The Village Squire, 1981-10, Page 10Daytripping
by Alice Gibb
Uncle Tom's
Cabin Museum
When Rev. Josiah Henson, an aging
black preacher, died in Dresden, Ontario,
in 1883, more than fifty teams of horses
were Tined up outside the church where
the funeral was held. The mourners
weren't only paying their respects to the
man who'd ministered to their spiritual
needs, but they were saying farewell to a
legend. Rev. Henson was the man who
inspired one of American literature's most
powerful novels- Harriet Beecher Stowe's
Uncle Tom's Cabin.
In the novel. Uncle Tom dies under the
brutal treatment of slave -owner Simon
Legree, but in reality the man whose life
inspired the book lived to attain his dream
of freedom. Today his home, part of his
farm, and the cemetery where family
members are buried, are a popular
attraction just outside the small town of
Dresden, in Kent County.
A visit to Uncle Tom's Cabin and
Museum is a chance to learn about the
Underground Railroad, which smuggled
slaves out of the U.S. to freedom and
about one of Canada's first and most
successful black settlements. It's also an
opportunity to bring a picnic lunch and
PG. 8 VILLAGE SQUIRE/OCTOBER 1981
linger under the cool shade trees in the
park, surrounded by the sights and sounds
of the country.
Josiah Henson, descendant of Africans
captured by early slave traders. began his
life in Maryland on the farm of a kind
plantation owner. However, when Henson
was still a boy, he and his mother were
sold to another farmer named Isaac Riley.
When he was a young man, Henson
accompanied his master into town one
night and Riley became involved in a
political brawl with neighbouring planters
outside the tavern. Since it was an offense
punishable by lashing for a black to raise
his fists against a white man, the slave
tried to help his master by using his head
and shoulder as a battering ram to break
through, the melee. Henson managed to
rescue his owner, but he was waylaid later
by the other planters and his shoulder
blades were broken in the beating.
Riley came to trust the slave who had
risked his life to rescue him, and he made
Henson overseer of farming operations on
the plantation. The slave travelled to
Georgetown and Washington to market
the farm produce and it was here he
learned the distinguished vocabulary that
so impressed listeners on his speaking
tours later in life.
Riley, like many of his Southern
counterparts, soon spent more time
drinking than farming, and fell into debt.
To prevent his slaves from being sold at
public auction, he sent them to his brother
Amos' Kentucky plantation.
For five years Henson worked there,
again as farm manager, and during this
period he was ordained as a minister of the
Methodist Episcopal Church.
By going on speaking tours in northern
states like Ohio, which were sympathetic
to the abolitionist cause. Henson thought
he'd earned enough funds to pay for his
freedom and that of his wife and children.
But Isaac Riley tricked him, since Henson
could neither read or write, and the slave
learned his owner planned to sell him,
despite his years of faithful service.
Henson decided he had to make a bid for
freedom and on a moonless night a fellow
slave rowed Josiah and his family across
the Ohio River to Indiana. From there they
travelled at night and hid during the day
until they reached Cincinnati and suppor-
ters of the Underground Railroad.
In October, 1830, Henson arrived in