In the early days when Samual Adams and Rev. William Butler were first organizing the church, there were reported to be between 600 and 700 African Americans in the Oakville and Bronte area. Following Abraham Lincoln’s abolition of slavery in 1863, many African Americans joined the Union army. At the end of the American Civil War in 1865, some who had settled in Canada began to head back to the United States. Many of Oakville’s African American families had firmly established their roots however, and were to influence the community for generations to come.
Samuel Adams had lost one son, who was killed while fighting on the side of the Unionists in the American Civil War. In Oakville, his son Jeremiah, known as “Jerry”, became a teamster for the Chisholm brothers\’ mill. He married Eliza Grace Butler and they remained in Oakville, celebrating their 65th wedding anniversary when he was 97 years old.
Their daughter Isabella married Benedict Duncan’s son Alexander Duncan, who had become the organist and choirmaster at the Turner Chapel by about 1915. Many associations and relationships developed around the social functions of the Turner Chapel, which had become firmly established as part of the greater Oakville community.
© Oakville Museum at Erchless Estate, The Corporation of the Town of Oakville, 2000
The following information is reproduced from the display panels in the exhibit “Oakville’s Black History”, as written and designed by Deborah Hudson, Curator of Collections, Oakville Museum at Erchless Estate.
