Pierpoint Park recognized as culturally significant landscape

FERGUS – Centre Wellington will be adding a Fergus park associated with an early Black settler as an official significant area of cultural heritage. 

At a Tuesday meeting, council approved adding the Pierpoint Fly Fishing Nature Reserve, also known as Pierpoint Park located along the Grand River in east Fergus, to Centre Wellington’s cultural heritage landscape (CHL) inventory and be included as part of the CHL official plan amendment (OPA) project. 

A CHL is a geographical area that may have been modified by human activity and is identified as having cultural heritage value or interest by a community, including an Indigenous community. 

Prior to this, 18 sites were identified to be included in the CHL OPA which would give council the ability to implement policies to protect and manage these areas. 

The previous term of council approved consultant Archaeological Services Inc. (ASI) to further research the Pierpoint settlement to understand if it should be included as an official CHL. 

Richard Pierpoint, a former slave kidnapped from Africa, was one of the earliest non-Indigenous settlers in the area. After fighting with the British army — first for his freedom during the American Revolution and then in the War of 1812 — he was offered land in what is now Fergus near John Black Public School.

Pierpoint was also designated as a national historic person by Parks Canada in 2020 in recognition of his life experience, hardships and contributions as a Black Loyalist in Upper Canada. 

Through further study including consultation with the public, Annie Veilleux from ASI explained it the history of Pierpoint Park is part of the larger story of waves of Black settlement and displacement in Canada.

“His property has been identified as a stopping point or place of rest and refuge for Black individuals and families on their journey to set down roots in what was once known as the Queen’s Bush to the north,” Veilleux said. 

The part of the property that was later donated to the township has since developed into the Pierpoint Fly Fishing Nature Reserve as a site of commemoration, recreation, stewardship and community development, Veilleux said. 

Due to these findings, ASI recommended the Pierpoint Fly Fishing Nature Reserve be added as the 19th CHL and included in the CHL OPA process but also for the township to develop a Pierpoint working group to further develop a commemoration program for the Pierpoint property. 

Further, township planner Mariana Iglesias said there is sufficient information now to determine the property is significant enough to be designated under the Ontario Heritage Act to further protect it. 

“A little bit more has to be done just in terms of writing a statement of value and bringing that forward and then ask the council to state its notice of intent,” Iglesias said. 

Council unanimously approved the recommendations.

The full report on the Pierpoint property can be found here.