New walking tour highlights early Black Settlers in Cambridge

A new walking tour in Cambridge took its first steps on Saturday to educate attendees on the stories of early Black settlers in the city.

Black Cambridge: Footsteps to Freedom had its first walking tour date, where the stories of early Black settlers in Cambridge, formerly named Galt, were shared.

The 90-minute tour session was run by Stroll Walking Tours and aimed to visit multiple locations over 2.2 kilometers, where the first Black residents lived and frequented in the early 1800s.

Juanita Metzger, the owner and operator of Stroll Walking Tours, said most structures from the time have been long gone but the tour would remain full of information and interaction for those who joined.

“We don’t see actual physical buildings or sites that still remain of those individuals’ lives because there isn’t a physical presence anymore,” she said. “So, sadly, we don’t have that physical representation but people will have to use their imagination and mind’s eye to visualize the significance of those individuals and communities that were here.”

The tour history was gathered by local Black History researcher Peggy Plet and it included the stories of a preacher, multiple barbers, firemen and several Black women who were nursery workers and maids for different families in the area.

Metzger said Plet’s research was not easy to come by.

“These individuals were often not included in newspaper articles or in local archives,” said Metzger. “So, it really has been painstaking work piecing together details of their lives. [Plet’s] work has really been about how much information can be found about certain individuals. Those are the individuals that we’ve included on this first version of the walking tour.”

The tour had two days scheduled for attendees to book, as well as private bookings available. It was created in honour of Emancipation Day on Aug. 1, as well as Emancipation History Month for the month of August.

“Since then… we’re able to walk to businesses and churches and homes where Black individuals lived and worked and shared community with one another,” said Metzger. “People have a different sense of connection when they’re able to see that a certain address or a certain location in their own community held historic significance for the black community.”

Tour Lead Dawn Gill became interested in leading the Galt group when she attended the Black Presence in Berlin walking tour in Kitchener by the same organization.

“There was a common notion that there was no black presence in Waterloo Region [in the 1800s] and in fact, there was,” said Gill. “I think when you love a place, you want to learn more about it and this is Canadian history and it’s been Canadian history all along… I learned for the first time that when Canada became a new nation in 1867, the first person to vote here was a black person. So, there’s more on that for those who joined the tour.”

Metzger said the attendance for the tour has been great, with the first day of the selling out with a full 20 attendees. The response prompted an additional date, with the next two tours scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 21 and Wednesday, Aug. 27.