Mathieu de Costa First recorded black person to set foot on land now known as Canada. He was a free man and a translator employed by Samuel de Champlain and other explorers.  He died in Quebec City.

Joseph, an enslaved black man who spoke French and English and escaped from his owner in Montreal.  Several other enslaved black people escaped from the area over the following decades.

Six black enslaved servants were given to an American loyalist newly relocated in Saint-Armand.

Enslaved black bodies were buried at Nigger Rock.

The census of 1851 recorded no fewer than 283 black residents in the area.

Tom Peters,  a black settler, who lived with his family in a house on a hill; and so villagers called the hill Negro Hill until it was changed to Sugar Hill.