”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…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. 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. 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.”
These moving words were written on 20 April 1860 by Rev. Lewis C. Chambers to George Whipple, secretary of the American Missionary Association in New York. Chambers was working as a missionary for the AMA in the neighbourhood of Dresden, Canada West, and had just been appointed elder to the British Methodist Episcopal Church on Thames Street in London. He moved his family to that young city in October 1860.
Sketch, John Rutledge
The “tolerable good meeting house” was likely built c.1848 by trustees of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (in Canada, from 1856, the BME Church). Chambers was a diligent and devoted pastor and missionary during his three years in London: when he left for a new posting in St Catharines in June 1863, his congregation was already discussing expanding the small building on Thames Street. Moreover, he had also nurtured new church groups in Ingersoll and St Thomas. In the event, the London trustees bought land on Grey Street and built a larger, brick church, Beth Emanuel, still a place of worship and hospitality today. The small frame chapel near the river was sold and then became a modest family home for approximately 130 years.
Few buildings of that vintage in London have survived the vicissitudes of Canada’s climate, neglectful owners, and rampant urban redevelopment. But the former AME church on Thames Street did survive. When its last owner, planning a business expansion, sought a demolition permit from the City of London in 2013, city officials and politicians, concerned citizens, and heritage activists protested the request and mobilized to save what was generally referred to as the “Fugitive Slave Chapel.” Mirable dictu, a lot on Grey Street next to and owned by Beth Emanuel Church was offered as a home for the chapel, and it was moved there in November 2014.
For more than eight years those concerned citizens and heritage activists worked with church officials to plan both the restoration of the chapel and an addition to it so that the building could eventually serve both as a learning centre about London’s Black settlement, the history of slavery, and the Underground Railroad, as well as a locus for community engagement. An architect was hired to draw up necessary plans, outreach was made to other southwestern Ontario centres that celebrated Black history, and heritage festivals like Black History Month in London were engaged. The work of restoring the building also began; volunteers worked with staff from Pathways Buildworks to strip off layers on the inside and outside of the chapel added by previous owners. Fundraising got off to a slow start, but hopes were always high that the goal of transforming the humble chapel into a learning centre could be achieved in time.
Aerial photo of Beth Emmanuel and the (daughter) chapel on Grey Street. Photo: Reubin Kuc
But by early 2018 it was clear that this was beyond reach, as Beth Emmanuel gave priority to its admirable community outreach. With the church no longer in a position to host the learning centre project, the British Methodist Episcopal Church offered the chapel to the Fanshawe Pioneer Village, hoping that the outdoor museum could take both ownership of the building and include the story of Black settlement into its already successful program of historical interpretation. The offer was first declined (many factors were at work here) but when made again in May 2021, the building was accepted with gratitude.
Plans are now underway to raise the necessary funds to move the chapel from Grey Street to the Village site, to provide a concrete pad as its new resting place, to restore the interior and exterior as closely as possible to its original design, and to begin plans for its future educational role. Everyone seems energized by this auspicious new partnership: the trustees and employees of the Fanshawe Pioneer Village, members of the Chapel Project who have been labouring for such an outcome for so many years, and Londoners who waited patiently for the learning centre to materialize. Perhaps also, its late pastor, Lewis C. Chambers, watched and prayed for this new home for his former worship place.
It is an unusual human being that does not become attached to familiar places and buildings. We often invest them with deep affection and nostalgia for the times spent and events enjoyed there. They gain in significance when we know those feelings have been and are shared with family members, contemporaries, and ancestors. Those of us who are currently involved in saving and restoring London’s “Fugitive Slave Chapel” feel that accumulated love for this humble building. Whether or not we have ancestors who actually worshipped there, we value what it meant for them and their descendants. Its walls, floors, and wainscotting have known anguish and joy, deep prayers and hymns of praise, struggle and harmony. This building is at the heart of London’s Black history.
Hilary Bates Neary
Hilary Bates Neary is an active historian in London. She was entered in the Mayor's New Year's Honour List in 2015 for Heritage. She also contributed a chapter to Shepherds According to my Heart: a History of St. Peter's Seminary in 2012. Her book, A Black American Missionary in Canada West: the life and letters of Lewis Champion Chambers, will be published by McGill Queen's University Press in its Studies in the History of Religion series in the fall of 2022.
The Sisters of St. Joseph are honoured to contribute to this local fundraising campaign. Interested in more information? Please visit The Chapel Project.