Whilst we waited for the ferry to carry us to Windsor, I started wondering what would happen to Hope once we got to Buxton. But I knowed pretty quick. I knowed Mrs. Brown was probably gonna be able to buy some cloth with some colour in it from MacMahon’s Dry Goods.
When the sun started peeking over the trees on Belle Isle I knowed I had to welcome Hope to Canada the right way, the same way growned folks do.
I pointed over to Canada and said to her, “Looky there! Look at that sky! Ain’t that the most beautifullest sky you ever seen?”
’Stead of looking where I was pointing she looked at the end of my finger.
I put Hope Too-mah-ee-nee on my shoulder, pointed over at Windsor, and said, “Looky there, look at that land! Look at those trees! Have you ever seen anything that precious? It’s the land of the free!”
She kept watching my finger.
“Now look at yourself, have you ever seen someone that looked so gorgeous?
“Today you’re truly free, and you choosed the most beautifullest, most perfectest day for doing it!”
I raised her over my head and said, “All I’m wondering is, what kept you?”
She smiled at me, reached her hands down at my face, then spit up water all over me.
Even though most times getting throwed up on ain’t the kind of thing you’re gonna laugh ’bout, I did anyway.
I wiped my face off, pulled on Jingle Boy’s reins, and led him up the ramp to the ferry.
It got me thinking ’bout Mr. Frederick Douglass, and it might sound like I’m being prideful again, but I knowed that once I got this little girl back to Buxton safe, I was pretty doggone sure waren’t no one gonna remember what happened twixt him and me ever again. I knowed it was like he’d finally got his revenge and would quit plaguing me!
Once we set foot in Canada I put Hope Too-mah-eenee back in the tote sack. I decided I waren’t gonna take no chances by running Jingle Boy too hard. I made him go mule speed ’stead of horse speed. It took a lot longer that way, so we didn’t get to the west part of Buxton till sometime ’round noon.
And Hope slept the whole way.
Special thanks to Andrea Davis Pinkney and everyone at
Scholastic who helped make this so easy. Extra special thanks
to my editor Anamika Bhatnagar, who read this four million
times and still laughed in all of the right places.
I am very fortunate to have a group of wonderful readers
who help polish my writings. Continued thanks to Joan and
George (Mr. Congressional Gold Medal Award winner!)
Taylor, Mickial Wilson, Kaysandra Curtis,
Harrison Chumley Patrick, Kay Benjamin, Lynn Guest,
Eugene Miller, Teri Lesesne, Terry Fisher,
Janet Brown, Lauren Pankin, Debbie Stratton,
and particularly to my first three,
Pauletta Bracy, Richie Partington, and Steven Curtis.
Thanks to the Buxton National Historic Site
and Museum and Spencer Alexander
for their help with research.
And, as always, eternal thanks
to my parents, Herman and Leslie Curtis.
What an interesting, beautiful, hope-filled place the Elgin Settlement and Buxton Mission of Raleigh was and is. Founded in 1849 by a white Presbyterian minister named Reverend William King, the Settlement was first shared by Reverend King, fifteen slaves whom he had inherited through his wife, and six escaped slaves who awaited them. Reverend King felt there was nowhere in the United States that these African-American slaves could truly know liberty, so he purchased a three-mile by six-mile plot of land in southern Ontario on which he and the freed slaves could live. The population of Buxton at its height ranged from an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 escaped and freed people. Though there were a few other settlements of refugees from slavery in Canada at that time, Buxton proved to be the one that thrived. Even into the twenty-first century, several hundred descendants of the original settlers still live in the area, farming the land their ancestors hewed from the once thick Canadian forest.
The relative success of Buxton can be attributed to two things: First is the will, determination, courage, and sheer appreciation of freedom that steeled the spines of the newly freed, largely African-American residents. In the face of great opposition by some Canadians, they fought and worked hard to maintain the promise of the North Star. They took themselves from the horrors of southern American slavery into the land of the free, Canada. Every day they awoke was filled with hardship, every day they awoke was filled with the joy of freedom. In Legacy to Buxton, a detailed history of the Settlement, author A. C. Robbins cites a Paul Laurence Dunbar poem to describe these brave people, and I can’t think of a more fitting tribute:
Not they who soar, but they who plod
Their rugged way, unhelped, to God
Are heroes; …
Not they who soar.
