The Black Loyalist Heritage Site, located in Birchtown, Nova Scotia, is an interpretive site situated on a stunning two acre property overlooking the Birchtown Bay and Shelburne Harbour.

The site is part of the Black Loyalist Heritage Society complex, and is included with admission to the Black Loyalist Heritage Centre.

Built around 1835, this one room school house served the Birchtown community until 1960. The school was built on land that belonged to Roswell Brown, a white schoolmaster who had come to Nova Scotia from Albany, New York with the Church of England in the early 1800s. After working in Liverpool and Port Mouton, Brown arrived in Birchtown in 1825 and established this schoolhouse.

This was not the first schoolhouse in Birchtown. The first Black Loyalists to arrive here had a school of their own, established in 1785. The schoolmaster was Colonel Stephen Blucke, a prominent Black Loyalist in the community. He operated the school until 1796. The next school opened a short time later in 1798, and was established for the Black children of Birchtown by the Warden of the Christ Church.

Brown’s schoolhouse was replaced by the Birchtown Consolidated School. After its life as a schoolhouse, the Old Schoolhouse served as the Birchtown Community Hall, then a storage building before ultimately being acquired for preservation by the Black Loyalist Heritage Society in 1997.

The Old Schoolhouse acted as the original Black Loyalist Museum when the Heritage Site opened in 2000. Today the museum houses artifacts from the Birchtown community, and an exhibit on the history of schooling within Birchtown. 

While visiting our site, be sure to take a walk along our heritage trail, Aminata’s Walk. The trail takes it name from the central character of Lawrence Hill’s award winning novel, The Book of Negroes. 

Along the walk you will encounter a replica of a pit house. These make-shift shelters were built by the Black Loyalists to survive here in Nova Scotia. The structure gets its name from the fire pits which were dug in the center of the dwelling. Black Loyalists would sleep along the outer edge of the fire, with a roof above them fashioned with logs and moss.

Archaeological digs show evidence of pit houses around the Birchtown area.

Faith was very important in the lives of the Black Loyalists – and it remains so for many of their descendants. Construction of St. Paul’s Anglican Church began in 1888, and was completed in 1905 on land sold by Black Loyalist, Enoch Scott. When the church officially opened it boasted 33 charter members under Priest in Charge, Reverend Edward H. Ball  with 54 families wishing to be appropriated pews in the church.

As was the case with many churches in smaller communtieis, the congregation of St. Paul’s Anglican Church dwindled. By the 1980s the church fell into disuse and closed its doors.

In 1996 the Black Loyalist Heritage Society acquired St. Paul’s Anglican Church for preservation as part of the Heritage Site in Birchtown. Today, the church remains a favorite spot for visitors of the site, and has been host to a number of events including re-enactments, quilt shows, and weddings.

In 1994 the Black Loyalist Heritage Society made application to the National Historic Sites and Monuments Board to have the landing of the Black Loyalists in Canada recognized as an event of national historic import. The National Historic Sites and Monuments approved the Black Loyalist Heritage Society’s application and honoured the Black Loyalists by creating a park and unveiled a monument in their memory in Birchtown, Shelburne County, Nova Scotia on July 20th, 1996. Legend and local oral folklore hold that this piece of land was a burial ground for Blacks. There is no formal record of the burial ground, though historical deeds from two adjoining plots of land mention that the properties border on “the burial ground”. Families in the area remember being told not to play on the site because it was sacred ground.

There are no records as to who may be buried on the site, though one church record suggests that a man named John Stevens, who died in the 1800’s, was buried “on the northwestern side of Shelburne Harbour” most likely in Birchtown. Unfortunately, most old church records were destroyed in a house fire.