Elijah of Buxton (34 page)

1812 — Reverend William King, the founder of the Elgin Settlement at Buxton, is born in Ireland. His family later moves to the United States to escape the Irish potato famine, and he eventually marries the daughter of a Louisiana plantation owner. Although he is against slavery, King becomes a slave owner himself through his wife.

 

1843 — King decides he cannot continue living in the United States as a slave owner, and he moves to Scotland to study to be a Presbyterian minister. While there, he also becomes an active abolitionist.

 

1846 — After completing his studies, Reverend King is assigned to become a missionary in Chatham, a town near Lake Erie in Canada, a country where slavery is outlawed.

 

1848 — Reverend King and his fifteen slaves travel to the free state of Ohio. King grants them freedom and tells them they are welcome to join him in Canada, where he plans to create a settlement that will allow former slaves the opportunity to own land and support themselves.

 

1849 — The Elgin Settlement is founded on a property of 4,300 acres of land in Buxton, Ontario.

 

1850 — Buxton's first school opens, with twelve children attending on the first day. The “coloured inhabitants of Pittsburgh” present the citizens of Buxton with the Liberty Bell. That same year, in the United States, the Fugitive Slave Law is passed, forcing officials in the free states of the North to capture and return runaway slaves to their owners in the South.

 

1851 — A brickyard is opened, and it produces 300,000 bricks in its first year of operation. Buxton Savings Bank is established, and the Settlement continues to grow and prosper.

 

1858 — Abolitionist John Brown visits Buxton, and in 1859 launches a raid on the town of Harpers Ferry, Virginia, helping incite tensions between abolitionists and slave owners.

 

1860 — Abraham Lincoln is elected president of the United States. In December, South Carolina becomes the first state to secede from the Union.

 

1861 — Other states secede and form the Confederate States of America. In April, the Confederate army attacks U.S. troops at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, starting the American Civil War. When the Union army creates all-black regiments a year later, approximately seventy men from Buxton enlist and join the war.

 

1865 — The Confederate general Robert E. Lee surrenders on April 9. On April 14, President Lincoln is assassinated in Washington, D.C. Later that year, the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, permanently abolishing slavery in the U.S.

 

1873 — The Elgin Association, which oversaw the Settlement, is officially dissolved as many Buxton families have returned to the U.S. since the end of the war.

 

1887 — Reverend King leaves the Settlement. He dies in Chatham in 1895.

 

1999 — The Buxton Settlement is designated one of Canada's National Historic Sites.

 

Sources:

 

Civil War
by John Stanchak, Dorling Kindersley Publishing, Inc.

 

Something to Hope For
by Joyce Shadd Middleton, Bryan Prince, and Karen Shadd Evelyn, Buxton National Historic Site and Museum

This book was originally published in hardcover by Scholastic Press in 2007.

 

Copyright © 2007 by Christopher Paul Curtis. All rights reserved.

Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC, SCHOLASTIC PRESS, APPLE PAPERBACKS, AFTER WORDS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

 

This edition first printing, February 2009

 

COVER PHOTO BY ALBERT TROTMAN, ALLFORD
TROTMAN ASSOC. / DESIGN BY TIM HALL

e-ISBN 978-0-545-28119-5

 

The author has used certain Canadian spellings to establish the setting of this novel.

 

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