I do have sufficient evidence to prove that I, my mom, and my children are descendants of the Queen’s Bush community. The documentary trail from my grandmother back through my Robinson ancestors (Myrtle Mae to William A. to John A.) to Peter Taylor and Margaret White is solid.

The question of whether we are descendants of escaped slaves are free Blacks is harder to answer, however. The answer could be one or both. Nevertheless, given that all my earliest known ancestors residing in Queen’s Bush hailed from slave-owning states, namely Maryland and Virginia, the evidence points more strongly in the direction that we are living legacies of slaves who struggled to obtain freedom despite the cost.

I believe there is evidence that I descend from known escaped slaves. Peter Taylor and Margaret White lived near Samuel White and Hannah (Gray) White. According to Brown-Kubisch (2004), Samuel White (at least) was born into slavery in Maryland. Given data from three successive censuses of Canada (1851, 1861, and 1871)—all of which agree that Samuel White was born in Maryland—his birth date ranges from about 1786 to about 1794. (Keep in mind that the accuracy of census data depends on the memory of the individual respondent.)

Brown-Kubisch reported that Hannah Gray was born in Maryland as well, but given the three aforementioned censuses of Canada, we cannot be so sure. The 1851 Census indicates Maryland, the 1861 Census says merely “U.S.”, and the 1871 Census says Virginia. Her birth year ranges from about 1788 to about 1802, depending on which census one goes by.

The two oldest children still living with them at the time of the 1851 Census, Henry (born circa 1828) and Sarah (born circa 1833), were both listed as born in Virginia. The family had arrived in Canada by 1834 as another child, David, was born that year in Canada. The 1851 Census listed another son, Jacob, born in Canada about 1836. By 1861 they appear to have two more children, Elizabeth and Frederick White, both born circa 1844, and possibly a grandson, Charles Smith, who was born about 1854.

Brown-Kubisch (2004) made no mention of my great-great-great-grandmother Margaret White, thus does not make any connection between her and Samuel White and Hannah (Gray) White. It is no surprise, because she appears to infer the family relationships mentioned solely from household data in the 1851 and 1861 censuses.

But I do believe there is evidence contained within the census data. Samuel White and Hannah (Gray) White lived near Peter Taylor and Margaret (White) Taylor in Peel Township according to the 1851 Census. Samuel White and his family are listed on page 37. Peter Taylor and his family are listed on page 38, the third or fourth household (depending on whether or not Lucinda Ross is part of Cornelius Taylor’s household (or vice versa) from Samuel White’s.

The two families are listed together on page 21 of the 1861 Census. By then, only one other household—that of David and Sarah Austin (the handwriting looks like Austin, at least)—separated them. It may be that Sarah Austin is actually Sarah White, Samuel and Hannah (Gray) White’s daughter, as David Austin is listed as a labourer, as are Samuel and Hannah’s sons, Jacob and Henry. Thus, it is possible that the White and Austin households are one, in which case they live adjacent to Peter and Margaret (White) Taylor.

In either case, I believe the reduced number of households between the White and Taylor families between 1851 and 1861 reflect the beginning of the exodus of squatters from Queen’s Bush. Both the White and Taylor families left Queen’s Bush later in the 1860s. Brown-Kubisch (2004) reports that Samuel White sold his farm to a John Fenton.

What is irrefutable, however, is that Samuel and Hannah (Gray) White lived next to Peter and Margaret (White) Taylor after those two families left Queen’s Bush. In the 1871 Census of Amabel Township in Bruce North district, Samuel and Hannah lived next to Peter and Margaret. They are listed on the same page, with Samuel and Hannah, now quite elderly, living in household No. 73 and Peter and Margaret in household No. 74.

Other evidence to a potential relationship is that some names repeat among both families. Peter and Margaret have a son named Samuel. Samuel and Hannah have a son named David, as do Peter and Margaret. Samuel and Hannah have a son named Henry. Peter and Margaret have a son named James Henry. Peter and Margaret have a son named Albert, as does Margaret’s brother Samuel (assuming my hypothesis is correct that they are siblings).

So sure, while my assertion that Margaret White is the daughter of Samuel White and Hannah Gray is conjecture, it is conjecture backed by a good bit of consistent evidence over at least a 20-year period.

—

I have heard of many African Americans today being ashamed of the fact that their ancestors had once been held in bondage. It is a sentiment I cannot understand. None of our ancestors volunteered to be treated as property.

Nevertheless, I feel a bit of pride in having a personal connection to that dark period of history, that I descend from those who bucked that vile system and risked their lives in a very personal fight and flight for freedom.

Bibiliography

Brown-Kubisch, Linda. 2004. The Queen’s Bush Settlement: Black Pioneers 1839-1865. Toronto: Natural Heritage Books.

Cooke, William. 2015. “The Queen’s Bush Settlement.” Stalking Dead People (blog), William Cooke. 27 Nov 2022. http://stalkingdeadpeople.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-queens-bush-settlement.html.