The second reason the Buxton Settlement thrived is the set of strict rules that were instituted by Reverend King. People who chose to live within the Settlement’s boundaries were required to purchase, with the assistance of very low interest loans, a minimum of fifty acres of land which they had to clear and drain. Their homes had to be a certain size with a minimum of four rooms and were set thirty-three feet from the road. The front of each home was to be planted with a flower garden and the back was to have a vegetable garden or truck patch.
Economically, Buxton was fiercely and deliberately self-sufficient and eventually had its own sawmill, potash mill, brickyard, post office, hotel, and school. There was even a six-mile-long tram that carried lumber from Buxton down to Lake Erie, where it was loaded on ships to be sold throughout North America. Buxton’s school developed such a sterling reputation that many white families in the area withdrew their children from the local government schools and sent them to the Academy at Buxton instead. Many Native Canadian children also were educated at the school.
While I have fictionalized some aspects of Elijah of Buxton, much of the story is based on fact. Although there is no record of a terrible accident, Frederick Douglass actually did visit Buxton, as did abolitionist John Brown, though not at the same time. One of Buxton’s earliest inhabitants, a young girl, made the journey to freedom in the same way Elijah’s ma did, by escaping from her mistress on her second trip to Detroit. The Liberty Bell was indeed rung whenever a newly freed person reached the Settlement. This five-hundred-pound brass bell was cast in Pittsburgh in 1850, and was paid for by the pennies, nickels, and dollars saved by former slaves as a tribute to the people of Buxton.
Unfortunately, during the 1920s the church that houses the Liberty Bell was sold, and today the bell remains in a completely enclosed tower, not seen by anyone. The Canadian government recently donated a generous $20,000 for a replica of the bell to be made and placed on the grounds of the Buxton National Historic Site and Museum, but the casting had to be done through estimates. It is my hope that the Liberty Bell will someday again let freedom ring over all of Buxton. To learn more about the bell, visit my Web site, www.nobodybutcurtis.com.
I strongly recommend taking a trip to North Buxton. It’s almost impossible not to be deeply moved while looking out on fields that were cleared by people who risked their lives for the dream of freedom. It’s almost impossible not to feel a sense of joy that is a tiny fraction of the joy former slaves must have felt when they first saw the school at Buxton. A place where their children would be learning everything from simple addition and subtraction to calculus, everything from English to Greek. It is almost impossible not to look to the Buxton sky, be it rainy or sunshiny, and think, “Ain’t that the most beautifullest sky you ever seen?”
Go to the Buxton National Historic Site and Museum and get a feel for what life in Buxton was like a century and a half ago. The museum’s publication Something to Hope For is a fascinating overview of Buxton’s history. An actual original cabin and the original schoolhouse on which I based places in El
ijah of Buxton still exist on the grounds of the museum, along with the original cemetery. A huge celebration is held in Buxton every Labour Day when more than 3,000 descendants of former slaves from all over the United States and Canada come to celebrate and honor their ancestors.
Buxton is an inspiration, and its importance in both American and Canadian history deserves to be much more recognized. I feel so honored to have been able to set my novel in such a beautiful place.
Christopher Paul Curtis
Windsor, Ontario
March 2007
About the Author
Christopher Paul Curtis was born and raised in Flint, Michigan. The second of five children, Christopher always loved reading, but as a child he didn’t find many books that, as he says, “were about me.” After graduating from high school, he took a summer job hanging car doors on the assembly line at Fisher Body Flint Plant No. 1, figuring he’d make some good money before starting college at the University of Michigan-Flint in the fall. It turned out that the money was too good to walk away from, and Christopher’s summer job ended up lasting thirteen years! While the experience left him with a lifelong aversion to getting in and out of large automobiles, it also gave him a chance to do something that would eventually change his life — to write. He and his work partner came up with a plan: Instead of taking alternate turns putting the doors on Buicks as they rolled down the assembly line, each of them would hang all the doors for thirty minutes straight, giving the other a half-hour break. Christopher took the opportunity to write in his journal. Though he hated working in the factory, writing allowed him to forget where he was, for thirty minutes at a time.
