambers eventually became involved. Later in 1878, however, he became embroiled in a controversy at Mount Pisgah after he had dismissed both a deacon and a member of the board of trustees for moral failing. This action triggered an uprising in the board and the congregation, and accusations that he had exceeded his authority in taking this action and was being high-handed in matters of church finances and governance generally.44 Claiming that their church was in fact independent of amec authority and that Chambers was responsible for smaller attendance at services and for reduced collection revenue, his critics locked him out of the church for three Sundays. On the Sunday following this lockout, Chambers arrived at the church with a letter from amec Bishop Daniel Payne in support of his claim to be pastor, and with a court injunction in his favour. Finding the door unlocked, he entered the church, intending to officiate at worship, only to be met with a hostile response. He was physically removed from the pulpit, and blows were exchanged between his supporters and their opponents, whereupon the police arrived to restore order. In a hearing that followed before a magistrate, Chambers and three other church members were held on bail of $500 each to keep the peace, with that sum being provided in Chambers’s case by William Still. The melee at the church was the subject of a lively report in the Philadelphia Times,45 while the Christian Recorder had this to say: “Mt Pisgah Church ought to go to the whites, as nothing but a white preacher will get along over there with those turbulent folks.”46 Chambers was at the nadir of his ministry.

43 Philadelphia Times, 2 January 1878 (hereafter Times). 44 Chambers’s version of the events at Mount Pisgah was published in the Recorder, 28 November 1878. 45 Times, 26 November 1878. 46 Recorder, 28 November 1878.

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Following the uproar, the bishop sent Rev. M.F. Sluby to Mount Pisgah to officiate in Chambers’s stead. Sluby reinstated the ousted trustee, but at the next amec conference (held in Reading, Pennsylvania, in May 1879) he was taken to task for this action, tried for maladministration, and made subject to reproof at the discretion of the bishop. The latter proved to be magnanimous: “convinced that the error of Brother Sluby was only of the head and not of the heart,” he “forgave him with the injunction to endeavor to use better judgment in the future.”47 For his part, Chambers had spent the intervening months at Bridgeton and Gouldtown, New Jersey.48

w e s t c h e ster After that brief “banishment” Chambers was posted to West Chester, the seat of Chester County, around twenty miles west of Philadelphia, and upcountry from both Chester Heights Campground and Chester itself (home to Asbury ame church). The congregation had begun building its first church in around 1835, changed location twice, and now occupied a brick edifice on East Miner Street. When Chambers became pastor in 1880, the church boasted an active Sabbath school and a well-stocked library.49 After he had been there for some months, Chambers commented on his congregation: “The people of West Chester – I mean the colored people – are a wideawake class. As a general thing, they have but little encouragement from the political and religious white people. Injustice is very strong against our people, both educationally, religiously and politically; but I was much surprised, when I tried to learn the statistics of our

47 Reading Times, 15 May 1879. The 1878 edition of the Doctrine and Discipline of the African Methodist Episcopal Church was silent on the subject of whether a pastor could dismiss a trustee. Under the rules he could dismiss a steward, the action to be confirmed at the next quarterly meeting. The 1878 edition also provided that a congregation not following the direction of the amec conference could be dismissed from church ranks. This did not happen to Mount Pisgah, which remained within the fold of the Philadelphia District. 48 Recorder, 27 June 1889. His time ministering in Gouldtown is mentioned in a long autobiographical article entitled “Facts for Our People.” 49 See West Chester Daily News, West Chester Past and Present, 108.

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people, to find so many property holders. They are worth in the neighborhood of two or three hundred thousand dollars.”50 After visiting Chambers in West Chester, Rev. W.H. Bryant, an old friend, favoured the readers of the Christian Recorder with his observations about what he had seen and heard there. Chambers, Bryant wrote, was an answer to the prayers of his people and “enkindled and sustained a spirit of inspired devotion” in their hearts. But that was not all. “Secondary in importance, yet of considerable prominence, is the condition of the ‘temporalities’ of this society. Debts have been paid; the church enlarged, renovated and refurbished to a degree that while it suggests thrift, in no sense offends the most scrupulous fondness for a neatness conducive to religious worship.”51 On 4 June 1880 the Chambers family was enumerated in West Chester in the federal census taken that year. Lewis Chambers’s age was recorded as fifty-three and Ann’s as fifty. Only two of their daughters remained at home: Carthagenia (born in New Jersey) was recorded as twenty, and the Canadian-born Addie (Adele Marie) as fifteen.52 That summer, Chambers’s Sabbath school children joined with those of Asbury ame church, Murphy’s Chapel in South Chester, and the congregation from Linwood for a day away at the Chester Heights campground. There they were addressed by several seasoned preachers, including Chambers.53 The semi-rural ambience of West Chester, it seemed, suited him and his family well after the contretemps in West Philadelphia. In November the Chester Daily Times reported on an unexpected visit that the Chambers household had recently received one evening just after bedtime. The pastor was “just in the midst of his first nap, when he was awakened by an alarm at the door, which was soon opened, and to the surprise of the reverend gentleman, in filed a large number of his congregation,

50 Recorder, 28 April 1881. 51 Recorder, 19 February 1880. 52 1880 United States Federal Census, West Chester, Chester County, pa , Roll 1113, page 1150; Enumeration District 42. According to other censuses, Carthagenia was born in 1854, so she was twenty-six in 1880, and Adele Marie had been born in July 1863 and was thus almost seventeen. 53 Chester Daily Times, 18 August 1880. Linwood is further downriver from Chester in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.

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carrying with them provisions, groceries, etc., enough to ‘keep the wolf from the door’ for some time.”54 Fisticuffs had given way to fellowship. West Chester appears to have been the posting in which the Chambers family felt most at home. Very sadly for them, it was also the place where Lewis and Ann’s youngest child, Adele Marie (born in London, Canada West, on 26 July 1863), died on 28 January 1881.55 She had attended school in Bridgeton, New Jersey, and Frankford, had then studied at the Philadelphia Grammar School, and followed up with teacher training at the Girls’ Normal School.56 Highly recommended by all her school principals, she was remembered as “a worker in the Sabbath school ... an affectionate and dutiful daughter, a kind sister, and a lover of home.”57 A few months later, Chambers wrote about her loss in words that echoed passages in his Canadian correspondence about the death of young people: “Death has visited us and taken from us a daughter just in the bloom of youth. She fell asleep in the arms of Jesus. If it were not that Jesus allowed my lot to be cast among kind friends, I can’t tell what I would have done; but on the whole it has been sweet. All trials are sweet when we trust in Jesus.”58 At the next amec conference, held in Smyrna, Delaware, Chambers preached the sermon at the inaugural evening, choosing a text from Romans 12.59 His remarks were said to be “earnest and

54 Chester Daily Times, 6 November 1880. 55 That is the date given in her obituary in the Recorder, 3 February 1881. She was born before the family moved to St Catharines from London Township. 56 For a brief history of the school see Timothy Horning, “Public Education in Philadelphia: Philadelphia High School for Girls,” Philly History Blog, 2 February 2011, https://www.phillyhistory.org/blog/index.php/2011/02/ public-education-in-philadelphia-philadelphia-high-school-for-girls/. 57 Recorder, 3 February 1881. Her funeral service was held on 31 January 1881 at Bethel ame Church, West Chester. 58 Recorder, 28 April 1881. 59 Wilmington Morning News, 14 May 1881. The newspaper report incorrectly gave his text as Romans 12:21. In fact, Romans 12 has only fourteen verses. Given his audience, perhaps Chambers chose verse 2: “Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.” Or, perhaps he chose verses 12–13: “Rejoice in hope, be

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practical” and heard “by an audience that filled nearly every seat in the church.” The way in which Chambers had handled himself after the unfortunate differences at Mount Pisgah must have garnered respect from his amec conference colleagues. After finding C.H. Green, pastor of the church at Pottsville guilty of maladministration, they appointed Chambers and the embattled Sluby to visit “for the purposes of healing all differences in the church.” It was a mission that proved successful and won them kudos.60 In 1882, Chambers’s church in West Chester hosted the annual conference of the Philadelphia District and was described as “a neat brick structure and quite commodious” by the Wilmington (Delaware) Daily Republican. “In the lecture room, on the first floor,” the paper continued, “a substantial dinner was provided for the members of the body, this plan being more desirable for the dispatch of business than seeking private dwellings for the meal.”61 Local arrangements for accommodating visiting delegates to the conference were also praised in the Christian Recorder: “The generous, Christian spirit of the West Chester people looked after and cared for all who attended the conference. Some of the older members of the conference were heard to say that the kindness of the people reminded them of former days when the conference received a hearty welcome by all the people where it convened. We shall ever pray God’s blessings upon the good people of West Chester.”62 At this conference Chambers was appointed to standing committees on mission circuits and stations and on temperance, the latter being a subject close to his pastoral heart. He was also posted back to Germantown in Philadelphia, leaving West Chester after three happy years there. g e r m a n town

Chambers’s new posting was to Bethel Church on Centre Street in Germantown. This congregation had first gathered in a believer’s home and had erected its first church in around 1859. It exemplified

patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.” 60 Reading Times, 27 May 1881; Wilmington Morning News, 30 May 1881. 61 Daily Republican, 4 May 1882. 62 Recorder, 25 May 1882.

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the kind of neighbourliness admired by Chambers: it had shared its space with both the first school for Black children in Germantown and another Methodist congregation while that latter group of worshippers was building a church.63 On 20 and 27 August 1882, soon after Chambers had arrived, Bethel held “fields meetings,” described thus: “Persuading the people present to believe that God hath indeed made of one blood all peoples; and therein He became the Father of us all, and man becomes a brother. To such meetings as Brother Chambers holds, and we have attended them, we have no hesitation in giving our unqualified sanction. Always well conducted and therefore orderly, the talent he usually chooses has the opportunity of addressing and impressing a class of whites who otherwise could not be reached. Between the Sundays, Thursday 24th, there is to be a Harvest Home, where will be discussed temperance and kindred topics.”64 In September 1883 the Christian Recorder speculated that a larger church might be in Bethel’s future. “We have had occasion to speak of the goodly possibilities of this charge. But one thing alone prevents it from being placed in the very front ranks, to wit, a new church. While the present one is a real gem of beauty, yet it is entirely too small. Elder Chambers is holding the reins evenly.”65 Later that fall, however, Chambers was sidelined when he was stricken with lameness; for a week he could scarcely walk. In retrospect, he wrote later, his affliction had done him good because he had read much while laid up: “the Bible and other good books [and] The Christian Recorder, which comes regularly, bringing good news in reference to the advancement of our fallen race ... It speaks out fearlessly on subjects of interest and veracity in regard to religion and civil liberties.” His recovery was followed by a two-week closed revival meeting, designed to “get our hearts renewed as church members.” Ten-minute exhortations were alternated with singing and prayers: “the Lord opened the windows of heaven and poured out

63 For a brief history of the church, which continues to flourish, see “About Us,” New Bethel Church of Germantown, http://www.newbethelgtown.com/ about-us/ (accessed 17 May 2020). 64 Recorder, 10 August 1882. 65 Recorder, 20 September 1883. Sadly, in the previous month Lewis and Ann Maria had buried her mother in their plot in West Chester (Recorder, 16 August 1883).