Drew, Benjamin. 1856. The Refugee: Or the Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada. Boston: John P. Jewett.

Ontario Heritage Trust. 2008. “The Queen’s Bush Settlement, 1820-1867.” King’s Printer for Ontario. Last Modified 2 Aug 2008. Accessed 27 Nov 2022.

https://www.heritagetrust.on.ca/pages/programs/provincial-plaque-program/provincial-plaque-background-papers/queens-bush-settlement.

Pavlakos, Raphaela. 2021. “The Forgotten History of Wellington County: Queen’s Bush Settlers and their Legacies.” The Black Past in Guelph: Remembered and Reclaimed (blog), University of Guelph. 27 Nov 2022. https://blackpastinguelph.com/2021/02/15/the-forgotten-history-of-wellington-county-queens-bush-settlers-and-their-legacies/.

Siebert, Wilbur H. 1898. The Underground Railroad: From Slavery to Freedom. New York: MacMillan Company.

For example, the former African/British Methodist Episcopal Church cemetery in Peel has a small collection of largely degrading tombstones. Some have been cared for. Attempts have been made to repair others, but photos of the cemetery suggest the community’s fading history.

But efforts have been underway to prevent that history from disappearing. Linda Brown-Kubisch told the community’s story in a book, The Queen’s Bush Settlement: Black Pioneers 1839-1865 (Toronto: Natural History Press, 2004). The stories of the community have since popped up in newspapers and other media.

The efforts of modern historians and reporters like Brown-Kubisch were made easier by the early work of Drew (1856) and Siebert (1898), who recorded many first-hand accounts of the Underground Railroad.

In 2008, the Ontario Heritage Trust commemorated the legacy of the Queen’s Bush settlement with a plaque placed at Glen Allan Park in Glen Allan, Ontario. It read:

“In the early 19th century the vast unsettled area between Waterloo County and Lake Huron was known as the ‘Queen’s Bush.’ More than 1,500 free and formerly enslaved Blacks pioneered scattered farms throughout the Queen’s Bush, starting in about 1820. Many settled along the Peel and Wellesley Township border, with Glen Allan, Hawkesville and Wallenstein as important centers. Working together, these industrious and self-reliant settlers built churches, schools, and a strong and vibrant community life. American missionaries taught local Black children at the Mount Hope and Mount Pleasant Schools. In the 1840s the government ordered the district surveyed and many of the settlers could not afford to purchase the land they had laboured so hard to clear. By 1850 migration out of the Queen’s Bush had begun. Today African Canadians whose ancestors pioneered the Queen’s Bush are represented in communities across Ontario.”

Ontario Heritage Trust 2008

References

Brown-Kubisch, Linda. 2004. The Queen’s Bush Settlement: Black Pioneers 1839-1865. Toronto: Natural Heritage Books.

Cooke, William. 2015. “The Queen’s Bush Settlement.” Stalking Dead People (blog), William Cooke. 27 Nov 2022. http://stalkingdeadpeople.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-queens-bush-settlement.html.

Drew, Benjamin. 1856. The Refugee: Or the Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada. Boston: John P. Jewett.

Ontario Heritage Trust. 2008. “The Queen’s Bush Settlement, 1820-1867.” King’s Printer for Ontario. Last Modified 2 Aug 2008. Accessed 27 Nov 2022. https://www.heritagetrust.on.ca/pages/programs/provincial-plaque-program/provincial-plaque-background-papers/queens-bush-settlement.

Pavlakos, Raphaela. 2021. “The Forgotten History of Wellington County: Queen’s Bush Settlers and their Legacies.” The Black Past in Guelph: Remembered and Reclaimed (blog), University of Guelph. 27 Nov 2022. https://blackpastinguelph.com/2021/02/15/the-forgotten-history-of-wellington-county-queens-bush-settlers-and-their-legacies/.

Siebert, Wilbur H. 1898. The Underground Railroad: From Slavery to Freedom. New York: MacMillan Company.

“In some other parts of Canada the same tendency to spread into the outlying districts and secure small holdings appeared among the colored people. Mr. Peter Wright, the reeve of the town of Colchester, noted this fact, and attributed the clearance of much land for cultivation to fugitive slaves. That such land did not always remain in the possession of this class of pioneers was due to their ignorance of the forms of conveyancing, and doubtless sometimes to the sharp practices of unscrupulous whites.”

MECHANICSVILLE, Va. (DML) — The settlers of the Queens Bush, both Black and white, were caught in a catch 22. As squatters, they had no right to the land. They could not obtain rights to the land because it was not yet surveyed and not yet for sale. But they needed to survive and did what they had to do—clear the forest and begin farming what they could.

The problem for them was, by clearing the land and establishing farms, they increased the value of the property once it was surveyed and made available for sale. Many of them foresaw the looming problem, and they petitioned Canadian officials for help—not so much for favor or mercy, but merely for recognition of the value of what we would now call “sweat equity” they had put in, of the value (monetary and otherwise) they had created by their efforts.