While working at Fisher Body, Christopher continued taking classes at night. He was supposed to be studying political science, but he found himself drawn toward writing fiction. A few years after leaving his job at the plant, Christopher took a year off to write a book. He spent his days at the children’s room of the Windsor Public Library in Windsor, Ontario, writing this new story out by hand. In many ways, Christopher’s writing became a family affair, with his son, Steven, typing up his drafts on the computer, and his daughter, Cydney, and his niece, Hara, adding musical and editorial comments. Steven was the very first person to read about ten-year-old Kenny Watson’s family road trip to Alabama — the story that became The Watsons Go to Birmingham — 1963, Christopher’s first book.
Christopher submitted The Watsons to the Delacorte Press First Young Adult Novel Contest. The story didn’t win the prize, but Delacorte decided to publish it anyway. The Watsons Go to Birmingham — 1963 went on to receive a Newbery Honor and a Coretta Scott King Honor, and its success finally allowed Christopher to consider writing as a full-time career. Christopher’s second novel, Bud, Not Buddy, was inspired in part by his grandfathers, Earl “Lefty” Lewis, a pitcher in the Negro Baseball Leagues, and Herman E. Curtis, bandleader of the Dusky Devastators of the Depression. In 2000, it was awarded the Newbery Medal and the Coretta Scott King Author Award, among many other honors and accolades. Christopher’s other novels include the Golden Kite Award-winning Bucking the Sarge, Mr. Chickee’s Funny Money, Mr. Chickee’s Messy Mission, and this book.
When he is not writing, Christopher enjoys playing basketball and collecting old record albums. To learn more about him, visit him online at www.nobodybutcurtis.com.
Q&A with Christopher Paul Curtis
Q: How did Elijah of Buxton come about?
A: Elijah of Buxton came to me very easily — in a way that was far different from any other book I have written. From the word “go,” Elijah and I became close friends. When I’d go to the library to write, it was as if he were anxiously waiting for me, waiting to tell about his life, his worries, and his adventures. I knew I wanted to write something about slavery, but I can’t think of a more difficult subject to write about. When I write, I like to put myself in the place of a character and try to imagine what that person’s life would be like. But I’m just not able to imagine what it would be like to be a slave, to be completely dehumanized — and even worse, to have to teach your children that they too have to give up their humanity.
Q: What made you decide to set Elijah’s story in the Buxton Settlement?
A: Actually, the first chapter I wrote ended up being one of the last chapters of the book, and at the time, I didn’t know it was going to be set in Buxton. Once I found out more about the characters I’d created and about the community in Buxton, which I’d visited, the idea of setting the story there just grabbed a hold of me. Buxton is about forty miles from Detroit, in Canada, and about two hundred descendents of the original settlers still live in the area. It was a terminus of the Underground Railroad, so many former slaves settled there after escaping from the U.S. By setting Elijah’s story there, and by making him the first child born free, I was able to look at slavery without being actually in it.
Q: Was it difficult to write this book?
A: You might think it would have been, but Elijah just spoke to me and it took me about six months to finish. That’s a very short time for me.
Q: What is your writing schedule like?
A: I still get up at five in the morning every day — I always worked an early shift at the factory, and I can’t seem to break the habit of waking up before everyone else does. Early mornings are my editorial time. From five until about eight, I take whatever I wrote the day before and try to beat it into a story. From nine until noon, I go to the Windsor Public Library and write. That’s my creative time, where I just let the story go. A lot of what I write won’t end up in a book, but it gives me a little background on what I’m writing about. I can tell that I’m getting the story right when the editorial part becomes much shorter than the creative part.
