History of Lucan-Biddulph Township, Wilberforce Settlement, Black Donnelly Massacre & Museum
Channel: Billy Gilmore
Date: 2020-07-02

Source; Wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucan_Biddulph

Township of Lucan Biddulph
Lucan Biddulph is located in Southern OntarioLucan Biddulph
Lucan Biddulph Coordinates: 43°12′N 81°23′W
Coordinates: 43°12′N 81°23′W
Country: Canada
Province: Ontario
County: Middlesex
Formed: January 1, 1999
Government:
 • Mayor: Cathy Burghardt-Jesson
 • Federal: Lambton—Kent—Middlesex
 • Provincial: Lambton—Kent—Middlesex

Area
 • Land 169.14 km2 (65.31 sq mi)

Population (2016)[1]
 • Total 4,700
 • Density 27.8/km2 (72/sq mi)

Time zone UTC-5 (EST)
 • Summer (DST) UTC-4 (EDT)

Postal Code 
N0M 2J0

Area code(s) 519 and 226

Website www.lucanbiddulph.on.ca
Lucan Biddulph is an incorporated township in southwestern Ontario, Canada. It was formed on January 1, 1999, by amalgamating the Village of Lucan with Biddulph Township. The township had a population of 4,700 people in the Canada 2016 Census, up 8.3% from 4,388 people in 2011, and covers an area of 169.14 km2 of land within Middlesex County.[2]


Contents
1 Geography
2 Communities
3 History
3.1 Etymology
3.2 Settlement
3.3 Early history
3.4 Donnelly Massacre
3.5 Lucan Snowstorm
3.6 Baconfest
4 Demographics
5 Sports
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

Geography
Lucan Biddulph is an agricultural community with fertile soils used for growing crops and raising livestock. Many of the township's residents are employed in the agricultural sector.

Communities
Communities in the township include Lucan, Granton, Mooresville, Clandeboye, Elginfield, Whalen Corners, and Prospect Hill. The township administrative offices are located in Lucan.

History

Etymology
Comprising 40,000 acres (160 km2) of Middlesex County, the Township of Biddulph was surveyed by agents of the Canada Company in 1830. The township took its name from John Biddulph, one of the earliest directors of the Canada Company.[3]

Until its incorporation in 1872, the village of Lucan had been known as Marystown, named in tribute to the wife of John McDonald, who was the original land surveyor of the area. When a duplicate Marystown was found to have already registered with the Post Office, the name Lucan was put forth and accepted by the postal authorities. Lucan was named in tribute to Lord Lucan, a prominent landowner in Ireland.[4]

Settlement
Despite being more than 500 km (310 mi) to the North, in 1829 the area became a refuge for a group of free African Americans from Cincinnati, Ohio, who had been threatened by riots and job discrimination by white people in their city. A group of roughly 200 Black Americans were granted refuge and land by the Canada Company and duly set up a colony named Wilberforce. This was one of the earliest, if not the earliest, settlements connected with the American Colonization Society (which was established in 1816 to settle free African Americans in an African colony) in Upper Canada and/or West Africa) and was established before emancipation. The flight of Black refugees, escaped slaves from the South, northward into Canada beginning around this time was as part of the Underground Railroad.

Most of the Black Cincinnatians came from city life and did not adapt well to the harsh farming environment. They cleared large lots of land by logging and worked hard to sustain the colony, but much of the population declined through the 1840s as many of the original colonists moved on to larger, growing urban centres such as Detroit, Cleveland or Toronto to obtain wage-based employment. A small number remained to work the land through subsequent generations.

The area was further logged and settled by white people in the 1840s and later, many from Ireland, some of whom purchased farmsteads from the departing Black settlers or new lots sold to them cheaply by the Canada Company. Nowadays fewer than 40 descendants of the ancestral Black inhabitants remain.[5]

By 1850, the majority of the township's landholders were Irish Catholics, many of whom had immigrated from farming lands in County Tipperary, Ireland.

Early history
An important railway route belonging to the Grand Trunk Railway opened in 1856, passing through the village. The village and surrounding township prospered as a result of quicker access to larger marketplaces, such as Toronto farther to the east, and new immigrants settling the area. Its post office was established the following year in 1857.[6]

Donnelly Massacre
Biddulph Township is known as the site of the brutal massacre on February 4, 1880 of five of the Black Donnellys, an immigrant Irish family caught up in a long-standing local feud. These events have been written about many times and is etched into the criminal history of rural Ontario; it is well known in Canada and nearby areas of the United States.

#BlackHistoryMonthInJuly
#BlackLivesMatter
#BlackLandMatters
#Racism
#EmancipationAct
#Marystown
#Wilberforce
#UndergroundRailroad