“We are aware that an apology for our boldness of squatting into the Queens Bush the way we have done, should be reasonably looked for. We would therefore beg leave to state to you that we are most of us, Emigrants, who came to this country without the means of buying land, either cultivated or wild, — and that we had therefore no means of making a living except as Day Labourers, which is by the way no very easy way of getting a living; but to which we would have still cheerfully submitted, could we have got places to live with our families and constant employment, but we could get neither one nor the other. . . . Taking these things into consideration, we thought it would be best for ourselves and Families, if we would go into the woods and cultivate that soil, which we saw that was at any rate, as long as it was unsettled of no more use than being a rendezvous of the wolf and the Bear, — contemplating at the same time, once to buy the land we have taken in possession, should it be sold upon such conditions that we could buy it and we are sincerely glad that there is a prospect of its being surveyed out.”

From the Queen’s Bush settlers petition to James Durand, MP, 1842; reprinted in Appendix 2 of Brown-Kubisch 2004

The 1842 petition led to no resolution. The settlers followed up with a petition to Charles Metcalfe, Governor General of the Province of Canada, in 1843 in which they pleaded for grants of land; and again to Governor General James Bruce, Lord Elgin, in 1847 requesting favorable payment terms once the land does come up for sale.

“That your pettrs (petitioners) has settled on these lands for many years and under Every difficulty has mad Improvements on the lots of land that your pettrs hav taken up by making roads fencing and Cultivating these land Your pettrs Having no Capital to Comence with makes your pettrs not able to purchase these lands Except that Your pettrs is granted time to pay it by instalments which Your pettrs will do if allowed to pay the same and we earnestly intreat your Excellency favour to grant your pettrs this their Humble request for if your pettrs is driven from our little Homes our distress will be great not knowing what to do. Many of your pettrs hav large families to suport and no means of suporting them if your pettrs Hs to leave these lands that vour pettrs Has settled upon . . .”

From the Queen’s Bush settlers petition to Governor General Lord Elgin, 1847; reprinted in Appendix 2 of Brown-Kubisch 2004

A small group again petitioned Lord Elgin in 1850. The result was the same: nothing. The lands were surveyed, with surveyors having little regard for existing homesteads—even to the point of drawing boundary lines right through dwellings in which families lived. The work many of the Queen’s Bush settlers had put in to create a new home from wilderness amounted to nothing when others stood to benefit from their labors.

“The surveying of the tract called Queen’s Bush, and the subsequent arranging of the terms of payment for land already occupied, caused a number of colored settlers to sell their clearings in ‘the Bush’ and move away. Some of these, it appears, went south to Buxton, but some went north to the shores of Georgian Bay and located at Owen Sound. From this testimony it is certain that by 1850 fugitive slaves had found their way in considerable numbers throughout the inter-lake portion of Canada West.”

Siebert 1898, 218-219

—

My ancestors were among those who were eventually forced to leave Queen’s Bush. They were still there in 1861, Peter Taylor and Margaret White and their family (including my great-great-great-grandmother, Harriet Ann Taylor) still lived on their farm in the settlement. The Taylor family lived not far from a John Little, who may or may not be the intrepid John Little interviewed by Drew (1856). (There was another escaped slave named John Little in Queen’s Bush.)

Shortly after the time of the 1861 Census of Canada, my great-great-great-grandfather John A. Robinson met and married Harriet Ann Taylor in Canada. Their first child, my great-great-grandfather William A. Robinson, was born in Canada in June 1863. Their young family had relocated to Pittsfield, Michigan, by 1870.

By 1871, Peter Taylor and Margaret White had moved to Amabel Township, Bruce County, Ontario. Amabel is near the Owen Sound area where many former Queen’s Bush residents moved. They weren’t there for long. By 1880, Peter Taylor, Margaret White and the rest of their children had relocated to Michigan where John Robinson and Harriett Ann Taylor had moved a decade earlier.

Peter Taylor and Margaret White have left quite a few descendants that have spread across the United States. But all of them struggled to find a sense of home here. Some of their grandchildren—including some of the children of John and Harriet Ann (Taylor) Robinson—were able to pass as white and did, as I have found in a number of Census records. (My great-grandmother was clearly not the first to be evasive about her past.) Others, like my great-great-grandfather William Robinson, did not have that option. They were too dark-skinned to be other than Black.

References

Brown-Kubisch, Linda. 2004. The Queen’s Bush Settlement: Black Pioneers 1839-1865. Toronto: Natural Heritage Books.

Drew, Benjamin. 1856. The Refugee: Or the Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada. Boston: John P. Jewett.

Siebert, Wilbur H. 1898. The Underground Railroad: From Slavery to Freedom. New York: MacMillan Company.

“This name (Queen’s Bush) was originally given to a large, unsurveyed tract of land, now comprising the townships of Peel and Wellesley, and the country extending thence to Lake Huron. While it was yet a wilderness, it was settled mainly by colored people, about the year 1846.”

