New Canaan was a small settlement between Essex to the Southeast and McGregor to the Northwest on Maiden Road (Rt. 12) in Essex County, Ontario

Essex County, Ontario

Essex County is a county and census division located in Southwestern Ontario and covers an area at the southernmost tip of Canada. The administrative seat is Essex...

, today officially part of the town of Essex

Essex, Ontario

Essex is a town with a population of 20,032 in Essex County in southwestern Ontario, Canada, whose municipal borders extend to Lake Erie. Essex is also the name of the largest community within the municipality. The present mayor is Ron McDermott...

.

The current Town of Essex was created on 1 April 1999 by the amalgamation of the communities of Essex, Harrow, Colchester North, and Colchester South. Harrow comprises the communities of Ambassador Beach, Barretville, Belcreft Beach, Colchester, Edgars, Essex Centre, Gesto, Harrow Centre, Klie's Beach, Leslies Corner, Levergood Beach, Lypps Beach, Marshfield, McGregor, New Canaan, Oxley, Paquette Corners, Seymour Beach and Vereker.

New Canaan was initially settled in the 1820s by Afro-Americans

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 who had escaped from slavery in the American South, many of them from Kentucky

Kentucky

The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...

. When the freedom boundary shifted to the Canadian border with the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, additional families seeking refuge and coming along the Underground Railroad

Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists,...

into Canada joined the original black settlers in New Canaan.

Literature

• Daniel G. Hill: The Freedom Seekers: Blacks In Early Canada, Book Society of Canada, Agincourt (Ont.), 1981, ISBN 0772552835 (bound), 0772552843 (pbk.), pg. 48.