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his holy spirit in a powerful manner to the conviction and conversion of many souls.”66 Every four years the amec held a General Conference, attended by bishops and delegates from each of the district annual conferences. Weighty matters were discussed and resolved at these sessions, and the report of proceedings took up many column inches in the Christian Recorder. With the 1884 conference scheduled to take place in Baltimore, Maryland, in early May, Chambers had advice for colleagues preparing to attend. In particular, he urged them to give priority to supporting “the great secret of the success of the a.m.e. Church,” the Publishing Department. “We cannot keep pace with this fast age,” he maintained, “without literature.” Whatever criticisms could be made of the publishing unit, members of the church had it in their power to make things better – by buying and selling books and papers, ceasing to complain, doing more and talking less.67 This was practical advice from a practical man. On 2 December 1884, led by Chambers, the people of Germantown remembered the twenty-fifth anniversary of the execution of John Brown. Calling Brown “one of the greatest spirits of our century,” the Christian Recorder noted that the memorial event in Germantown seemingly had no counterpart elsewhere in the county, though Brown’s death had prompted “so strong a demand for freedom” that the “powers were obliged to yield.” As long as Chambers ministered, John Brown’s body, though “a-mouldering in the grave,” would not be forgotten. On Chambers’s last Sunday in the Germantown pulpit, incumbent bishop R.H. Cain visited the afternoon Sunday school and preached to the children. In the evening Chambers conducted his last service at Bethel, an event singled out in the Christian Recorder: “His last remarks, which were deeply felt, expressing his many kind thanks to the good people of Germantown, who, he said, had taken such good care of him the past three years. The old man seemed to be cheered up from the fact that peace and tranquility had prevailed, a perfect union all the time. He felt to be parting in peace and love. He administered the Lord’s Supper the last time ... With benediction and

66 Recorder, 7 February 1884. 67 Recorder, 24 April 1884.

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good night we parted with a faithful pastor.”68 After the upsets of the past, his time at Germantown must have been deeply satisfying to Chambers.

w e s t c h e ster At the amec conference of 1885, Chambers was posted again to West Chester and was made presiding elder for the Philadelphia District.69 According to the Doctrine and Discipline of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, a presiding elder was in charge of all elders, deacons, licentiates, local preachers, and exhorters in his district. He was expected to know all his pastors well and give them general assistance, preside at all quarterly conferences and meetings of churches in his district, preach at those events, make decisions involving church law, and remove preachers as required. The position was salaried, and candidates selected by the bishop were to be “the most experienced and best qualified elders of an Annual Conference ... men of high moral standing.”70 Chambers’s appointment signified the respect with which he was now held by both bishop and colleagues. Later in 1885, when the Morris Brown Mission (“a little a.m.e. society in Philadelphia, about eleven years old, having worshipped in a hired house during all this time”) moved into a newly purchased church building, Chambers was one of the elders thanked for guidance and support.71 In a missive that evoked many themes of his correspondence with Whipple and is emblematic of his mature ministry, Chambers wrote a letter to the editor of the Recorder, describing the warm reception he received on his return to West Chester:

mr editor: Please permit me a small space in our paper, the christian recorder, the best family visitor that we have. It comes to us regularly every week bringing good news from the various parts of the good work in our church, which shows it is no mean denomination and that our people are advancing in the scale of elevation. I am glad that the a.m.e. Church has the one

68 69 70 71

Recorder, 28 May 1885. Ibid. African Methodist Episcopal Church, Doctrine and Discipline (1896), 114–16. Recorder, 5 November 1885.

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great object in view to raise up the fallen, for if we as a race do not help ourselves, who will help us? It is said in the good old Book, “No man cared for my soul,” so there are but few men who care for our souls; therefore, if we will be respected we must respect ourselves. I feel that things look hopeful. Sunday, the 14th inst., was Children’s Day and it was a glad day. It passed off nicely, every thing was well timed. The collection was good, $18.56, our meeting was first class. Thank God for such an occasion that brings parents and children together. No pastor can help but feel edified deep down in his soul, when he calls to memory that the hope of the future church is in the children; and every pastor knows this to be a fact: to have a thriving flock, he must take care of the lambs. This is true of the nurseryman; he must take care of his young trees; if he fails to do so his fruit crop will fall short. I do feel that it is very befitting for me to say if a minister cannot work in the Sunday school and instruct the children of the parents who are members of his church, he is a very poor pastor and an object of pity, and the sooner he leaves the ministry the better it will be for him, for he is a lame man. This is my second appointment to this charge. First by Bishop D.A. Payne, I spent three pleasant years in this work, West Chester. From here I was appointed to Germantown, where I spent three years of great peace. I never had an unkind word with any one, and now after three years I am returned back again by Bishop Cain to West Chester. I arrived here on Saturday, May 23rd. I was met at the depot by Brother I. Smith’s clerk, who took my luggage to Brother Smith’s house, where I met his kind wife who received me very kindly indeed. When Brother Smith came home from his store we had tea. Our interview was pleasant. On the Lord’s Day May 24th, I met my congregation at 10:30. There were present Elder Hood and Patterson and a very large congregation of people. They met me with glad hearts and glad hands and I felt glad myself. The choir sang a very sweet piece, “Welcome, faithful pastor.” I took for my text the 122nd Psalm, 1st verse: “I was glad,” and the truth is I was glad; it makes me feel humble when I considered that it was through the goodness of God I am here. Well, I must say that I found things in a good condition. Elder Hood had held the fort well. On the following Friday, the 29th was our special meeting of the several classes. We had a large turn out on Sunday to quarterly meeting, preaching at 10:30 a.m. by Brother Burton, at 3 p.m.

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preaching and the Lord’s Supper administered to a large number; preaching at 8 p.m. by Elder Miller, of Chambersburg. On Monday evening was held our love-feast. This was a very large meeting and a good meeting. In speaking our experiences and breaking bread the spirit of God was felt with power in our hearts. On Monday 15th inst., the quarterly conference met at 8 o’clock p.m. Nearly all of the members were present and we had a very pleasant session. I feel much encouraged. I feel not to be here to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me, the Lord Jesus, and Him will I serve with my spirit, he being my helper. I met the teachers of the Sunday school on the 17th, and urged the great necessity of a strict adherence to the constitution of the Sunday school of the a.m.e. Church and Discipline, to use our own literature, the Child’s Recorder. We must not say that we are as the white people until we love to read our own books and papers. One of the things most needful I found wanting was The christian recorder and the Child’s Recorder. I feel without the recorder that there is something wanting in my family, and I do feel as a pastor, when I enter my Sabbath school and find no Child’s Recorder, that there is something wrong; and we, as ministers of the Lord Jesus in the a.m.e. Church, must feel that it is our duty to see that our own literature is in church service and Sabbath school. I am determined, by God’s help, to do my best; I have commenced the work in good faith. West Chester is a very pleasant place and has a very nice set of people. Our people are industrious and they have some “get up” about them. There are a hundred and forty-four real estate owners among them and many make their own living. There are six blacksmiths, and one man who carries on his own blacksmith shop; three carpenters, two grocery and provision stores, one confectionary, bread and cake bakery; two ice cream makers and restaurant keepers, one man in council, one police, four bricklayers, four shoe makers, two contractors, one hotel keeper, one cigar shop, and a number who owns horses and carts, buggies, cows and pigs. Two of the real estate owners are said to be worth $80,000, the others are worth from $1,000 to $10,000. You will see that people in West Chester have some vim.72

72 Recorder, 25 June 1885. Psalm 122 begins with the words “I was glad when they said unto me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord!’”

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On a very different note, in July 1885, as presiding elder in Philadelphia, Chambers officiated at the trial of Rev. Richard Miles, pastor of the Zion Mission Church, who was accused of “gross immorality” with a female member of his congregation. Attendance at the trial was limited to fellow clergy and members of the church’s boards of trustees and stewards who had evidence to give. In the event, the charge against the straying pastor was sustained, and he was removed from his post, with the expectation that at the next annual conference he would be expelled from the church. Having thus dealt with the business at hand, Elder Chambers then introduced John B. Stansbury to the boards of trustees and stewards as the new pastor at Zion Mission.73 No matter how busy his schedule, temperance issues remained at the fore of Chambers’s concerns. As a missionary in Canada he had established temperance societies, and since returning to the United States, he had promoted them in his pastoral work; he had a history of organizing and speaking at temperance rallies and was a member of several amec temperance committees. But he eventually became convinced that political action was required to get government out of “the hands of the rum sellers.” Accordingly, he joined the Prohibition Party, and on 13 August 1886 he was a delegate to its Chester County convention. This gathering in turn named him as a delegate to the Pennsylvania state convention, which was held in Harrisburg later the same month. The Harrisburg event reminded him “of a Methodist camp meeting; there were so many amens and glory and hallelujahs.”74 The convention nominated a full ticket for the next state elections, with the nominees including John M. Palmer, a fellow Black minister. He was nominated for congressman-at-large and was said by the Philadelphia Times to be “the first colored man ever presented by any convention for an important office in the State.”75 What impressed Chambers most about the Harrisburg convention was the unanimity of Black and white delegates when it came to the selection of candidates. Palmer’s name was put forward by a

73 This event was reported on 30 July 1886 by both the Philadelphia Times and the Inquirer. 74 Recorder, 23 September 1886. 75 Times, 8 October 1886.

