Here's where you can learn a little Ontario history

The Queen's Bush Settlement, 1820-1867

Photo by Alan L Brown - October, 2008

Plaque Location

In the Township of Mapleton in the County of Wellington
at coordinates N 43 39.209 W 80 41.917

Plaque Text

In the early 19th century the vast unsettled area between Waterloo County and Lake Huron was know as the "Queen's Bush". More than 1,500 free and formerly enslaved Blacks pioneered scattered farms along the Peel and Wellesley Township border, with Glen Allan, Hawkesville and Wallenstein as important centres. Working together, these industrious and self-reliant settlers built churches, schools, and a strong and vibrant community life. American missionaries taught local Black children at the Mount Hope and Mount Pleasant schools. In the 1840s the government ordered the district surveyed and many of the settlers could not afford to purchase the land they had laboured so hard to clear. By 1850 migration out of the Queen's Bush had begun. Today African Canadians whose ancestors pioneered the Queen's Bush are represented in communities across Ontario.

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