MECHANICSVILLE, Va. (DML) — African American emigration to Canada increased after Britain’s Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 went into effect in Canada on Aug. 1, 1834—a day now commemorated as Emancipation Day in Canada—thereby establishing a safe haven for escaped slaves and free blacks from south of the Canadian border. The passage in the United States of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850 further inspired emigration. As they arrived, these escaped slaves and free blacks established a number of communities across southern Ontario. Among those communities was one referred to as Queen’s Bush.

Early in the nineteenth century, Queen’s Bush was largely a wilderness stretching from what is now Peel and Wellesley Townships (northwest of Waterloo and Guelph) in southern Ontario westward to Lake Huron. Much of the land was owned by the Crown (Queen Victoria of England) and set aside as clergy reserve, i.e., land held in reserve for the support of Church of England clergy. But as more settlers moved to Canada and needed land, plans changed. Some of the land would be sold—but only after it was surveyed, and it was taking decades to get the land surveyed.

Because the land was not-yet surveyed and, as a result, could not be purchased when they initially settled there, many settlers squatted on the land and began clearing it for farms in the hopes that they would eventually be able to buy the land after the required surveys had been carried out. They greatly improved the land’s value through their efforts (Siebert 1898).

Peel Township, in Wellington County, Western Canada (now Ontario), was part of that unsurveyed region when African Americans (both escaped slaves and free blacks) established the Queen’s Bush settlement there (Pavlakos 2021). They found much hardship, but with the potential for creating their own paradise where they and their families could be free.

“The fact that there were large tracts of good land in the portion of Canada accessible to the fugitive was a fortunate circumstance, for the desire to possess and cultivate their own land was wide-spread among the escaped slaves. This eagerness drew many of them into the Canadian wilderness, there to cut out little farms for themselves, and live the life of pioneers. The extensive tract known as the Queen’s Bush, lying southwest of Toronto and stretching away to Lake Huron, was early penetrated by refugees.”

Siebert 1898, 204

More and more slaves and free blacks began moving into the area in the 1840s.

“By 1846 the more distant interior was invaded. In that year the long strip of country stretching from the western extremity of Lake Ontario across to Lake Huron, and designated on the general map as Queen’s Bush, was entered by pioneers who had escaped from slavery. This region was not surveyed until about 1848, and by that time there were as many as fifty families located there. Some time during the years 1845 to 1847, the Rev. R. S. W. Sorrick went as far north as Oro, where he found ‘some fifty persons settled, many comfortable and doing well, but many [suffering] a great deal from poverty.’ ”

Siebert 1898, 218

“My father and myself went to the Queen’s Bush in 1846. We went four and a half miles beyond the other farms, to Canestogo, where he cleared up and had a farm; for years scarcely any white people came in, but fugitive slaves came in, in great numbers, and cleared the land. Before it was surveyed, there were as many as fifty families. … Some colored people have come in from the free States, on account of the fugitive slave bill, and bought land.”

William Jackson of Queen’s Bush, as quoted in Drew 1856, 189-190

John Little was a legend among the escaped slaves in the Queen’s Bush settlement. He escaped several times from his owners. He paid dearly for each attempt, but he never gave up. After his wife was sold away from him, he escaped again, reunited with his wife, Eliza, and they made a harrowing trek north to Canada. At one point, he missed getting caught by a slave patrol by mere yards. They found freedom in Canada, but no paradise.

“. . . We heard of the Queen’s Bush, where any people might go and settle, colored or poor, and might have a reasonable chance to pay for the land. We set out to find the Queen’s Bush—went to Buffalo—thence to Black Rock—thence to St. Catharines, and there I got straight instructions. We had not a second suit of clothes apiece; we had one bedquilt and one blanket, and eighteen dollars in money. I bought two axes in Hamilton, one for myself, and one for my wife; half a dozen plates, knives and forks, an iron pot, and a Dutch oven: that’s all for tools and furniture. For provisions I bought fifty weight of flour, and twenty pounds of pork. Then we marched right into the wilderness, where there were thousands of acres of woods which the chain had never run round since Adam. At night we made a fire, and cut down a tree, and put up some slats like a wigwam. This was in February, when the snow was two feet deep. It was about fourteen years ago. We made our bed of cedar boughs from a swamp. Thus we travelled three or four days, seeing plenty of deer: wolves, as plenty as sheep are now, were howling about us, and bears were numerous.”

John Little of Queen’s Bush, as quoted in Drew 1856, 216

As hard as it was, John Little put his defiance to good use.

“As it is so often said by slaveholders, that if the ‘niggers’ were free, and put in a place where they would be together they would starve to death, I wanted to show to the contrary. I have one hundred and fifty acres of land: one hundred and ten of it cleared, and under good cultivation: two span of horses, a yoke of oxen, ten milch cows and young cattle, twenty head of hogs, forty head of sheep; I have two wagons, two ploughs, and two drags. . . .”