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Figure 7.2 | A church group at the entrance to Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, West Chester, Pennsylvania, 1926. Bethel was the happiest posting of the Chambers family.

white minister, who said: “We are in favor of giving the colored man equal rights and believe that Mr. Palmer is worthy to be nominated.” Then, according to Chambers, “every delegate rose and voted for Mr. Palmer. I felt a little like saying with the good man in the New Testament, ‘Now, Lord, mine eyes have seen the salvation, let me depart in peace.’ I never met with a body of men where there was so much talent and so much Christian love. There is more Christ in prohibition than in the whole American church. It is free from the spirit of caste. I feel down in my soul that this third party is the party in which the black man is to get his rights. God is on our side, we have nothing to fear. Prohibition is the party to prohibit the

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manufacture and sale of ardent spirits. O, you lovers of Jesus, will you help to put down the rum traffic?”76 As the state election day approached, the Times published an article, “Palmer and Prohibition,” in which it interviewed Philadelphia clergy on how they predicted Blacks would vote. Chambers was quoted as saying: “Every Christian minister should vote the whole ticket. Palmer is the first man in the history of any party in this State to be placed on the State ticket. He was nominated by white men and will be voted for by white men, and I hope our race will show their appreciation of this step by giving him such a vote as will insure his election.”77 On election day, however, the Republican candidate, E.S. Osborne, bested Palmer.78 For the moment, vox populi did not accord with Chambers’s vox dei. z io n

m is si on

In 1887, Chambers was posted to Zion Mission at Seventh and Dickinson streets in inner-city Philadelphia. Zion had been formed in 1852 as a mission offspring of Mother Bethel and was located south of its parent church and closer to the docks lining the Delaware River.79 By the time Chambers held the Zion Mission’s quarterly meeting of October 1887, under his encouragement the congregation had raised enough to pay down the church’s debts.80 Chambers’s energy for excursions to celebrate the emancipation of slaves continued to be a feature of his ministry; in the words of the Christian Recorder, he never lost “an opportunity to show

76 Recorder, 23 September 1886. Chambers refers here to the utterance of Simeon on seeing the baby Jesus, who had been brought to the temple in Jerusalem by Joseph and Mary. His words, given in Luke 2:29–32, and known as the nunc dimittis, were, “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation.” 77 Times, 18 October 1886. Quoted as printed, but perhaps Chambers had actually said that Palmer was the “first Black man in the history of any party.” 78 Times, 4 November 1886. 79 Hooper, From Refuge to Strength, 13, 15. In 1857, Zion boasted 120 members, with a capacity for 250 in the mission. Its building was 396 square feet in area and was valued at $800. 80 Recorder, 13 October 1887.

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his appreciation of freedom. Every year he celebrates the anniversary [of] liberation of slaves either in the British W[est] I[ndies] or the United States.” Under his aegis, Zion Mission ran August trips to the Chester Heights campground in 1886 and 1887.81 In 1889, at a similar “freedom anniversary” for the “colored people of Bucks County, Philadelphia and New Jersey,” held at Oakland Grove near Bristol, Chambers gave one of the “stirring” addresses that was heard by those assembled.82 The Grove boasted “a large pavilion and plenty of good order, flying horses, swings and baseball grounds,” and the event celebrated the “freedom of the slaves in the West Indies, in Brazil, [and] in the great emancipation in the United States in 1863; there can be no greater cause for joy and gladness than now, for old Babylon, the stronghold of slavery has fallen to rise no more.”83 What the Christian Recorder styled a “bush meeting” was a great success, and Chambers was given full credit for his role in it: “Elder Chambers is a wise, honest and faithful leader. He makes straight paths.”84 These words must have been gratifying to Chambers, who only months before had been troubled of mind, a circumstance attributable perhaps to the recent publication by the Book Concern of the minutes of the General Conference of the amec (held in Indianapolis in May 1888).85 In reporting on one matter debated, the minutes included the suggestion that “old men” should get out of the way so that younger men could fill the preaching ranks. Chambers was wounded by the suggestion and gave voice to his feelings in an article, “Facts for the People,” which he contributed to the Christian Recorder. “The old men who have done the work and labored to build churches, dragging their wives and little children all over the land, sometimes hungry, wet and cold without homes, always making friends and never getting any, then die like old horses, leaving their poor wives without friends, among strangers, at the mercy of the annual conference. She may get $50; sometimes $10 to $25.

81 Recorder, 8 July 1886; Times, 5 August 1887. 82 Bucks County Gazette (Bristol), 15 August 1889. 83 Recorder, 11 July 1889. 84 Recorder, 3 October 1889. 85 The printed minutes were advertised for sale in the Recorder as early as the 6 June 1889 issue of the paper.

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This is our fate and who will care for our wives and give them a decent burial. God helps me to try to save a little something for my family. I should [not] leave them to the mercy of the cold-hearted co-laborers whom I have tried to assist.”86 But Chambers was not a man to indulge in self-pity and, in the same article, praised the General Conference minutes for what they said on the use of alcoholic and malt liquors and tobacco. He encouraged everyone to read all amec publications, especially those minutes. “Take and read! Take and read,” he urged.87 Had he lived long enough to read the 1899 study of the “Philadelphia Negro” by the Black sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois, Chambers would have found support for some of his own views of ministry: “The Methodist minister is the appointed steward of a large corporation, of which his particular church is a small part. His success depends upon the way in which he conducts this church: his financial success, his efforts to increase church membership and his personal popularity. The result is that the colored Methodist minister is generally a wide-awake business man, with something of the politician in his make-up, who is sometimes an inspiring and valuable leader of men; in other cases he may develop into a loud but wily talker, who induces the mass of Negroes to put into fine church edifices money which ought to go to charity or business enterprise.” Elsewhere in his study, Du Bois described the average Black preacher in Philadelphia as “a shrewd manager, a respectable man, a good talker, a pleasant companion, but neither learned nor spiritual, nor a reformer.” Ignoring the spiritual dimension that meant so much to Chambers and is so evident in his Canadian letters, Du Bois characterized African Methodist ministers who were leading the larger congregations as “men of striking personality” with a “genius for leadership and organization.” Chambers certainly exhibited all this, but the whole man can be understood only in terms of his deeply felt religiosity, and with that Du Bois was known not to be in sympathy.88

86 Chambers is referring to the practice of a collection being taken up at amec conferences to assist the widow of a recently deceased clergyman. 87 Recorder, 27 June 1889. Perhaps there are echoes in Chambers’s words of the hardships experienced by his family in Canada West. 88 Du Bois, Philadelphia Negro, 112, 206. In his introduction to the edition of Du Bois’s study that I have used, Elijah Anderson explained that Du Bois’s

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b r is to l At the annual conference held in Philadelphia in May 1889, Chambers was not put out to pasture as he seemed to fear but instead was appointed to Bethel ame church in Bristol, a town situated east of Philadelphia and across the Delaware River from Burlington Township, New Jersey, where he had owned a farm before moving to Canada in 1854. This particular circuit also included Bensalem, a smaller centre located a few miles north of Bristol. On 26 February 1890, while he was thus assigned, Ann Maria, his wife of forty-four years, died in Philadelphia at the age of seventy-two. They had lived eventful lives together in two states and two countries, on farms, and in both young and growing cities, while raising and losing children, and ministering in a variety of settings. Ann Maria was buried in West Chester, and an obituary in the Christian Recorder gave this sensitive account of her: “She was an exception among women as a minister’s wife. She never had an indifferent word with a member of the church where her husband was pastor. She was beloved by all who knew her. She was unassuming, had no pretensions; what she was could always be seen. Ever charitable, a great heart for humanity, always cheerful and hopeful, cheering her husband often when sad and despondent. She was very active, always finding something to do; a kind, affectionate wife and mother, a lover of home, easily made satisfied, seldom complaining ... She leaves a husband, two daughters and a sister to mourn her loss.”89 At the Philadelphia District convention held that May in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, she was remembered and eulogized among the deceased of the previous year.90

time at Wilberforce University before he worked in Philadelphia turned him against evangelical religions and their “emotional religiosity.” This was perhaps why he “gave black churches very short shrift in The Philadelphia Negro.” 89 Recorder, 20 March 1890. Ann Maria Chambers had had eight children: only two survived her. At Chambers’s death in 1900, only one was still alive: Carthagenia, who was enumerated in the census of that year in Bensalem, Pennsylvania. 90 Carlisle Weekly Herald, 22 May 1890.

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At that conference Chambers, now a widower but still in harness, gave an account of the finances of his church in Bristol and was appointed to three committees: judiciary, memoirs, and temperance.91 In an 1891 commentary on the churches and circuits in the Philadelphia District, Rev. C.T. Shaffer found that the people of Bristol had “the highest regard for the moral purity and Christian integrity of their pastor.” Having held a bazaar that realized about $200, they paid their pastor’s salary in advance.”92 En passant, Shaffer noted that the Bristol circuit included Bensalem, “the latter a small point almost entirely composed of sisters who, to the ability God giveth, do well; but being without male members to lead off and depend upon, the work drags somewhat.” At two o’clock on the morning of 23 February 1891, Chambers was moved to get out of his bed and write to the Christian Recorder on the subject of “the Jews and the Negro.” What stirred him to action was a report that a Black Philadelphian who had applied for membership to the local synagogue, “intending to submit to all requirements of that most ancient church,” had been refused membership by the resident rabbi on the grounds that members “were determined to maintain the purity of the race.” Chambers cited many instances in the Old Testament where Jews had taken women from other races as wives or concubines, with the consequent intermingling contributing to the present Hebrew race. After further theological discussion he concluded: “I have not much sympathy for that colored man attempting to become a Jew. This is what is killing the Negro today. He wants to get away from himself. Some black Negroes are always complaining about their color. Some too light, some too black, or something the matter with their hair, trying to crush each other down and to prevent the intermediate progress. They wish to make us believe that everything that is pure and good is white.”93 With this, he left the topic behind. In January 1893, Chambers returned to his home state of Maryland to preach at revival services held at Trinity ame church in Baltimore. According to one observer, he “preached one of the most practical

91 Carlisle Weekly Herald, 15 May 1890. 92 Recorder, 19 March 1891. 93 Recorder, 9 April 1891. Chambers had read “Anxious to Be a Hebrew” on the front page of the Times, 26 January 1891.

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and convincing sermons” heard there “for some time.” Though the visiting elder was “about seventy-five years of age,” he was “an honorable and intelligent superannuated minister” and was of a mind to resume work “next spring.”94 As events unfolded, Chambers not only resumed work after this outing but on 3 March also married Elizabeth Drowden, a widow living in Langhorne Borough, Bucks County, and likely one of the “sisters” in the Bristol circuit about whom C.T. Shaffer had written.95

p o t t s town At the 1893 amec annual conference Chambers was posted to Pottstown,96 a thriving community of around 13,000, with iron and steel mills and many manufacturing concerns, situated northwest of Philadelphia on the road to Reading. The ame church there was thriving, and that summer Chambers organized a camp meeting for several thousand people at Sanatoga, a verdant place just east of the town.97 While thus engaged, he was also drawn into a tense situation that arose in West Chester, where he had so many friends. Trouble had erupted in Chester County during the summer of 1893. Several assaults on young white girls in the county, allegedly by Black men, stirred some members of the public to threaten taking the law into their own hands.98 The press in the Philadelphia area reported extensively on those events and on the so-called lynch law. On 6 August the Harrisburg Star Independent noted that seven “ruffians” were in jail charged with nine assaults and that assailants still at large had “escaped from crowds of angry men armed with shot guns in their pursuit.” If the “brutalities” continued, this paper provocatively asserted, Pennsylvania would “be forced to adopt lynch law as a remedy.”99

94 Recorder, 26 January 1893. 95 Marriage records, Pennsylvania marriages, various county register of wills offices, Pennsylvania. Available on Ancestry.com. 96 Recorder, 25 May 1893. 97 Times, 7 August 1893. 98 Times, 2 August 1893. 99 Reprinted in Times, 6 August 1893.

