Concession Street (Hamilton, Ontario)

Concession Street is an Upper City (mountain) arterial road in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. It starts at Belvidere Avenue, just West of Sam Lawrence Park, and extends eastward past Mountain Drive Park on Upper Gage Avenue and ends shortly thereafter at East 43rd Street.

Note: East of East 43rd Street the road is known as Mountain Brow Boulevard.

Originally known as Stone Road and changed to Concession Street in 1909. As well, the Hamilton mountain was a separate community from the Lower city Hamilton and known as "Mount Hamilton" but by 1891, properties north of Concession Street were annexed by the city of Hamilton and were serviced with water, sewers and sidewalks. Note: Aberdeen Avenue in the Lower City was originally known as Concession Street.

Concession Street is the oldest settlement area on the Hamilton mountain. It was once an African American neighbourhood settled by slaves escaping the U.S. via the underground railroad Underground Railroad. This part of Hamilton Mountain was then known as "Little Africa". Canada in general and Hamilton in particular received these refugees with great sympathy and understanding. They were illiterate and took up education in the "Mission", a union church and school building, erected in 1860. The Union Mission was situated on the south-side of Concession between Twenty-Second and Twenty Third Streets. The adults would sit in with the children and spell out words and hoped that they might some day be able to read the Bible. They also liked to display pictures of Queen Victoria alongside that of Abraham Lincoln. They also took on new surnames to avoid being identified and recaptured. Many of the families there favoured the name "Johnson" as well as "Atkins", "Murdoch" and "Green". Over the years these families abandoned the homes they had established, to be seen no more on the hilltop. They didn't like the long cold winters and eventually returned to the United States. Today it is a predominantly white neighbourhood.

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Wikipedia