The downtown church where former slaves found refuge in Hamilton

The legacy of Hamilton's first black churchgoes back to some of thecity's earliest days.

On a warm, cloudy afternoon in Ancaster, church historian and archivist Evelyn Auchinvole tellsstories from Stewart Memorial Church's history, includingsnippets of spirituals for a small crowd gathered on Sunday, the day before Emancipation Day.

Aug. 1 commemorates the anniversary of thatday in 1834 when slavery was abolished in the British Empire.Upper Canada now Ontario was the first to enact it.

The Emancipation Proclamation in the United States wouldn't come for another 30 yearsin 1863.

"Canada was a little ahead of the curve on this one," Auchinvole said.

'Being hated for the colour of our skin'

StewartMemorial has always been a refuge, she said.

It beganin the 1830s as St. Paul's African Methodist Episcopalian Church, and moved to its current site on John Street North in 1879 after a fire decimated its original location on Rebecca Street.

To this day, the church's choir sings spirituals passed down from the original congregation that sangthem along the Underground Railroad, Auchinvole said.

"Even this day, we still carry forward that history, of being hated for the colour of our skin."

The church's first pastor was Josiah Henson, the man believed to inspire the character in Harriett Beecher Stowe's novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

Throughout the decades, the church has continued to bea religious and cultural centre for Hamilton's black community.

It has beena place to receive a meal if you'rehungry, a place to find work if you're without, a place to find solidarity with others navigating the post-slavery, yetstill restrictive,landscape.

'The right side of history'

Sunday's talk about the church's history took place at Griffin House, a preserved farmhouse built in 1827 that Enerals Griffin, a black immigrant from Virginia, bought in 1834. Members of his family lived there through 1988.

Auchinvole said she sees parallels between Canada as a refuge for people of African descent more than 150 years ago, and people from Syria coming to Canada seeking refuge now.

"In the long run, Canada is on the right side of history," she said.

And Hamilton was in the centre of that, she said.

kelly.bennett@cbc.ca