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In the following week the Philadelphia Times took the position that prompt trials for suspects were the best way to avoid a resort to lynch law.100 But a few days later this paper also shockingly turned its back on due process: “Those Chester county outrages won’t stop till some of the negro perpetrators are brought up with a round turn. Naturally the turn will be round a tree branch or a telegraph pole.”101 Against this alarming backdrop, on 14 August “over one hundred colored clergymen and laymen from Philadelphia, Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey,” Chambers among them, gathered together at the amec Book Rooms on Pine Street in Philadelphia. Chairing this historic meeting, Rev. N.D. Temple of Mount Pisgah’s ame church declared that the purpose of the meeting was “to protest the outrageous lynching of negro men throughout the length and breadth of this land.” The marked men, he asserted, “were lynched because they were only suspected of a crime, while in this city two men who a week ago assaulted an innocent woman are now behind the bars and will remain there for fifteen years. They were captured, tried, found guilty and sentenced to legal punishment in less than a week. Why cannot such law and order prevail elsewhere?”102 Following many speeches and much discussion, the assembled clergy passed three resolutions: the first, to form a league “to protest against the system of lynching as a relic of barbarism unfit to be tolerated in a free country”; the second, to appeal to the President of the United States “to see that justice be meted out to all those who have been, or who may be implicated in that class of murders commonly called ‘lynching’”; and the third, to express the gratitude of the city and state to “the courts of the city of Philadelphia for the prompt manner in which the assailants of Olien Neilson were brought to justice and punished.” (Neilson, a Swedish woman, had been assaulted in Philadelphia by two white men.) The legal title given to the anti-lynching league thus launched was the National Citizens’ Rights Association. In a letter to President Grover Cleveland the new body described its goal as being “to obtain equal justice for all races and conditions of men in the United States

100 Times, 11 August 1893. 101 Times, 15 August 1893. 102 Ibid. See also “Safe for Many Years,” Times, 12 August 1893.

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of America.” Included with this letter, which asked for the president’s endorsement, were the resolutions passed at the Pine Street meeting. Branches of the association were quickly formed in several towns and cities, including Pottstown, where Chambers was local organizer and president.103 The Philadelphia press was silent on whether or not President Cleveland ever responded to the call for action from the National Citizens’ Rights Association. Chambers’s final years were relatively quiet but characteristically dutiful and engaged. In 1896 he was appointed to the Philadelphia District’s temperance committee,104 and on 16 September 1897 he said the opening prayer at the district’s Sunday school convention.105 On 22 May 1899 he was one of the ministers who conducted a service at Mother Bethel Church in Philadelphia in connection with another amec convention.106 One of his last undertakings in the church that he had served so long was to hold Sabbath school exercises on 4 February 1900 at Campbell ame church in Frankford, where he had once been pastor.107 By this time he had sadly lost his daughter Josephine Hayden, who died on 29 June 1899. Born in Philadelphia, she had, according to her obituary notice, “accepted Christ in the city of New London, Canada West, when but 14 years of age ... and had joined the a.m.e. Church in Bridgeton, n.j. ” She had been “a faithful member and church worker for over 37 years,” and left to mourn were her husband Rufus and their extended family.108

103 Times, 16 August 1893. The Times quoted from the letter but did not report when it was sent. I recommend to readers “Lynching in America,” a chilling, contemporary report. A third edition was published in 2017 by the Equal Justice Initiative and can be read at https://lynchinginamerica.eji.org/ report/ (accessed 18 May 2020). 104 Reading Times, 4 June 1896. 105 Times, 17 September 1897. 106 Inquirer, 21 May 1899. 107 Recorder, 8 February 1900. 108 Recorder, 13 July 1899. Josephine Chambers’s extended family mentioned in her obituary likely included George and Rebecca Chambers, who were with the family in Dresden and London Township, Canada West, and whose names appear in Frankford directories and the 1880 census in Philadelphia. Her surviving sister was Carthagenia.

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Lewis Champion Chambers himself died in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, on 25 March 1900 and was buried in his beloved West Chester three days later. After the funeral had been held, but anticipating that final event, the Christian Recorder, for which he had worked so long and hard, published this obituary: The death of Rev. L.C. Chambers, a venerable and widely known ministerial landmark of the Philadelphia Conference, will be learnt with mingled surprise and sadness by his large circle of friends and brethren throughout the Church. For church loyalty and race devotion, but few are to be compared with the deceased veteran. His early ministry began in Canada, in the early fifties, under Bishop Nazrey, and he remained there until some time after the declaration of peace. The deceased was a striking exponent of orthodox Methodism as taught by Wesley. He was a believer in temperance without any compromise, and fought tobacco and alcoholism with an aggressive hand. He died at Bensalem, pa , in the 81st year of his age, after preaching the gospel 50 years. The preliminary funeral services took place on Wednesday, at his home in Bensalem, to be followed by final obsequies today at West Chester, where the interment will take place.109 No doubt it was a synopsis of his life that would have pleased him.

109 Recorder, 29 March 1900. Official death returns published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, 29 March 1900, gave Croyden as Chambers’s place of death, likely the centre where such events were registered. (Croyden is just west of Bristol and not far south of Bensalem.) His age at death was recorded as eighty-four years. This information and various censuses over the years date his birth between 1816 and 1818. Chambers certainly did not “rust out” at the age of sixty-five.

Conclusion

Chambers’s letters make very personal the struggles and modest successes he and other members of his “poor race” experienced while living in parts of Kent County, London, Ingersoll, St Thomas, St Catharines, and Hamilton, Canada West. Written during a span of just over eight years and covering the period of the American Civil War, they are a unique record of the lives of Blacks in that time and place. To my knowledge, no other such collection has survived the vicissitudes that ephemeral personal papers can suffer. Consequently, historians have had to piece together the history of African Canadians from the terse and impersonal data found in land transactions, assessment rolls, and census returns. Local newspapers often either ignored Blacks or reported their public presence with condescension. Bureaucratic records do not tell a story as rich as the one told by Rev. Lewis Chambers. Chambers’s missionary and pastoral work took him to many places in Canada West where he was both observer of and participant in the social and economic adaptation of American Black migrants to what was for many a cold and sometimes hostile land. His letters highlight his great pity for “members of my poor race” who were struggling to survive. They in turn reaped the benefit of his spiritual attentions and practical advice. Many of those to whom he ministered in Canada West were well settled, either in urban areas or on the land; they owned, leased, or rented property with security of tenure and possessed marketable skills as farmers, artisans, and labourers. But as an emissary for the American Missionary Association, Chambers also served newly arrived freedom seekers and the many Blacks who were still struggling to enter the mainstream of Canadian life. He minced

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no words in commenting on racial prejudice in Canada West, and his reports in this regard are borne out by many other contemporary accounts. His occasional letters to the Christian Recorder following his return to the United States continue a central theme of his Canadian correspondence with George Whipple: pride and confidence in his race and certainty about its resilience in the face of constant racism. Undeniably, the sure foundation of Lewis Chambers’s pride and confidence was his Christian faith, rooted in evangelical fervour and Methodist practice. The Great Awakening that brought this brand of Protestantism to the Thirteen Colonies carried with it the germ of abolitionism. The conviction that salvation in Christ was intended for everyone was at the heart of John Wesley’s message, and slavery was ultimately incompatible with this belief. Enslaved Blacks who heard the gospel preached through the inclusive message of Methodism could embrace spiritual freedom in advance of manumission or emancipation. Chambers was one of them. That Christ had a preferential option for the poor and marginalized (to use present-day terminology) was a thought that, by definition, had within it the hope of a better future life based upon freedom, equality, and justice. Those who converted to Methodism found both its doctrine and its discipline to be deeply fulfilling. Its doctrine of salvation for all erased false differences between people and of necessity called into question the relationship of slave and owner. That Christ urged his disciples to preach to all nations held out the promise that all races were worthy both to hear and to proclaim his Word. Moreover, the very organization of the Methodist community – its discipline – surrounded its adherents with care, friendship, and spiritual support. Belonging to intimate classes, small societies, and churches involved frequent gatherings in which adherents and members could learn from, listen to, and support each other, read the Bible or hear it read, and share experiences of repentance, conversion, faith, affirmation, and salvation. Methodism offered a religious practice that addressed the whole person – mind, body, heart, and soul; it involved the adherent with an amazing round of meetings: annual, class, concert, experience, prayer, protracted, revival, quarterly, watch, and love feast. Within that compass many first learned to read, and the Bible was their first book. Prayers, exhortations, and preaching appealed both to the intellect and to the heart. Singing the stirring Wesleyan hymns enabled adherents to express individual and collective emotion, so it was both creative and cathartic.

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Lewis Chambers was formed in this ethos, and the African Methodist Episcopal Church that he joined as a young man was the fruit of an American evangelical tradition that had deep roots: the fact that this church had been planted, tilled, and husbanded by Blacks was a compelling force for initial membership and continued growth. Its existence was an affirmation of both agency and legitimacy: Blacks were equal in the eyes of God and were entitled − and empowered − to determine their own future. In the view of W.E.B. Du Bois, the African church was at once tribe and family for American Blacks: “Its tribal functions are shown in its religious activity, its social authority and general guiding and co-ordinating work; its family functions are shown by the fact that the church is a centre of social life and intercourse; acts as newspaper and intelligence bureau, is the centre of amusements − indeed, is the world in which the Negro moves and acts.”1 The destruction of stable families and communities under slavery could be addressed, at least in part, by belonging to and ministering in such a church. Managing their own church gave Black Americans invaluable organizational experience. Serving as trustees and stewards, buying and selling land, exercising fiduciary responsibility, planning for the future, and relating to civic officials were activities that fostered personal growth and collective will. Chambers exemplified all this, eschewing the Methodist Episcopal Church under white leadership for its African cousin under Black direction. His letters frequently make mention of white people: friends, attendees at church and social functions, and ministers with whom he collaborated. But his highest esteem was reserved for the Black church that had trained and ordained him, given him authority to preach and minister, used his several talents, and provided him with many opportunities in life. He believed in its present and had faith in its potential. While recognizing that there was always room for improvement, he loved his church, flaws and all. “Let us be loyal to the a.m.e. Church,” he wrote when asking readers of the Christian Recorder for their support of the Publication Department. “Yes, it is our own, and the man that builds a boat and paddles it is superior to the man that paddles another man’s boat. Thank God we paddle our own canoe.”2

