WELLINGTON COUNTY – A Centre Wellington resident passionate about local heritage has put forward an idea to highlight the county’s Black and Indigenous history.
Ian Rankine, a retired history teacher who is active in local heritage matters, is asking the County of Wellington to establish an advisory committee to examine the feasibility of researching and promoting a county-wide Black and Indigenous history trail tour and restore the older log building in Fergus known as the James Edwards house.
Rankine presented the first phase of his proposal to the county’s information, heritage and senior committee.
This included gathering existing tours from Mapleton and Guelph’s Black Heritage Society and relocating logs from the James Edwards house to be stored at the Wellington County Museum and Archives (WCMA).
Rankine said he sees this as a logical step to give a voice to the area’s BIPOC community and history.
“It simply needs to be shared because it’s part of Canadian history,” Rankine said in a phone interview. “Black and Indigenous Canadians are saying ‘enough is enough, we want our voices heard.’”
He ultimately wants to see the James Edwards cabin restored or the original logs displayed and used as a trailhead because he said it is part of the story of Black settlers in the area.
While there are unproven theories that James Edwards was Black, Rankine explained that early Black settlers in Fergus assisted in building log cabins.
Rankine detailed how Indigenous people also played a role in facilitating Black settlements in the county which saw a large concentration of freed slaves who fled from the United States.
“Both of those stories need to be told,” Rankine said. “We’re not in any way diminishing the story of the Scottish, the Irish and the English settlers.”
Rankine said he felt his proposal was received well but is cautious as he has been let down in heritage matters before.
An example of this was when the James Edwards cabin was narrowly voted to be demolished in 2015 despite what he called solid arguments for heritage designation.
He and a group of citizens saved some of the logs and are storing them on a farm near Elora.
Committee chair and county councillor Mary Lloyd said this proposal was well received and she’s personally very supportive.
Lloyd said the timing is good as they are under a strategic plan review which would look for projects like this.
“It gives us an opportunity to review it and figure out if it meets what our intentions are,” Lloyd said. “We just don’t know how it’s going to fit into the grand plan right now.”
However, the head administrator of Wellington Place and WCMA is also retiring and being replaced soon. Lloyd said the new head should needs to get comfortable before they overwhelm her with projects.
“We need to give her a chance to settle in a bit and understand what the role is,”
She said staff have been directed to look into the logistics and feasibility of storing the logs.
Rankine said he’s willing to assist with this but because of past experiences will only proceed to help if all parts of phase one go ahead.
Lloyd stressed that projects like this need time to get right.
“We never said no to this project, we're just saying ‘Give us some time please,’” Lloyd said.
Lloyd did acknowledge this is the right time for this kind of project given the activity of Black Lives Matter in Fergus and increasing awareness around Indigenous issues.
“We all recognize Mr. Rankine’s passion and we didn’t want to seem like we’re discounting it in any way,” Lloyd said. “Timing right now was everything to us, we want to make sure we get it right.”