John Little of Queen’s Bush, as quoted in Drew 1856, 218

Little’s target audience wasn’t just the whites who assumed African Americans were inferior, it was also free blacks who worked in subservient roles elsewhere:

“I would like to show it to those stout, able men, who, while they might be independent here, remain in the towns as waiters, blacking boots, cleaning houses, and driving coaches for men, who scarcely allow them enough for a living. To them I say, go into the backwoods of Queen Victoria’s dominions, and you can secure an independent support. I am the man who has proved it; never man came into an unsettled country with lesser means to begin with. . . . Some say, you cannot live in the woods without a year’s provisions,—but this is not so: I have come here and proved to the contrary. I have hired myself out two days to get things to work on at home one. If there is a man in the free States who says the colored people cannot take care of themselves, I want him to come here and see John Little.”

John Little of Queen’s Bush, as quoted in Drew 1856, 218-219

The escaped slaves and free blacks to entered the wilderness of the Queen’s Bush and began to clear it greatly increased the land’s value. They made the land livable and profitable, but in the end far too many paid dearly for their efforts.

References

Brown-Kubisch, Linda. 2004. The Queen’s Bush Settlement: Black Pioneers 1839-1865. Toronto: Natural Heritage Books.

Drew, Benjamin. 1856. The Refugee: Or the Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada. Boston: John P. Jewett.

Pavlakos, Raphaela. 2021. “The Forgotten History of Wellington County: Queen’s Bush Settlers and their Legacies.” The Black Past in Guelph: Remembered and Reclaimed (blog), University of Guelph. 27 Nov 2022. https://blackpastinguelph.com/2021/02/15/the-forgotten-history-of-wellington-county-queens-bush-settlers-and-their-legacies/.

Siebert, Wilbur H. 1898. The Underground Railroad: From Slavery to Freedom. New York: MacMillan Company.

MECHANICSVILLE, Va. (DML) — The woman on the left is my grandmother, Yut-Seul Yee (or Yee Yut-Seul in proper Chinese naming order). The woman on the right is my great-grandmother, Myrtle Mae Robinson Yee (or Jackson or something else). My great-grandmother tended to be guarded about her origins.

Actually, she outright lied about them. Sometimes the reason was understandable, such as to get around anti-miscegenation laws in effect at the time that she remarried after my great-grandfather Yee Jock Leong’s death. Other times, I’m not sure why—maybe because of some unnecessary shame over the fact that she descended from former slaves.

My great-grandmother was born Myrtle Mae Robinson. My mom was always under the impression that my great-grandmother was half-Chinese and half-Spanish. According to my mother’s “Statement of Personal History” from the time of her enlistment in the U.S. Air Force, my mom listed Myrtle’s birth details as 5 Apr 1894 in Santa Barbara, California. We have a vague Bible record to back that up.

But that past was a fiction created by my great-grandmother. I cannot say with certainty why she was so secretive about her past. I am sure some of her motivation stemmed from the daily racism she encountered in American life. She did pass herself off as white, for example, in order to remarry an Irishman in Indiana after my great-grandfather, Yee Jock Leong (1883-1936) died. She and my great-grandfather (who was persecuted by the federal government as a result of the Chinese Exclusion Acts) faced a racist backlash from his Chinese family when their relationship began. So it may make sense that, after my great-grandfather’s death, my great-grandmother tried to rewrite our—or at least her—family history.

If she was embarrassed by her history, she need not have been. It is one thing to dissemble to get around laws that had no business being on the books, but as for the rest . . . well, slavery wasn’t a choice.

The fact is that African Americans did not submit to slavery. They resisted in many ways. They often intentionally worked slowly and inefficiently, sometimes they sabotaged their owner’s crops and property. They planned or participated in what was largely unsuccessful revolts. The most effective resistance option, yet one fraught with danger, was escape to freedom. In the years before the Civil War, many escaped.

The Underground Railroad was a conduit for escaped slaves to flee to freedom in Canada, a British dominion where slavery had been outlawed. Canada was an ideal location for escaped slaves to flee to, as it was under no obligation to return escaped slaves back to the United States, whereas escaped slaves (and free blacks) in the U.S. were under constant fear of being “arrested” and returned to (or kidnapped into as in the case of Solomon Northrup) bondage under the Fugitive Slave Law.

—

My great-grandmother’s cover story began to unravel because of a family mystery that I was damned determined to solve.

My mom never knew who her father was, and my grandmother died with the secret. In the 1980s, I was sent to Cincinnati, Ohio, for some USEPA training as part of my job. Given that my mom was born in nearby Dayton, I went there to see if I could find her birth certificate. I found nothing for my mom, therefore found no solution to the mystery I started with.

I did find birth records for my grandmother and birth and death records for her two siblings (both of whom died in infancy). The family physician, an A.A. Smith, consistently listed my great-grandmother’s race as “Negro” or “Colored.”