1 Du Bois, Philadelphia Negro, 201. 2 “The Coming General Conference,” Recorder, 24 April 1884.

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In his service as elder in the bmec and amec , Lewis Chambers demonstrated his complete devotion to the Methodist way of life. But he had a particular calling to missionary labour, as evidenced in his letters from Canada West. That special calling was expressed in gathering people for worship and organizing Sabbath schools wherever there were children and adults ready to learn to read the Bible and listen to its Word, and in finding quarters in which this work of uplift could take place. On the Canadian frontier, to lay the foundation of what might grow into a fully functioning congregation, he worked with local adherents to identify a meeting place – in someone’s house or in a hall or school if such existed and could be rented. Often meetings in the woods had to suffice, but that was at best only a seasonal solution. A nascent church likewise required that members take on the duties of stewards or trustees even before property was acquired and structures built, and these officers had to be recruited and trained. With his innate organizational ability Chambers excelled in this aspect of missionary work. In the tradition of self-help, Methodist churches called upon members and adherents to be clapboard, bricks, and mortar, even in a forest, and Chambers proved adept at encouraging his people to be all three. When stationed in both Dresden and London, Chambers lived at some remove from his numerous preaching places and Sabbath schools, and he often reminded his correspondent in cosmopolitan New York of this fact. Parts of Canada West were still in the pioneer stage of development when he lived there: many swamps had not yet been drained, roads were primitive, and most river crossings had yet to be spanned by bridges; in Kent County, Gees Ferry had not yet been renamed Kent Bridge. In the circumstances of the day, arrangements for the travel required of him could involve stabling for a horse (if he was lucky to be using one); finding a place to stay if he was not returning home after a busy day of preaching and teaching; organizing the transport of necessary supplies for schools, love feasts, and celebrations of the Lord’s Supper; and providing for personal needs that local hosts might not be able to meet. The comparative comfort of travel on the Great Western Railway between Thamesville and London, and London and Ingersoll, must have come as a great relief to him. Few logistical details are mentioned in his letters to Whipple, witness itself perhaps of his ability to adapt and endure. Above all, it is spiritual concerns and experience – often expressed in superlatives – that dominate the correspondence: “I do not think

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I ever witnessed more of the goodness of the Lord.” “The Lord is with us in our meetings.” “The burning love of God was felt.” “His Spirit was felt powerfully in our hearts.” “I was never in a better love feast.” “The Lord owned his blessed word.” “The meeting will be long remembered.” “There was a very deep interest manifested.” “Never since I have been in Canada have I seen so deep a work of grace.” Such phrases and his passion for the missionary role he so fervently proclaimed light up Chambers’s letters to Whipple. In his less frequent (but well edited) communications to the Christian Recorder later in life, in relating a church event he used similar language that came from the inner man. In describing the emotional moment, Chambers was not boasting of his ability as presider and preacher but attempting to capture the power of the presence of God in a spiritual encounter with his brothers and sisters. “I do not preach to excite my people,” he wrote to Whipple from London. “But my object is to teach them to love and obey God. My prayer to God is for the spirit of the truth of his Word.”3 Chambers frequently used the word joy in his letters. His gratitude to Whipple for choosing him to be a missionary, his gratitude to God for anointing him to that labour, and his thanks to those to whom he ministered for their care of him all testified to his genuine joy in doing “my master’s work.” He was a true believer and must be understood as such. At the same time, he was an authentic witness to the pains and sorrows, and the rejoicings and blessings, felt by those to whom he ministered, the more so because he shared their lives and brought their experiences into his prayers and preaching. His recounting of stories of life in Canada and his analysis of the obstacles faced by Black migrants there helped shape the work of the ama ’s Canada Mission. Not infrequently, Chambers wrote about the sinfulness to be found in groups to whom he was newly ministering, bewailing their weakness and spiritual ignorance. But these accounts are juxtaposed with reports of attempts to reform, conversions, promises of abstinence from ardent spirits, and sincere desires to hear the Bible read and the Word revealed. Reading his letters, it is not difficult to imagine his encouragement of new adherents, his praise of their efforts, and his exhorting of them to learn, discern, and 3 Chambers to Whipple, 8 January 1861, ama Archives, F1-592.

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worship more. He did not tolerate sin, but he counselled the sinner. One senses an abundance of mercy in his descriptions of his pastoral work. Chambers’s letters show that Whipple often counselled him about his prayer life to ensure that he spent time nurturing his own faith. In response, Chambers assured his patron that he was scrupulous about taking questions to God in prayer and, when given an answer, was confident of rightfulness. Frequently, when writing about a problem, he promised to make it “a matter of prayer.” His response to possible confrontation or “trouble” was to preach on the subject of peace and by this means he was able to resolve several divisive issues that arose in congregations he led. In the case of the disruptive presence of the rum shop that opened near his church in St Catharines, he apparently solved the problem by buying out the owner. Often he was called upon by colleagues to help resolve differences in the church. In sum, Chambers was a man of action as well as prayer. During his time as a minister with the ame church in Philadelphia, he once described a talk he had given when assisting a colleague at a quarterly meeting. Two brethren had spoken before he did and had urged three things to their Sabbath school listeners. “The first was to read much, the second was to think much, and the third was to pray much.” When Chambers’s turn came to speak, he agreed with the first two pieces of advice but then counselled the children to “pray less.” His “twist” was in the spirit of Matthew 6:5–6, in which Christ encourages private prayer rather than ostentatious, empty public exhibitions of piety. One should not pray for something but then negate the request by no action to further it: that is, to live in contradiction to the desire expressed in prayer. Chambers explained: “If we want to be made holy, then stop doing evil and do right, for prayer consists in offering our desires to God. We must be earnest.”4

The letters of Rev. Lewis Champion Chambers and the life reflected in them are valuable to present-day readers in many ways. They shed new light on a period of Canada’s history, which, though studied by generations of historians, can still yield important findings and include in our collective narrative the neglected or

4 “Letter from Rev. L.C. Chambers,” Recorder, 15 March 1883.

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under-reported population groups. The letters make connections between people, institutions, and countries that might inspire other scholars, using the lens of contemporary race understanding, to pursue further and different research and thereby facilitate greater insight and knowledge. In his letter to Whipple of 14 November 1859, Chambers wrote insightfully of himself that he intended to “spend [his] time and be spent in trying to do good” in his work for the missionary cause, and “to go out in the forest and hunt up the poor fugitive and encourage him to work for himself.”5 Here is purpose that deserves to be remembered. He was true to his philosophy, and his life connects to major episodes in the Black history of his time: manumission, the Fugitive Slave Act, the Underground Railroad, the migrant experience, John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry, the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, the end of slavery, Reconstruction, the anti-lynching campaign, and much else. Through his staunch Christian belief, Chambers fostered a religion that was shared across racial, class, and other societal divisions and allowed Black American and Canadian minorities to confront white majorities on the basis of conscience and common moral purpose. In another day, the bridge of religion would lead Martin Luther King Jr to write his Letter from Birmingham Jail, one of the great Christian tracts of modern times, and a document in the tradition of the Black preaching and advocacy that Lewis Chambers exemplified. The civil rights movement of the 1960s was built on the achievements of the Black churches, and Chambers must be counted among its many precursors. A transnational figure, he has a place in both Canadian and American history. My purpose in writing this book has been to document that place.

5 Chambers to Whipple, 14 November 1859, ama Archives, F1-533.

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Index

abolitionism and anti-slavery, 15, 21, 22, 30, 32, 35, 38, 91, 245 Aboutown Transportation, 9 Act of Union of 1840, 4 Adams, Tracey, 104 African Colonization Society, 128, 197 African Methodist Episcopal Church, 4, 10, 11, 13; and Canada, 7, 11, 19, 23, 25–6, 135, 153, 180, 190–1; Canada Conference of, 25, 60, 100, 101, 163, 181; Doctrine and Discipline of, 196, 219, 224n47, 230; formation of (usa ), 15, 246; General Conference of, 198n5, 229, 236; membership in, 15, 23n28, 80, 223; ministry in, 15–16; missionary work of, 233; Philadelphia Conference of, 24n31, 26n37, 195–6, 219, 224n47, 226, 227, 238, 240; presiding elders of, 230, 233; publication department of, 22n26, 219, 229, 236, 246; Sabbath Schools of, 193, 197; and worship, 60n41

Allen, Richard, 217 Allen Chapel ame Church, Philadelphia, 216 American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 38 American Anti-Slavery Society, 15, 22, 38 American Civil War, 116, 137, 161, 186; and currency exchange, 149, 164; and race relations in Canada, 112; and “skedaddlers,” 203 American Missionary, 33, 40, 42, 44, 45n3, 47, 58, 64n48, 70, 81n84, 106, 116, 121, 124, 161n115, 170n146, 208n42; cover of (photograph), 47 American Missionary Association, 4, 89–92; and American Civil War, 116, 161n115, 164n129; annual meetings and reports of, 18, 33–40, 70n62, 95, 117; archives of, 11, 42; Canada Mission of, 29, 30n41, 32, 33–40, 117–18, 124n15, 126, 133, 172n158, 177, 248; constitution and goals of, 33–4;

260

Index

finances of, 116–17, 140, 143, 166n136, 201n20; foreign missions of, 7n7, 41; formation of, 7, 31, 32; home missions of, 32, 210; membership in, 34 Amherstburg, Canada West, 26, 30, 34, 35, 36, 39, 153 Amherstburg Baptist Association, 190 Amistad, 33, 38 Amistad Committee, 32 Amistad Research Center, xv, 11 Anderson, Elijah, 237n88 Anderson, Gustavus, 96, 97n4 Anderson, John, 123 Anno, James, 131 Asbury, Francis, 217 Asbury ame Church, Chester, Pennsylvania, 217–20, 225 August 1st. See Emancipation Proclamation Baienard, Isaac, 17 Baptist Church, 22, 35, 36, 46, 49, 50, 98, 100, 107, 133, 147, 153, 154, 180, 181, 182, 197, 198 Barclay, George W., 102, 105, 116n49, 131 Bardwell, J.P., 34–5 Barton Township, Canada West, 163, 189, 190 Bennett, James Gordon, 186 Bensalem, Pennsylvania, 238, 239, 243 Berry, Richard, 163 Beth Emanuel Church, London, Canada, xiii, 8, 9, 10, 11, 153 Bethel ame Church, Bristol, Pennsylvania, 238

Bethel ame Church, Germantown, Philadelphia, 227–30 Bethel ame Church, West Chester, Pennsylvania, 224–7, 231–2; photograph of, 234 Bibb, Henry, 20, 38 Bible Christian Church, 14, 46, 169 Biddulph Township, Canada West, 103, 116, 154, 172 Big Bear Creek. See Sydenham River Blackburn, Josiah, 108–11 Blacks in Canada West: historiography of, 5–7, 244, 249 Blow Ye the Trumpet, Blow, 170, 211 Boggs, John, 16 Book Concern. See African Methodist Episcopal Church, publication department of Botany, Kent County, Canada West: Sabbath School in, 51, 52, 53, 54, 57, 58, 59, 61, 62, 64, 65, 66, 67, 73, 77, 83, 86, 87, 89, 90 Bridgeton, New Jersey, 196, 210, 211, 213 Bristol, Pennsylvania, 236, 238–9 British American Institute, 20, 23, 29, 34, 56, 64, 74n67, 77; formation of, 22; goals of, 20; trustees of, 153, 154, 161–3 British Methodist Episcopal Church, xvi, 16, 46, 88n98, 147, 153, 167, 178n1, 190n32; conferences of, 29, 55n30, 56, 76n72, 83n91, 115, 132, 157, 159n111, 172–3, 181n10, 187, 188, 195–6; controversies in, 135, 141, 153n91; Doctrine and

