Home of Josiah Henson In the News

The Washington Post's Civil War blog published an interesting item about the home of Josiah Henson, whose life is generally believed to have been an inspiration for the abolitionist novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.

The house in Maryland where Henson lived and worked as a slave from the late 1700s to 1830 has been restored and added to the National Register of Historic Places. Now known as the Josiah Henson Special Park, the location, in North Bethesda, Maryland, will be the site of special programs to mark Black History Month.

When Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin she based characters on real people. And Henson, who had escaped to freedom in Canada in 1830, was likely the inspiration for the character of George Harris, a fugitive slave.

Henson wrote his own life story in the late 1840s, which he updated in the late 1850s, following the success of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Prior to the Civil War, Henson aided a number of fugitive slaves who arrived in Canada. He remained in Canada after the war, and died in 1883 at the age of 93.

Illustration: Josiah Henson/Getty Images