Josiah Henson (June 15, 1789 – May 5, 1883) was an author, abolitionist, and minister. Born into slavery in Charles County, Maryland, he escaped to Ontario, Canada in 1830, and founded a settlement and laborer's school for other fugitive slaves at Dawn, near Dresden in Kent County. At the time of his arrival, Ontario was known as the Province of Upper Canada (U.C.), becoming the Province of Canada in 1841, then Ontario in 1867, all within Henson's lifetime there. Henson's autobiography, The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself (1849), is widely believed to have inspired the title character of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). Following the success of Stowe's novel, Henson issued an expanded version of his life story in 1858, Truth Stranger Than Fiction. Father Henson's Story of His Own Life (published Boston: John P. Jewett & Company, 1858). Interest in his life continued, and nearly two decades later, his life story was updated and published as Uncle Tom's Story of His Life: An Autobiography of the Rev. Josiah Henson (1876).
Josiah Henson was born on a farm near Port Tobacco in Charles County, Maryland. When he was a boy, his father was punished for standing up to a slave owner, receiving one hundred lashes and having his right ear nailed to the whipping-post, and then cut off. His father was later sold to someone in Alabama. Following his family's master's death, young Josiah was separated from his mother, brothers and sisters, when he was sold as property in an estate sale. After his mother pleaded with her new owner Isaac Riley, Riley agreed to buy back Henson so she could at least have her youngest child with her; on condition he would work in the fields. Riley would not regret his decision for Henson rose in his owners' esteem, and was eventually entrusted as the supervisor of his master's farm, located in Montgomery County, Maryland (in what is now North Bethesda). He tried to buy his freedom by giving his master $350 which he had saved up over the years, only to find that it had been increased to $1000. Cheated of his money, he escaped to Kent County, U.C., in 1830, after learning he might be sold again. There he founded a settlement and laborer's school for other fugitive slaves at Dawn, Canada West. Henson crossed into Upper Canada via the Niagara River, with his wife Nancy and their four children. Ontario had become a refuge for slaves from the United States after 1793, when Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe passed "An Act to prevent further introduction of Slaves, and to limit the Term of Contracts for Servitude within this Province". The legislation did not immediately end slavery in the colony, but it did prevent the importation of slaves, meaning that any U.S. slave who set foot in what would eventually become Ontario, was free. By the time Henson arrived, others had already made Ontario home, including Black Loyalists from the American Revolution, and refugees from the War of 1812.
Henson first worked farms near Fort Erie, then Waterloo, moving with friends to Colchester by 1834 to set up a Black settlement on rented land. Through contacts and financial assistance there, he was able to purchase in Dawn Township, in next-door Kent County, to realize his vision of a self-sufficient community. The Dawn Settlement eventually prospered, reaching a population of 500 at its height, and exporting black walnut lumber to the United States and Britain. Henson purchased an additional next to the Settlement, where his family lived. Henson also became an active Methodist preacher, and spoke as an abolitionist on routes between Tennessee and Ontario. He also served in the Canadian army as a military officer, having led a Black militia unit in the Rebellion of 1837. Though many residents of the Dawn Settlement returned to the United States after slavery was abolished there, Henson and his wife continued to live in Dawn for the rest of their lives. Henson died at the age of 93 in Dresden, on May 5, 1883.
Josiah Henson is the first black man to be featured on a Canadian stamp. He was also recognized by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada in 1999 as a National Historic Person. A federal plaque to him is located in the Henson family cemetery, next to Uncle Tom's Cabin Historic Site.
Matthew Henson, the Arctic explorer who accompanied Admiral Robert E. Peary on his expedition to the North Pole in 1909, is Josiah Henson's great-grand nephew. The state of Maryland named an undeveloped state park site in Montgomery County after Matthew Henson in 1991.
The actual cabin in which Josiah Henson and other slaves were housed no longer exists. The Riley farmily house, however, remains and is currently in a residential development in Montgomery County, Maryland. After having remained in the hands of private owners for nearly two centuries, on January 6, 2006, the Montgomery Planning Board agreed to purchase the property and the acre of land on which it stands for $1,000,000. The house was opened to the public for one weekend in 2006. As of March 2009, the site has received an additional $50,000 from the Maryland state Board of Public Works for the planning and design phase of a multiyear restoration project. An additional $100,000 may come from the Federal government that would go towards restoration and planning. The site is planned to be opened permanently to the public in 2012, until then there are guided tours four times a year.
Uncle Tom's Cabin Historic Site
Located near Dresden, Ontario in Canada, Uncle Tom's Cabin Historic Site includes the cabin that was home to Josiah Henson during much of his time in the area, from 1841 until his death in 1883. The five acre complex includes Henson's cabin, an interpretive center about Henson and the Dawn settlement, an exhibit gallery about the Underground Railroad, outbuildings, a 19th century historic house, a cemetery and a gift shop.
Image:Henson NHS.jpg|A federal plaque marks Josiah Henson a National Historic Person.Image:Henson NHS 2.jpg|The Henson Family Cemetery.