Index Discipline of, 16n10, 26–8, 60n40, 80n80, 115n48, 139n52, 193–4, 196; elders of, 4, 19, 60n40, 163n125; formation of, 7, 24–9, 163n125; and “location,” 172n157, 173, 175–6; membership in, 23n28, 80, 125n17; preachers of, 29, 48, 64n49, 102, 115n48, 174; Sabbath schools of, 193–5. See also African Methodist Episcopal Church Brown, James, 183 Brown, James Charles, 153, 162 Brown, John, 70, 98n7, 102n16, 127n22, 163n121, 168, 170n146, 229 Brown, William Wells, 30n41, 104, 105–6, 112n35, 179–80, 181n10, 182 Bryant, W.H., 226 Burlington and Mount Holly Railroad, 16 Burlington County, New Jersey, 17 Burlington Township, New Jersey, xvi, 16–17, 19 Burns, Anthony, 98n7, 180, 183, 198 Burns, Robert F., 198, 201 Butler, Cornelius, 105, 131 Buxton, Canada West, 26–8, 141, 163 Cain, Richard Harvey, 229, 231 Camden and Gore Township, Kent County, Canada West, 20–1, 23–4, 50n17, 52n22, 57, 61, 62, 64n49, 76n73, 77, 90, 162n120 Campbell, Jabez Pitt, 196, 214, 219

261

Campbell ame Church, Frankford, Philadelphia, 213–15, 216, 242 Canada Census (1851), 189, 190 Canada Census (1861), 21, 24, 30, 42, 64n48, 67, 92n17, 96, 97, 104, 114, 125n15, 126, 128n23, 148, 158n108, 162n120, 163n123, 178, 189; critique of, 103, 104n19, 163n2, 178 Canada Colored Baptist Missionary Society, 154 Canada Company, 24, 116n49 Canada East, 4, 147, 148 Canada Mission. See American Missionary Association Canada West: Black population of, 104n19; school legislation of, 107–12 Canadian Anti-Slavery Society, 21n24 Cannon, Noah Calwell W., 100 Carter, Marie, xv, 20n22, 74n67, 162n120 Carty, Edmund J., 8 Cary, Mary Ann Shadd, 6, 41n71, 154 caste, 3n1, 107, 189n27, 192, 200, 234 Cecil County, Maryland, 13, 31, 134 Chambers, Adele Marie, 214, 225; birth of, 183; death of, 226; education of , 226; obituary of, 226n55 Chambers, Angella, 19, 97, 214; birth of, 17 Chambers, Ann Maria, 17, 19, 61n43, 97, 99n8, 228; children of, 183, 238n89; death of, 238;

262

Index

marriage of, 14; obituary of, 238; parentage of, 14, 97; school of, 183–4; and Whipple 42, 184, 199, 200 Chambers, Carthagenia, 19, 97, 214, 225, 238n89, 242n108 Chambers, George, 19, 97, 98, 113, 116, 242n108; as carter, 138, 144 Chambers, Hannah, 13, 19; death of, 54 Chambers, Josephine, 17, 19, 97, 198, 214, 216; death of, 242; schooling of, 183 Chambers, Lewis Champion: and Africa, 16, 32, 71, 122, 127–8; and agriculture, 43, 55, 56, 63, 66, 67–8, 69, 71–2, 78, 97, 99, 140, 153, 155, 160, 183; ama annual reports of, 89–92, 164–5; ama appointment of, 29–30, 115–18, 177; ama stipend of, 43, 46, 56, 69–70, 77, 82, 92, 93, 116, 117, 127, 136, 137, 138, 140, 141, 143, 145, 146, 148, 150, 152, 155, 159, 160, 161, 162, 164, 166, 167, 173; and amec, 14–15; and American Civil War, 116–17, 137, 146, 152, 159, 167, 170, 186, 203; and American Missionary, 44–5, 58, 70, 75, 81, 106, 116, 121–2, 124, 135, 208, 219; as arson victim, 95, 119, 120, 122; background of, 13; Bible classes of, 44, 45, 49, 50, 80, 90; Biblical texts of, 49, 56, 66, 67, 75, 78, 125, 139–40, 149, 150, 158, 160–1, 169, 226; and Biddulph, 116, 172, 175; and Josiah

Blackburn, 108–11; and Book Concern, 219–20, 229; in Bridgeton, New Jersey, 210–13, 224; in Bristol, Pennsylvania, 238–9; and John Brown, 70, 98n7, 168, 229; and camp meetings, 213, 216, 218, 219, 225, 236; and Canada census (1861), 96–98, 126, 145, 147–8; in Chester, Pennsylvania, 217–20; children of, 4, 17, 69, 79, 96, 97, 113, 135, 136–8, 159, 160, 183, 198, 200, 214, 216, 225–6, 238, 242; and Child’s Recorder and Christian Recorder, 219, 228, 232, 248; on clergy widows, 236–7; on colonization, 128, 155; and communicable diseases and illnesses, 65, 69, 135, 136, 149, 150, 151–2, 166–7, 197, 200, 203, 228; conference attendance of, 24, 55–6, 65, 93, 115, 131, 132, 157, 172–3, 174, 177, 195–6, 198, 226, 227; congregational earnings of, 94, 137, 138, 142, 161, 164, 172; on conversion to Judaism, 239; and Benjamin Cronyn, 141; on currency exchange, 149, 164, 168, 172; death of, 243; in Dresden, 21–94; on drowning of son, 95–6, 119, 120; ecumenism of, 107, 141, 142, 144, 198; and Emancipation, 18, 88, 117, 155, 165, 170, 197, 199, 211, 219, 222, 236; and Euphemia Township, 66, 67, 73, 77; farms of, 16, 19, 23–4, 96–9, 144n66; financial acumen of, 16, 217–18, 219–20, 222, 235; financial

Index worries of, 113, 136, 138, 144, 160, 200–4; foot injury of, 142, 143; in Frankford, Philadelphia, 213–15, 216, 242; in Germantown, Philadelphia, 216–17, 227–30; on a good death, 65, 75, 80–1, 132, 135, 149, 157, 197, 200–1, 206; Hamilton ministry of, 208–9; horses of, 83, 138, 141, 144n67, 195, 247; illnesses of, 228; Ingersoll ministry of, 79, 82, 83–4, 86–7, 89, 92, 94, 113–15, 119–56; on Abraham Lincoln, 205, 211; London ministry of, 76–8, 82, 83, 86–8, 92, 94, 95, 119–76; and London schools, 101, 107–12; love of Bible of, 124, 160, 228; and love of music, 50, 81, 132, 171, 206, 219; and lynching, 240–2; manumission of, 13; marriage of, 14, 240; and meetings in woods, 60, 64; missionary life of, 59, 64, 66, 72, 74, 79–80, 89, 116, 121, 146, 150, 175, 202, 247; and Mount Pisgah, 221–4; and Willis Nazrey, 83n91, 102, 157, 196; obituary of, 243; ordination of, 4, 24, 30n41; organizational ability of, 215, 218, 219, 247; parents of, 13, 19, 44, 54; as peacemaker, 136–7, 141, 142, 143–4, 145; in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, 240; on poverty, 55, 58–9, 63, 133, 203; prayer life of, 58, 74, 79, 87, 124, 143–4, 249; preaching of, 46, 48, 125, 156, 160, 248; as presiding elder, 230, 233; and Prohibition Party, 233–5;

263 purchases rum shop, 184, 201–2, 249; quarterly meetings of, 53, 59–60, 73, 80, 86, 136, 146, 162, 168, 173, 218n14, 235; quarterly reports of, 42, 45, 50, 57, 65, 70, 72, 76, 82, 86, 120, 124–7, 132, 139, 141, 144–5, 149, 156, 160, 168,171, 174; on racial prejudice, 105–11, 121–2, 161, 170, 185, 245; and relations with whites, 27n38, 52, 64, 73, 122, 123, 159, 198, 215, 246; returns to United States, 186–8, 195–6, 207; revival and protracted meetings of, 119, 132–3, 152, 156, 170, 203–4, 218, 228, 239; on role of Black church, 106, 159, 161, 246; and “rust out”/“wear out,” 150, 173, 187, 207, 243n109; and Sabbath Schools, 7, 15, 24, 29, 40, 46, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53n24, 54, 55, 57–8, 59, 61, 62, 66, 70n62, 73, 76, 82, 83, 86, 88, 90, 115, 120, 124, 125, 128, 130–1, 132n29, 134, 139, 142, 156, 173, 193–5, 197, 202, 204, 206, 213, 216, 218, 231, 232, 242, 247, 249; on sectarianism, 31, 46, 142, 144, 154; on slavery, 49, 67, 70, 73–4, 78, 79, 155, 156, 165, 209; and “spend and be spent,” 66, 78, 146, 175, 199, 250; St Catharines ministry of, 5, 184, 197–208; St Thomas ministry of, 115, 116, 158, 160, 164, 165, 166–7, 168, 172, 173; and temperance, 51, 58, 67, 69, 76, 77, 78, 79, 82, 87, 184, 195, 201, 204, 213, 221, 233–5, 237, 239,

264

Index

242; and tobacco, 195, 204, 213, 237, 243; tributes to, 195, 240; and visiting preachers, 53, 93, 141, 145, 146, 166, 169, 201; in West Chester, Pennsylvania, 224–7, 230–2; on Whipple, 49, 54, 57, 61, 65, 74–5, 83, 121, 126–7, 136, 137, 138, 139, 144, 145, 155, 156, 158, 159, 161, 165–6, 169, 172–5, 199, 202–5, 208–9; at Zion Mission, Philadelphia, 235 Chambers, Lewis Constantine, 97, 214 Chambers, Rebecca (sister of Lewis), 19, 81 Chambers, Rebecca (wife of George), 19, 97, 242 Chambers, William, 13 Chapel Project, xv, 12 Charity, James H., 22 Chatham, Canada West, 21, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 38, 55n30, 56n34, 65n51, 70, 88, 93, 102n16, 127, 141, 153, 162n120, 163nn121– 2, 167; churches in, 88, 152–3, 154n95, 195; newspapers in, 55n35, 119n2, 154n93 Chatham Township, Kent County, Canada West, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52n22, 54, 57, 58, 59, 61, 62, 72, 99, 154 Chester, Pennsylvania, 217–20 Chester County, Pennsylvania, 233; alleged assaults in, 240–2 Chester Heights Campground, 219, 225, 236 Child’s Recorder, 213, 232 Christian Recorder, 13n1, 14, 45n3, 102n16, 153n89, 210n2,

