Jessica Linzel, Director of Community Engagement at the Brown Homestead, will describe some of the history of the Brown Homestead and the efforts to preserve and refurbish it. The farmhouse is the oldest home in St. Catharines and is located only 100 metres from the north-east border of the Town of Pelham.

The Brown Homestead was settled around 1785 by Loyalist John Brown and his family. This historic site features the John Brown House, the oldest home in St. Catharines, a two-storey stone house built in 1802 and incorporating an earlier 1-1/2 storey house (ca. 1796). It is also the home of the Norton Cabin (ca. 1817), built by Mohawk chief Teyoninhokarawen (John Norton), which was moved to the homestead in 1997 to save it from demolition.

The Brown Homestead charity was established in 2015 to purchase and preserve the house and to reimagine it as a community gathering place that will serve as an engine of progress and development.