Q: Do you plan to write another book about Buxton?
A: Buxton has such a rich and fascinating history that there are surely hundreds more stories to tell. I hope to tell a few more of them myself.
A Brief History of the Elgin Settlement at Buxton
The Elgin Settlement, commonly known as the Buxton Settlement, was founded in 1849 in what is now North Buxton, Ontario, Canada. It was established by a Presbyterian minister named William King, who was a slave owner himself through his late wife, the daughter of a Louisiana plantation owner. Reverend King did not believe in the ownership of one human being by another, and he became a staunch abolitionist who supported ending the practice of slavery in the United States. While working as a pastor in Chatham, Ontario, Reverend King came to a decision: He would no longer own slaves, and he would do something to help the fugitive slaves who had fled the U.S. to find freedom in Canada. He approached the leadership of the Presbyterian Church of Canada and requested their permission to build a church and a school for the fugitive slaves. The Church agreed, and they also helped him create an association to establish a settlement where the former slaves could live and prosper. The association, and eventually the Settlement, were named for James Bruce, the Earl of Elgin, the Governor General of Canada West.
In 1848, Reverend King moved the fifteen slaves he owned from Louisiana to Ohio, a free state where his family had a farm. There, he told the slaves that they were free to do as they chose: They could strike out on their own, as free men and women, or they could join Reverend King in Canada, where he and the Elgin Association had purchased land which the former slaves could buy and settle upon. All fifteen chose to remain with Reverend King, and when they arrived in Buxton in 1849, they found several other refugees from America waiting there. These former slaves had heard of Buxton, and they too wanted opportunities for their families and their children. Together, these men, women, and children became the first residents of the Elgin Settlement at Buxton.
Although there were other settlements for former slaves in the area near Chatham, Buxton was destined to become the most successful — in part because of the strict conditions for ownership that Reverend King and the Elgin Association established. The 4,300 acres of the Settlement were to be divided int
o fifty-acre lots, which were to be sold exclusively to former slaves and free blacks. The land would be sold at a reasonable price, with a down payment of $12.50 to be paid within a year, with the remaining balance to be paid off over time. By creating these rules, Reverend King made sure that the new residents of Buxton would have the chance to build their own community without having to worry about white settlers, some of whom did not want the former slaves living there, trying to buy up the land.
There were other rules to ensure that the community was a pleasant place to live, unlike the shacks many of its residents had lived in when they were slaves. For instance, each fifty-acre plot had to be drained and cleared, and houses built on them had to be placed thirty-three feet from the road. Each house was also required to have a picket fence, a flower garden, and at least four rooms. All the children would be required to attend school, as well as help out with chores. The adults would also be given an opportunity to attend school, and they would work together to drain the land, cut down timber to clear it, and build the Settlement’s homes and church with the lumber they harvested. Because Reverend King was a religious man, he also established a rule forbidding the sale of whiskey and other liquor in the Settlement.
Of course, it would take time for the Settlement land to be cleared, so Reverend King bought a huge farm nearby that had enough room to house Buxton’s first settlers until their own homes could be built. The work was hard, but together, the settlers made progress. On Sundays, Reverend King held church services in his house while waiting for the Settlement church to be completed. By April 1850, the settlers had built their own cabins and had erected a building that could be used as a church and a school. All the residents of the Settlement and nearby towns were invited to attend both. On the first day of school, ten black children and two white children showed up, and over time other white residents of the area began to send their children as well. Classes for adults were held at the school at night, and many white residents who lived nearby also attended. The Buxton school soon became the finest in the area, and it got so crowded that a second school had to be built. The subjects taught included Latin, Greek, and other high-school level courses, as well as domestic skills. Later that year, a group of former slaves and free people in Pittsburgh joined together to provide a gift to the school: a five-hundred-pound bell that would ring each morning to call the students to class. The Liberty Bell was also rung at six in the morning and nine at night to remind the residents of Buxton that slavery continued to exist in the U.S., and it is said the bell sounded every time another fugitive escaped to freedom by entering the Settlement.
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