211n3, 212, 213, 215n11, 216, 219–20, 223, 228, 229, 232, 236n85, 243, 245, 248 Christine, Isaac L., 30 Church of England, 14, 108, 114n51, 141, 154n95 Civil War. See American Civil War Clarke, William, 30, 31, 53 Clarke, William Fletcher, 30–1 Cleveland, Grover, 241, 242 Colonial Church and School Society, 108, 114, 141nn60–1 Colonial Missionary Society, 30 complexion, 3n1, 21, 26, 104, 159, 188 concert meetings. See Methodism Congregational Church, 6n7, 22n27, 30, 31, 33, 53n23, 77n75, 107, 174, 220 Cosby, William S., 105 Coursey, William, 99 Cronyn, Benjamin, 108, 141 Davidson, James, 131 Dawn Institute. See British American Institute Dawn Mills, Kent County, Canada West, 20, 21, 36, 74n67 De Boer, Clara Merritt, 31n46, 41n71, 210n1 Deacon, Elizabeth, 16 Deacon, Henry C., 16, 17 Delany, Martin Robison, 127, 128n24, 129 Delaware River, 16, 17, 238 Detroit River, 20, 34n54 Dillon, Marmaduke, 141n60 Disney, Richard Randolph, 153, 163n122

Index District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act, 152, 155 Dolph, Hiram, 24n30 Douglas, William, 48n10, 55n30 Dresden, Kent County, Canada West, 4, 7, 19–24, 29–30, 49, 50, 52, 57, 58, 59, 61, 69, 73, 77, 92, 94, 153, 159; Black population of, 21, 53n46, 160; Black preachers in, 48, 53n23, 55n30, 64n49, 89; churches in, 50, 159n111, 162, 168 Drew, Benjamin, 6, 21, 23, 104, 106, 162n119 Drowden, Elizabeth, 13n1, 240 Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt, 222, 237–8, 246 Dunn, George B., 131 Elgin County, Canada West, 115n47 Elgin Settlement. See Buxton, Canada West emancipation, 15, 17, 155, 223 Emancipation Day celebrations, 18, 88, 93, 235–6 Emancipation Proclamation, 98n7, 117, 165, 170, 199, 211, 219, 222, 250 Emery, George N., xv Ennes, Charles, 128, 134 Essex County, Canada West, 20, 36, 38, 40n69, 150 Euphemia Township, Lambton County, Canada West, 66, 67, 68, 73, 77n75 Evans, John J., 105 experience meetings. See Methodism

265

Fanshawe Pioneer Village, London, Ontario, 11, 12, 78n76 Fillmore, Millard, 17 Fletcher, Archibald, 24 Fletcher, Wesley D., 24n30 Foote, Charles C., 38 Frankford, Philadelphia, 213–16, 219, 226, 242 Freedmen’s Inquiry Commission, 6, 13n1, 98n7, 127n22 Fugitive Slave Act, 4, 7, 18, 19, 26, 34, 35, 40, 41, 100, 103, 178 Fugitive Slave Chapel, 8, 9, 10, 78, 134 Fugitive Slave Chapel Preservation Project, 9–12 fugitives, 17, 18, 21, 54, 66, 74, 76, 95; from Illinois, 133; support for in Canada, 22, 23, 32, 36, 38–40, 66, 103, 114, 141n60 Fuller, James Canning, 22n27 Garnet, Henry Highland, 31–2, 128n24, 197n4 Garrison, Lloyd, 171 Gees Ferry, Kent County, Canada West, 29n40, 30n41, 48n11, 51, 52, 53, 57, 58, 59, 61, 62, 65–6, 73, 77, 83–4, 86, 87, 89, 90, 247 Germantown, Philadelphia, 216–17, 227–30, 231 Gibbs, Aaron, 105 Glenolden Park, Philadelphia, 218 Goodspeed, 8n10 Gordon, Joseph Bush, 105 Gordon, Mahala, 131 Gould, Theodore, 216, 218 Gouldtown, New Jersey, 224 Grant, William, 185–6 Great Awakening, 150n85, 245

266

Index

Great Lakes, 3, 6 Great Western Railway, 19, 20n22, 76n73, 79n78, 113, 114, 178, 188, 195–6, 247 Green, Augustus R., 135n39, 141n59 Green, C.H., 227 Grey Street, London, Ontario, 6, 9, 10, 12, 78n76, 100, 104, 105, 134n34 Griffis, William, 24 Hagany, John B., 30, 31 Hale, Wade, xvi Hamilton, Canada West, 4, 20, 41, 102n16, 163, 174, 177, 188–92; Black population of, 188–9; churches in, 167, 189–91; economy of, 188; schools in, 191–2 Hamilton, James Thompson, 131 Hamilton, Samuel, 131 Hamilton, William, 104 Hansell, Robert C., 38, 39 Harden, Nero, 64 Harmon, Susan, 128, 134 Harper, James, 102 Harris, Benjamin, 104 Harris, Elvina J., 14, 97n3 Harris, Henry, 99 Harris, William, 14 Harwich Township, Kent County, Canada West. See Howard Township Hawkins, Walter, 153, 187 Hayden, Josephine. See Chambers, Josephine Hayden, Rufus, 242 Helmsley, Alexander, 181 Henderson, William C., 145–6

Henson, Josiah, 6, 20n23, 22, 23, 38, 81n86, 162n120 Hodder, Genet, xv, xvi Hoidge, Joseph, 169 Holden, Isaac, 163 Hotchkiss, David, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40 House, Jane, 97 Howard Township, Kent County, Canada West, 51n19, 52, 54, 57, 58, 61, 62, 77, 90 Howe, Samuel Gridley, 6, 98, 106, 107; on public education, 191–2 Hutchinson, William, 183 Ingersoll, Oxford County, Canada West, xv, 4, 79, 80, 82, 83, 84, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96n2, 113–15, 121, 124–5, 126, 128n23, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139; arson in, 95, 115, 119, 122, 141, 142, 144, 146, 148, 149, 152, 155, 156, 244, 247; Black education in, 114; churches in, 114–15; economy of, 114; and Methodist Episcopal Conference, 93; racial prejudice in, 122 Ingersoll, Thomas, 113 Inquiry into the Character and Tendency of the American Colonization and American AntiSlavery Societies, 15 J.M. Bennett (hotel), London, Canada West, 96, 125n15 Jack, James H.C., 201 Jackson, Henry C., 113 James, Henry, 104–5 Jay, William, 15

Index Jocelyn, Simeon S., 32–3, 51, 58n37, 116n50, 155, 156; visits Fort Monroe, 161 John Brown meeting, 70n63, 168, 229 Johnson, Andrew, 206 Johnson, H.W., 83n91, 102 Johnston, Alex, 112 Jolley Cut, Hamilton, Canada West, 190 Jones, Aby Bedford, 106, 109 Jones, Alfred T., 109 Jones, Martha A., 131 Jones, Willam H., 56n34, 88n98, 135n39, 153, 181n10 Jordon, John, 14n6 Kellogg, Stephen P., 114 Kent Bridge, Kent County, Canada West, 29n40, 247 Kent County, Canada West, 4, 19, 20, 22, 23n29, 24n30, 76n73, 96n2, 141n58, 244 King, Martin Luther, Jr, 240 King, William, 27. See also Buxton, Canada West Kinnard, Thomas M., 102, 166, 167n137 Kirkland, Elias E., 36, 37 Lake Erie, 3, 20, 113, 115n47, 178 Lake St Clair, 38 Lambton County, Canada West, 23n29, 30, 66n52, 67n57, 103, 150 Landon, Fred, 5, 6, 8 Lane, Moses, 105 Lane Theological Seminary, 6n7, 22n27

267

Letter from Birmingham Jail, 240 Lewis, Henry Harrison, 211 Lincoln, Abraham, 98n7, 152n87, 165n132, 170, 206n33, 211; assassination of, 167n138, 185–6, 205 Lincoln and Welland Regiment, 201n18 Lincoln County, Canada West: Black population of, 178 Lindsay, John Washington, 179n4, 183n13, 192 Lindsay Road, Kent County, Canada West, 52 Linwood, Pennsylvania, 225 Little, William, 13 Little River, Essex County, Canada West, 39, 40n69 Logan, Henry, 105 London, Canada West, 4, 7, 76, 82, 175; ame/bme church in, 10, 77, 78, 80, 83–5, 86, 87, 88, 90, 92, 94, 100–2, 106, 116, 120, 124, 125, 130–1, 132, 133, 136n42, 138, 142, 144, 145–6, 157, 165, 166–7, 168–9, 170, 171–2, 174; Anti-Slavery Society of, 30; Black population of, 7, 94, 103–6, 126, 133, 136, 150, 167; British troops in, 146n72; and Confederacy, 167; economy of, 76n72, 103, 126, 149; education in, 107–8, 170–1, 175; Provincial Fair in, 140; racial prejudice in, 106–8 London Advertiser, 8 London and Port Stanley Railway, 115n47 London Board of Education, 108–12

268

Index

London Free Press, 108–11 London Public Library, 8 London Township, Middlesex County, Canada West, 96–100, 116, 144, 150; schools in, 98 Longwoods (or London) Road, Canada West, 29, 52n22 Lord’s Supper. See Methodism love feasts. See Methodism Lower Canada, 4n3, 96, 147, 148 Lundy, Benjamin, 103 Lyon, Theodesia, 36, 37 Macallum, Archibald, 191–2 McGees Ferry. See Gees Ferry McNider, Thomas, 42, 147–8 McPherson, Dugald, 112n35 Menard, Don, 10 Merritt, William Hamilton, 181 Methodism: adherents of, 23, 30n41, 88n96, 115, 245, 247, 248; camp meetings of, 23, 53n24, 141, 213, 216, 219, 225, 236, 240; Canadian branches of, 14; characteristics of, 245; concert prayer meetings of, 66, 73, 91, 121, 123, 124, 132, 134, 139, 142, 153, 156, 167, 171, 174; conversion in, 14, 49n13, 66n54, 72, 90, 91, 139n49, 218, 245, 248; experience meetings of, 45, 53n24, 73, 86, 152–3, 174; hymns of, 55, 60n40, 81n83, 124, 170, 171, 219, 245; itinerancy in, 56n34, 115, 172n157; Lord’s Supper in, 53n24, 60n40, 65, 77, 78, 124, 139, 142, 146, 153, 162, 164, 169, 229, 232, 247; love feasts of, 53n24, 59–60, 64, 125n17, 137, 164, 168–9, 170,

