Birchtown School

The Birchtown School is valued for its association with the story of education in the eighteenth century African-Nova Scotian community of Birchtown. It is also valued as a local landmark and museum.

A British tactic to weaken American resources during the American Revolution was to offer freedom and land to any Black slave who managed to escape their American slave owners and fight for the British. Following the end of hostilities approximately 50,000 ‘loyal’ Blacks needed to be resettled. Over three thousand came to Nova Scotia; approximately fifteen hundred settled at Birchtown in 1783. At this time Birchtown was the largest community of Free Blacks outside of Africa. In 1791 the British government formed the Sierra Leone Company and offered Freed Blacks more land that they were given in the British colonies and the promise of self-government in the West African country of Sierra Leone. Nearly half of the Black Loyalists accepted this offered and removed to Sierra Leone. Some Black Loyalists remained in Birchtown, which eventually became a racially mixed community. Formal education began in Birchtown in 1785 by an English philanthropic society.

It is unknown exactly when the Birchtown School was constructed. Its architecture is consistent with mid-nineteenth century architecture and is believed to have been built between 1830 and 1860. During that period a teacher named Roswell Brown was known to have taught Black children in the area at a Church of England school and Brown owned the land on which the school was built.

The building is a Greek Revival, one-and-one-half storey wood frame building with a front gable roof and a one storey wing projecting from the front elevation. It is one of two public buildings remaining from nineteenth century Birchtown and is now open as a museum operated by the Black Loyalist Heritage Society.