About the man - josiah henson

• The Prime Minister of Great Britain threw him a surprise banquet
• Early Grey offered him a Job
• The Archbishop of Canterbury wept after hearing his story
• President Rutherford B. Hayes entertained him at the White House
• Queen Victoria invited him to Windsor Castle
• He won a bronze medal at the first World's Fair in London
• He was the first African American to appear on a Canadian postage stamp
• He was a Methodist Episcopal elder with a 300-mile district under his care
• He rescued 118 slaves, including his brother
• He helped build a 500-person freeman settlement, called Dawn, which was known as one of the final stops on the Underground Railroad
• Inspired by his story, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote a novel that helped spark the Civil War and led to the Emancipation Proclamation

But, before all that, Josiah Henson was a slave for 42 years. Henson spent forty-two years in bondage and daringly escaped with his wife and four young children, carrying the youngest two on his broken shoulders for 600 miles, eventually settling with his family as a free man across the border in Canada. Once there, Henson returned and rescued 118 more slaves, including his own brother, and purchased land to build what would become one of the final stops on the Underground Railroad, a 500-person freeman settlement called Dawn.