232, 245, 247; membership in, 80n81, 88n96; origins of, 13–14, 245; prayer meetings of, 45, 46, 51, 52, 58, 59, 62, 65, 66, 73, 80, 82, 86, 94, 121, 124, 128, 134, 139, 142, 149, 156, 170, 171, 172, 174, 202, 216, 245; protracted meetings of, 119, 152, 170, 203, 204, 245; quarterly meetings of, 28, 53, 59, 60, 65, 73, 80, 86, 125n17, 136, 137, 146, 162, 164, 168, 173, 216n14, 224n47, 230, 231, 232, 235, 245, 249; revival meetings of, 119n3, 132, 133, 152, 156, 218, 228, 239, 245; role of societies in, 30n41, 87n95, 180, 245; and testimony, 49, 73, 137; union prayer meetings of, 71, 73; watch care in, 87, 125; watch meetings of, 71, 73, 123, 124, 147, 171, 245 Methodist Episcopal Church, 4, 13, 14, 15, 93, 157n103 Middlesex County, Canada West, 4, 12, 146n70, 154n92 Miles, Richard, 233 Mitchell, William, 103 Morris Brown Mission ame Church, Philadelphia, 230 Mosby, Benjamin, 131 Mossell, Aaron, 163 Mother Bethel ame Church, Philadelphia, 26, 214, 235, 242 Mount Pisgah ame Church, Salem, New Jersey, 213 Mount Pisgah ame Church, West Philadelphia, 216, 221–2, 223–4, 227, 241 Mount Pleasant Mission School. See Queen’s Bush

Index Mount Zion ame Church, Bridgeton, New Jersey, 196, 210–11 Murphy, Michael F., xv, 108n31, 112n37 Murphy’s Chapel, South Chester, Pennsylvania, 225 Myers, John, 162 National Citizens’ Rights Association, 241–2 Nazrey, Willis, 24n31, 26n37, 28, 48n10, 77n75, 83n91, 102, 135n39, 141n59, 153n90, 157, 163n122, 181, 196, 243; elected bmec bishop, 26; portrait of, 27; on returnees to United States, 187 Neilson, Olien, 241 New Canaan, Essex County, Canada West, 36, 37 New Jersey, 4, 12, 16–19, 24, 68, 135n38, 211–13, 216, 218, 224, 236, 238, 241 New York Anti-Slavery Society, 38 New York Herald, 186 New York Tribune, 171n150 Newman, William P., 49, 55, 57, 63n46, 64, 204 Niagara Peninsula, 19, 113, 178, 201n18 Niagara River, 178 North-Side View of Slavery, 21, 104, 106, 162n119 Norwich Township, Oxford County, Canada West, 113, 114 O’Banion, Josephus, 23 Oberlin College, 6n7, 22n27, 49n14, 98n7, 100, 174n163, 180, 200

269

Oberlin Evangelist, 100 Ohio, 6, 15, 25, 34n54, 116n49 Oneida Institute, 6n7, 22 Ontario, 4, 6, 9, 23, 196 Ontario’s African-Canadian Heritage, 5 Osborne, E.S., 235 Oxford County, Canada West, 79n78, 113–15 Palmer, John M., 233–5 Paul, B. Dolbeare, 131 Payne, Daniel, 26, 60, 197n4, 223, 231 Pease, Jane H. and William H., 22n27 Peate, George, 23, 24 Perry, Rufus L., 183, 197, 198n6, 199n11 Peterson, T., 48n10 Phelps, Oliver, 181 Philadelphia, 4, 12, 16, 18n17, 20n22, 102, 170, 213–14, 216, 218, 226n56; Black churches in, 4, 14, 18, 31, 220, 235, 237, 239; Black migration to, 18, 221 Philadelphia Times, 222, 233, 235, 241 Pike Creek, Essex County, Canada West, 39, 40n69 Pine and Palm, 104n20, 105, 171, 179, 181n10 Pope, Charles H., 131 Pope, Robert Albert, 131 Port Burwell, Elgin County, Canada West, 113 Port Colborne, Welland County, Canada West, 178 Pottstown, Pennsylvania, 240, 242

270

Index

Presbyterian Church, 13, 31, 34n54, 154n95, 198n9, 220 Prince of Wales, 89 Prohibition Party, 233–5 protracted meetings. See Methodism Provincial Freeman, 6, 21–2, 34n54, 88n97, 154n93 Puce River, Essex County, Canada West, 38, 39, 40n69 Quakers, 17, 113, 114 quarterly meetings. See Methodism quarterly ticket, 28, 125, 128 Quebec, 4 Queen Victoria, 26, 81n85 Queen’s Bush, 35, 36 Raleigh Township, Kent County, Canada West, 27n38, 141n58 Refugee Home Society, 20n22, 38 Refugees from Slavery in Canada West, 98n7, 104n20, 192 Religious Tract Society, 55 revival meetings. See Methodism Rice, Isaac J., 34, 35, 38 Riddell, William Renwick, 5, 6 Rogers, E.P., 135 Ross, Harriet, 18, 23n27, 70n63 Ross, John, 112n35 Sabbath Schools: books for, 54, 55, 57, 59, 63, 101, 102, 193–5, 231; and general education, 193; teachers in, 62, 88n96, 194, 232 Salem Chapel, St Catharines, Canada West, 180–3, 185–6, 187, 188; photograph of, 182 Sandwich, Essex County, Canada West, 36, 40

Schuylkill River, Pennsylvania, 216, 222 Scoble, John, 23, 162n117 Separate School Act, 107–12, 175 Shadd, Mary Ann. See Cary, Mary Ann Shadd Shafer, J.W., 131 Shaffer, C.T., 239, 240 Shipton, John P., 131 Shorter, James A., 217 Simcoe, John Graves, 178 Simons, Lucinda, 131 Simons, William, 105 Simpson, Donald G., xvi, 5, 28–9n39 Simpson, J., 197, 201 Simpson, T., 48 “skedaddlers.” See American Civil War slavery, 66, 73–4, 78, 94, 245. See also District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act Sluby, M.F., 224, 227 Smith, Parker Theophilus, 20n22 Smith, Peter B., 48n10 Sparrow, George, 201 St Catharines, Canada West, 4, 18, 23n27, 28, 35, 37, 41, 93n106, 98, 101, 107, 115, 117, 152, 153, 177–88; Black neighbourhood of, 180, 184; Black population of, 178, 186–7; churches in, 153, 180–2; economy of, 178–9; education in, 42, 183–4; and Lincoln assassination, 185–6; newspapers in, 185–6; racial prejudice in, 179, 183, 185–6 St Clair River, 20 St Thomas, Elgin County, Canada West, 4, 115, 116, 158–9, 160,

Index 164, 165, 166, 168, 169, 172, 173, 178n1, 244; and Sons of Temperance Hall, 164 Stafford, Henry, 154 Stansbury, John B., 233 Stanton, Edwin, 98n7 Stedam, Alexander, 96n2 Stephens, S., 48n10 Steward, Benjamin, 25, 26, 28, 157n103 Stewart, Bezaleel, 158–9 Still, William, 6, 18, 20n22, 222, 223 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 6 Stringer, T.W., 56n34 Sunday Schools. See Sabbath Schools Susquehanna River, Pennsylvania, 13n1 Sydenham River, Canada West, 20, 21, 22n26, 24, 96 Tappan, Arthur, 6, 38n64 Tappan, Lewis, 6, 38n64, 65n50, 70, 155, 156 Taylor, Jeremiah, 100 Teall, Susan, 35 Tearne, Walter, 141, 146 Temperance and Temperance Societies, 4, 7, 15, 31, 38, 40, 51, 54, 69, 79, 82, 87, 91, 107, 115, 140, 164, 184, 194, 195, 198n5, 202, 204, 213, 218, 221, 228, 233, 242, 243 Temple, Noah D., 241 Thames River, Canada West, 7, 21, 50n17, 51, 79n78, 81, 88, 100, 103, 113, 192 Thames Street, London, Canada West, 7, 8, 9, 12, 78, 94n109,

271

101, 102, 104, 105 106, 107, 119, 134 Thamesville, Kent County, Canada West, 19, 29n40, 64n49, 76, 81, 247 tobacco, 195, 198n5, 204, 213, 237, 243 Trent affair, 146n72, 167n138 Trinity ame Church, Baltimore, 239–40 Tubman, Harriet. See Ross, Harriet Turner, D., 48n10 Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 6, 21n24, 22n27 Under the North Star: Black Communities in Upper Canada, 5, 28 Underground Railroad, 6, 8, 9, 17, 18, 20n22, 32n52, 100, 103, 113, 196, 222, 250 Union Missionary Society, 32, 34n54 United Empire Loyalists, 178 Upper Canada, 4n3, 11, 22n27, 103, 107n29, 108n30, 114n51, 116n49, 130, 154n92, 178, 180 US Census (1850), 13n3, 17 US Census (1870), 214 US Census (1880), 225 Voice of the Fugitive, 20n22 Walking Guide to Historic Sites in London, 8n11 Wallaceburg, Kent County, Canada West, 20 Ward, Samuel Ringgold, 38 Warren, Richard, 100, 172n158 watch care. See Methodism

272

Index

watch meetings. See Methodism Wayne, Michael, 21n25, 67n57, 104n19, 114n41, 148n77, 178n2, 189n26 Wears, Isaiah C., 215, 222 Webb, Thomas, 109, 112, 170n149 Welland Canal, Canada West, 20, 23n27, 178 Welland Railway, 178 Wesley, Charles, 124n12, 170n146 Wesley, John, 14, 16n10, 66n53, 139n49, 243, 245 West Chester, Pennsylvania, 224–6, 227, 228n65, 230, 231–2, 240, 243; Black population of, 232 West India Missionary Committee, 32 West Jersey Railroad Company, 213 Western Evangelical Missionary Society, 7n7, 32 Western Ontario and the American Frontier, 6 Westminster Township, Middlesex County, Canada West, 103–4, 105, 163n123 Whipper, Benjamin, 48n10 Whipper, William, 21, 22n26 Whipple, George, 6–7, 22n27, 32–3, 40–2, 65, 91–2, 106, 115– 17; and brother’s death, 70–1; on Canada Mission, 118; on return of Blacks to usa , 187; as spiritual advisor, 40, 74–5; visits Canada West, 96, 98n6; visits Fort Monroe, 161 Whitefield, George, 150n85 Whitfield, Harvey Amani, 3n2 Wilberforce Settlement, Middlesex County, Canada West, 103,

116n49, 154n92, 178n1. See also Biddulph Township Wilberforce University, xvi, 29n39, 220, 238n88 Wilkes, Henry, 30, 31 Williams, Charles, 131 Williams, Henry, 105 Williams, Joseph P., 190 Williams, Nathaniel, 131 Williams, Richard, 180–1 Wilson, Hiram, 18, 22, 35, 37, 38, 197 Windsor, Essex County, Canada West, 20, 36, 37, 38, 41n71, 76n72, 88n97, 130n25, 132, 133n30, 135, 153, 154n93, 163, 166, 172n158 Winemiller, George, 105 Wingate, Thomas, 105 Winks, Robin W., 5, 162n117, 203 Yelland, Edwin N., 220 Zion Baptist Church, St Catharines, Canada West, 98n7, 180, 183, 197n4 Zion Mission ame Church, Philadelphia, 233, 235–6 Zoar Methodist Episcopal Church, Philadelphia, 14