Peninsula In Passage

Belleville Long before the planned communities of Harbour View and BelleHarbour broke ground an earlier planned community flourished along Bridge Road. Belleville, a self sufficient community launched by the Church of God and Saints of Christ during the 1920s, included a worship tabernacle, a school, dining hall, commissary, a 24 hour laundry, a general store, barber, tailor and print shops, a sawmill, blacksmith, carpenter and auto repair shops, offices, a music hall, tennis courts and an athletic field. The community, known to the Saints as Canaan Land, would ultimately include the Belleville Industrial School and Widows and Orphans Home as well as senior citizen housing. “At its peak, Bellevile had seven farms with over 900 acres and three to five hundred people,” says Elder Ezra Locke, a member of the BelleHarbour Redevelopment Committee Belleville’s farms grew produce, peaches and corn to supply the church community and proved to other local farmers that wheat could be grown successfully. The agricultural component included poultry and dairy farming as well. Farm #7, located on the waterfront, provided a recreational area where residents could swim, fish and boat. The Saints owned a fishing boat, the “Alice Lee,” that landed catches big enough to feed the community. Belleville had several artesian wells and a natural spring that the Indians believed had healing powers in its mineral content.

Elder Ezra Locke