FERGUS – Community members gathered in Pierpoint Park Saturday to celebrate the life and land of Richard Pierpoint, an early Black settler who once owned the land.
The event, which included a brief talk on Pierpoint, a performance by James Gordon, a nature walk and fly fishing demonstrations, was put on by the Pierpoint Neighbourhood Group as a continuation of their conservation efforts for the park.
The group formed in early 2022 after learning a truck bypass bridge was being proposed to go over the park. After more than a year of advocating for the land, the park was recognized as an official significant area of cultural heritage by the township in April.
Melanie Lang, a member of the group, said they hope this designation will keep it protected – but that the bypass is not off the table yet.
“But we will continue to reiterate the importance of this being directed to another location,” she said, which is why they held the event Saturday.
“It was really important for us to bring everybody back together. And we wanted to continue to tell the story of Richard Pierpoint, because we don’t want that to get lost in our efforts of redirecting the bypass. Because it’s not about the bypass, it’s about how the bypass is impacting the Pierpoint land,” she said.
The park is home to a number of different species, which would be impacted by the bypass.
“If you put a bridge there, that impacts the water flow, it affects the temperature, the ecosystem, and the species that live in or along the banks,” she said.
But it’s more than that.
The 100 acres of land was previously owned by Pierpoint, who was a “highly respected and trusted Black leader” in the community.
Pierpoint “selflessly provided shelter, sustenance, compassion, wisdom and guidance to his disenfranchised, frightened and homeless brethren in the wilderness,” said Janie Cooper-Wilson, a distant relative of Lemuel Brown, a Black man who later received the land from Pierpoint.
He was born in 1744 in Bundu, Guinea, and was sold into slavery when he was 16 in 1760, according to Peter Meyler, who wrote “A Stolen Life: Searching for Richard Pierpoint” with his brother David.
They’re unsure what happened after 1760, though it’s thought he went to New England, and eventually fought in the war as a free man.
They do know that he could read and write in Arabic; in 1780, he was a member of Butler’s Rangers in Niagara, a Loyalist provincial military unit of the American Revolution. He later became a member of the United Empire Loyalists.
Pierpoint was also instrumental in forming the Coloured Corps in 1812, a British unit made up of entirely Black men. He fought with them in the Fort George Battle when he was 68 years old.
The head of the military at Fort York wrote in a petition that Pierpoint was deserving and had suggested an all Black unit. He fought with the coloured Corp in the Battle of Fort George at 68 years old.
He was 72 by the time he came to Fergus, having been granted the 100 acres on a veteran’s land grant.
Peter and David grew up in Fergus, and were drawn to Pierpoint’s story because it was local and had layers yet to be revealed.
“A story like Richard Pierpoint’s puts the focus on that it wasn’t just British settlers. It wasn’t just English speaking people,” David said.
“This may literally be Pierpoint’s doorstep. It’s important because it’s like a physical artifact of a human being, of a human story. And like Janie, this is her ancestors property, so she’s coming home. It’s important to keep that.”
Peter and David’s research is ongoing, and they’re working on a new edition of their book after new information surfaced.
“You know he had a presence, and you know he had an importance. So that’s why we wrote the book, because there’s no excuse to leave him out of our history anymore,” Meyler said.
