St. Catharines, Ont., group wants to restore grave of Black businessman. City says search for his family first [Video]

Standing in the historic Victoria Lawn Cemetery in St. Catharines, Ont., Rochelle Bush can point you to a hidden history.

The burial ground is the final resting place for significant members of the early Black community in Niagara, including freedom-seekers who escaped slavery and abolitionists who fought against that institution. 

Bush is part of a small volunteer effort to identify and restore the gravestones of the freedom-seekers buried in Victoria Lawn. Since 2021, the group, known as the Salem Chapel Underground Railroad Cemetery Project, found markers belonging to 10 freedom-seekers, seven of which were buried underground.

They fixed up nine of those stones, which are now on display in the cemetery. 

In June 2023, volunteers unearthed the stone belonging to John Lindsay, a wealthy businessperson who escaped slavery and settled in St. Catharines, where he became the richest Black man in the region, if not the country, Bush said. Lindsay sold lemon ale during tourist season, owned property and had a number …