Learn a little of Toronto's history as told through its plaques.

Thornton and Lucie Blackburn

Photos by Alan L Brown - September 2006

On the grounds of a school at the corner of Sackville Street and Eastern Avenue is an historic plaque, near the bottom left in the photo, that tells us about the lives of Thornton and Lucie Blackburn who arrived in Toronto via the Underground Railroad. The Parks Canada plaque says this:

In 1985, archaeologists digging on this site uncovered fascinating clues to Toronto's history as a terminus of the famous Underground Railway. From 1834 to 1890, this site had been the home of Thornton and Lucie Blackburn, refugee slaves from Kentucky who started Toronto's first taxicab company. Thornton and Lucie Blackburn escaped on July 3, 1831 by taking a steamboat up the Ohio River from Louisville to Cincinnati and then a stagecoach to Michigan. Their recapture in Detroit two years later resulted in the 'Blackburn Riots of 1833'. Detroit's Black community staged a dramatic rescue and aided the Blackburns across the border to safety in Canada. Despite two extradition requests by Michigan's governor, they were allowed to remain free and begin their new lives in Canada. The Blackburn's became well-known members of Toronto's African Canadian community. They helped to build Little Trinity Anglican Church, and contributed to efforts organized to assist other freedom-seekers, both in Toronto and at Buxton in southwestern Ontario. Thornton participated in the 'North American Convention of Colored Freemen' at St. Lawrence Hall in September of 1851, and was an associate of George Brown in anti-slavery activities. The excavation of the Blackburn's former home remains the only archaeological dig on an Underground Railway site ever conducted in Toronto. In 1999, the Department of Canadian Heritage designated Thornton and Lucie Blackburn 'Persons of National Historic Significance' in recognition of their generosity to the less fortunate and their lifelong resistance to slavery and racial oppression.

Plaque Location Co-ordinates: 43.653664 -79.359307

More Emancipation pages

Here are the comments for this page.

Posted March 20, 2009
For further information on this couple's remarkable story, see the book "I've Got a Home in Glory Land" by Karolyn Smardz Frost. It's a fascinating and thrilling tale.
G Trew, ON

Posted March 16, 2009
My goodness what an enlightening story. As an African Canadian woman, I really cherish this history and hold in high esteem the price my fellow ancestors paid for me to be a free woman in North America.
K Sawyer, BC

Posted September 8, 2008
Have there been any words of Lucie and Thornton preserved for us?
duke.vipperman@sympatico.ca

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