Initially, I dismissed the notations. My great-grandmother had something of the look of a Filipina—which would fit the story my mother believed of her being half Chinese/half Spanish—and with the darker skin it could have been an honest mistake on the doctor’s part. My dismissal of his identification changed when I (trained as a biologist) started investigating genetic ancestry. I encouraged my mom to take it up, too. We found that we both have African American ancestry.

Smith, the family doctor, actually knew what he was talking about.

As I began searching for more records of my great-grandmother’s ancestry, I started finding plenty of records for a Myrtle Mae Robinson in Ann Arbor. Add to that the fact that we discovered in my grandmother’s scrapbooks a lot of material showing that my great-grandmother grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and it is easy to infer that something did not add up with my great-grandmother’s self-professed backstory.

Myrtle Mae Robinson’s parents, according to the 1900 U.S. Census (above), were William A. and Hannah Robinson. Hannah Robinson was named Hannah Marie Woods at the time of her marriage to William Robinson in Ann Arbor on Nov. 20,1890. She was listed in the 1900 U.S. Census as Black. Her death certificate (May 30, 1908) said she was born in Kentucky on Aug. 4, 1862, and that her parents were Calace Taylor and Catherine Cox. Hannah’s trail to the past ends with the names of her parents and her origins in Kentucky.

William A. Robinson (1863-1937) is another matter. He frequently appears in the U.S. Census from Michigan (1870, 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930; much of the 1890 U.S. Census was destroyed in a fire). His home still exists in Ann Arbor (at least it did the last time I looked at the image on Google Maps). He is consistently listed as Black and that he was born in Canada. His parents were John A. Robinson (ca. 1836-after 1910) and Harriet Ann Taylor (ca. 1847-1898).

All the U.S. Census records in which John A. Robinson is named (1870, 1880, 1900, 1910) list his birthplace as Virginia and his race as Black. The birthplace of his parents is variously listed as Kentucky (1880), Virginia (1900), or Africa (1910).

As yet, I have found no records of John Robinson’s sojourn in Canada in that nation’s records, but I know that he lived there before returning to the United States after the Civil War. Several of his children were born there: in addition to my great-great grandfather, William, my great-great-great-uncles James H. (ca. 1865) and John W. (1869) and my great-great-great-aunt Elzina (1867) were born in Canada. His wife, Harriet Ann Taylor, was also born in Canada.

By 1870, John Robinson, Harriet Taylor, and their children William A., James H., Elzina, and John W. resided in Pittsfield, Michigan.

Harriet Ann Taylor is listed in the 1861 Canadian Census as living with her parents, Peter Taylor (ca. 1814-1880) and Margaret White (ca. 1828-1888), in Peel Township in southern Ontario near the modern cities of Kitchener and Guelph. She is listed as Black in the 1861 Census of Canada and in the 1870 and 1880 U.S. Census.

Peter Taylor is listed as a farmer in the 1851 Census of Canada for Peel Township and living with his wife, Margaret, his daughter Harriet; son Samuel; and daughter Janie (probably Margaret J.). His birthplace is variously listed as Maryland or Virginia. His birth year ranges from 1811 to 1815, depending on the source. The 1861 Census of Canada lists three additional children: David, Frances, and James. The 1871 Census of Canada revealed an additional child, Albert.

Margaret White’s birthdate is harder to pin down, ranging from 1821 to 1831, depending on the source consulted. Her birthplace, like Peter Taylor’s, is given as either Maryland or Virginia.

By 1880 their family was living in Ann Arbor, Michigan. According to the 1880 U.S. Census, Peter Taylor’s and Margaret White’s parents were born in Virginia. The family’s religion is listed in Canadian Census data as Western Methodist (1851), Episcopal Methodist (1861), or Methodist (1871). This may prove relevant later.

This leaves me with (at least) three confirmed African American ancestors who were born in the United States and who were living in Canada before or during the Civil War:

• My great-great-great-grandfather John A. Robinson,
• My great-great-great-great-grandfather Peter Taylor,
• My great-great-great-great-grandmother Margaret White.

From the time I discovered the Canadian Connections, I suspected my ancestors had taken the Underground Railroad to freedom. But I had little evidence to back it up until I learned more about their community in Peel Township, Wellington County, Ontario. That community was commonly called Queen’s Bush.

He and my great-grandmother had three children: My grandmother, Yee Yut-seul Jackson, born on November 5, 1920, in Dayton; a son, Yee Poy Quon Jackson, born on February 28, 1924, in Dayton (also see birth registration) and died on December 30, 1925, in Dayton; and another daughter, Yee Yet Yut Moy Jackson, born on February 20, 1926, in Dayton (also see birth registration) and died on March 17, 1926, in Dayton.  The two children who died were buried in Woodland Cemetery in Dayton. The burial of Yee Poy Quon Jackson was paid for on January 11, 1926.

Yee Jock Leong died on December 4, 1936, in Dayton.  According to his death certificate, he died of acute phthysis—a complication of tuberculosis.  Obituaries were published in both Dayton newspapers, The Dayton Daily News and the Dayton Journal.  He was buried in a numbered grave in Calvary Cemetery.

