Josiah Henson (June 15, 1789 – May 5, 1883) was an author, abolitionist, and minister.
Born into slavery in Charles County, Maryland, he escapes to Ontario, Canada, in 1830, and founds a settlement and laborer's school for other fugitive slaves at Dawn, near Dresden in Kent County.
At the time of his arrival, Ontario is 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 character of the fugitive slave, George Harris, in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), who returned to Kentucky for his wife and escaped across the Ohio River, eventually to Canada.
Following the success of Stowe's novel, Henson issues an expanded version of his memoir 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 continues, and nearly two decades later, his life story is updated and published as Uncle Tom's Story of His Life: An Autobiography of the Rev.