Yee Jock Leong began a new family here, however. He married my great-grandmother, Myrtle Mae Robinson, on December 17, 1915. My great-grandmother gave the impression that she was an orphan an orphan of Chinese and Mexican descent and that she was born about 1892 in Santa Barbara, California. We thought she was raised by a couple of sisters, Katherine Scott and Hannah M. Robinson, in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  (Yee Jock Leong’s address books contain several Robinson/Robison addresses in the Ann Arbor area.) More on that later.

It wasn’t unusual for Chinese men to take additional wives. Dong Shee would have been the first wife (in a Confucian sense), and my great-grandmother would have been a second wife.

The first marriage could have been a false one, too, in an effort to sneak a “paper son” back to the United States. He did not mention a marriage upon his return to the United States in 1908, but he was not asked about one in the immigration interview, either. Nevertheless, the fact that some of the letters seem to indicate the existence of a Chinese family would make this instance unlikely.

I likewise wonder what happened in China on his 1914-1915 trip. He initially intended to stay five months and bring his son to the United States, but instead stayed for more than a year and left his son behind in China. Something clearly did not go as planned.

As for my great-grandmother, she seemed to spend a lot of her life denying her real origins. She was African American, a descendant of former slaves. She was no orphan. Her father was William A. Robinson, a descendant of slaves who escaped to freedom in Canada via the Underground Railroad. Her mother was Hannah Marie (Woods) Robinson, a descendant of slaves from Kentucky. Given the racism of the time that both she and Yee Jock Leong faced, it makes sense that she would have wanted to deny her African origins. But those efforts left us with significant challenges in puzzling out her family’s past.

On April 14, 1914, in preparation of what turned out to be his final trip to China, Yee Jock Leong filed a Form 430 requesting a pre-investigation of his citizenship status in order to ease his return. Immigration officials interviewed him in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the same day. Inspector L.B. Spaun reported favorably on Yee Jock Leong’s request, and his report began circulating up the bureaucratic ladder.

The inspector in charge at Pittsburgh, W.W. Sibray, forwarded the documents to the commissioner of immigration in San Francisco on May 28, 1914.

In San Francisco, a clerk on Angel Island forwarded Yee Jock Leong’s immigration file to the commissioner’s office on June 2, 1914. The inspector in charge at San Francisco, Charles Mehan, forwarded the entire file to the Immigration Service’s Law Section on June 2. W.E. Walsh of the Law Section approved Spaun’s recommendation on the same day, and Samuel W. Backus, the commissioner of immigration at San Francisco, gave his approval on June 3.

Sibray wrote Yee Jock Leong on June 8, 1914, saying that the immigration officer present at the Port of San Francisco will approve his application to be recognized a native-born citizen as soon as he presents himself with the appropriate documents prior to his departure for China. Yee Jock Leong departed for China on June 25 on board the S.S. Siberia.

On September 2, 1914, Yee Jock Leong wrote W.W. Sibray from Diehai, Sun Ning District, Canton (Guangdong) China to let Sibray know that he was planning to return in November with his son. He asked Sibray to contact the immigration officials in San Francisco. Sibray investigated the matter, then on October 20, 1914, kicked the issue upstairs to the commissioner of immigration for Philadelphia, recommending that the San Francisco office was the one that needed to deal with Yee Jock Leong’s concerns. The next day, E.E. Grunawalt, commissioner of immigration for Philadelpia, washed his hands of the affair and forwarded the Yee Jock Leong’s letter and other materials to the commissioner of immigration’s office in San Francisco.

Yee Jock Leong did not return in November 1914. Yee Jock Leong sailed from Hong Kong on board the Siberia. He was bound for San Francisco, as indicated in his passenger card. His health was monitored the entire trip, and his health inspection card indicates that he had been vaccinated (against smallpox, I would imagine, but I do not know for sure).

When Yee Jock Leong arrived at the Port of San Francisco on June 29, 1915, he did not have his son with him. There are no records of the Immigration Service’s decision as to whether or not he could bring his son to the United States, and I have no other information to explain why he failed to bring his son.

Yee Jock Leong was interviewed and granted permission to debark from the ship on the day he arrived.

On July 1, 1915, Yee Jock Leong applied for an certificate of identity from the Immigration Service. He asked that the completed card be delivered to 830 Grant Avenue, San Francisco, where he was apparently staying prior to his return to Irwin, Pennsylvania. The identity card was issued on July 2.

Yee Jock Leong boarded a train in Oakland about July 19, 1915, bound for Chicago. His Pullman ticket is stamped for both the 19th and 20th.

As far as I can tell, he never went back to China.

The Siberia and its sister ship, the S.S. Korea, were built at Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Co. in 1902 for the Pacific Mail Steamship Co. Both were involved in the trans-Pacific trade. The Siberia, for instance, transported Jack London and other war correspondents to Japan and Korea in 1904 to cover the Russo-Japanese War (which ended in Russia’s crushing naval defeat at Tsushima). The Siberia and Korea were sold to Toyo Kisen Kaisha of Yokohama, Japan, in 1916, and served for 14 more years. The two ships were scrapped in 1934.

By December 24, 1905, Yee Jock Leong had reached his destination, for he was married to Dong Shee on that day in Jew Kee Village, Sun Ning District, Quangdong Province, China. He remained there for almost three years, but returned to San Francisco via the S.S. Korea (above) on 29 April 1908.

This time, the return process was streamlined. Yee Jock Leong was briefly interviewed on April 30. He mentioned that he knew a Yee Him Wah of Po Sang Tong & Co., of 812 Dupont Street, San Francisco. Yee Him Wah was subpoenaed to appear at the Chinese Bureau office and testify on behalf of Yee Jock Leong.

The Chinese inspector recommended that Yee Jock Leong be allowed to enter the United States on May 1, 1908. On May 8, 1903, the documents from the 1903 investigation were forwarded to Chinese Inspector in Charge of the Port of San Francisco.

Little more than four months after Yee Jock Leong returned to San Francisco—on September 9, 1908, his first son, Yee Kee Quon, was born in Joe Kee Lee Village, Sun Ning District, Guangdong Province, China.

From what I can tell from the CEA file, the family began preparing before Yee Jock Leong left China. Immigration authorities began interviewing Yee Kim Wo and associates in April 1903. The goal of the interviews was to determine: 1) whether or not Yee Kim Wo was actually a merchant (see above); and 2) whether Yee Jock Leong was Yee Kim Wo’s son. Yee Kim Wo, in his affidavit, attested to both. Four white businessmen—William J. Gardner, Horace Scott, James R. Keutzel, and J.P. Hughes—attested in an affidavit that Yee Kim Wo had been a merchant with the firm of Kow Kee Jan & Co. for at least one year. Yim Fook Fim attested in his affidavit that Yee Jock Leong was Yee Kim Wo’s son, and that he had visited Yee Jock Leong in China.

Yee Jock Leong returned to San Francisco on board the S.S. America Maru (right) on August 17, 1903. From what I can tell, the America Maru was built by Swan & Hunter Ltd., of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England in 1897-1898. The ship may have brought rats carrying Plague to Honolulu, Hawai’i in October 1899. Authorities burned down Honolulu’s Chinatown—where the outbreak was centered—in an effort to control the epidemic. The Chinese population in Hawai’i dwindled afterward.

The Plague outbreak in Honolulu was not the America Maru’s last encounter with history. The ship was part of the Japanese fleet at the Battle of Tsushima on May 27, 1905, picking up survivors of two Russian ships, the cruiser Svyetlana and the destroyer Buistri, sunk by the Japanese cruisers Otowa and Niitaka.

The America Maru’s career came to an end during World War II. For at time the vessel served as a hospital ship, but later in the war it was converted to a transport. America Maru was sunk by the USS Nautilus (SS-168) while the submarine was on its eighth war patrol. On March 6, 1944, Nautilus attacked a Japanese convoy about 420 miles north-northwest of Saipan and sunk the America Maru at 22°19’N, 143°54’E. Nautilus then endured but survived a counterattack by the Japanese torpedo boat Otori.

Yee Jock Leong was given a certificate of identity upon his arrival in San Francisco on April 17, 1903, but he was detained on the America Maru for several days while another investigation of his citizenship status was conducted. He was interviewed at length by immigration investigators on August 18, 1903. During that interview, he said he came back to the United States to learn English and business. His father, Yee Kim Wo was interviewed on August 21, as was Ow Yung You. James R. Neutzel and William J. Gardner, two of the white men who signed the affidavit attesting to Yee Kim Wo’s merchant status, were likewise interviewed on the 21st and 22nd, respectively.

The interviews of Yee Jock Leong, Yee Kim Wo and Ow Yung You were interesting. They were asked some of the same questions as a check of inconsistencies in their stories. There were some minor inconsistencies, especially regarding the details of the Yee house in Lee Yin Village, but none were apparently significant enough to raise the suspicions of the investigators. Leading questions were asked — such as about an alleged scar over the right eye of Yee Jock Leong’s mother, Wong Shee, to which Ow Yung You skilfully answered, “I never noticed that; it is impolite to stare a lady in the face.” An affidavit attesting that Yee Jock Leong was Yee Kim Wo’s son was drawn up for Ow Yung You’s signature following his interview. It also attested to the fact that Yee Jock Leong was a native-born citizen of the United States.

On August 22, 1903, Chinese inspector Ward E. Thompson recommended that Yee Jock Leong be allowed entry into the country on the grounds that he was both a native-born American citizen as well as a merchant’s son. Yee Jock Leong was landed, and was issued both a landing receipt and a certificate that would allow him to obtain copies of his immigration papers.

Some immigration official—his name appears to be O.P. Fadger—on August 24, 1903, requested permission to copy some of the documents in order to complete Yee Jock Leong’s file.