This is the former home of Rev. Josiah Henson, a fugitive slave from the American south, who made his way to freedom in the mid 1800's. Josiah Henson's name became synonymous with the central character "Uncle Tom" in Harriet Beecher Stowe's famous n ovel Uncle Tom's Cabin. The novel sold 300,000 copies within the first year and helped to raise awareness to the brutality of slavery. Abraham Lincoln credited the book as being a catalyst of the Civil War. In 1983, Josiah Henson became the first pe rson of African descent to be featured on a Canadian stamp. In 1999, the Government of Canada erected a plaque designating him as a Canadian of National Historical Significance. The plaque stands in the Henson family cemetery.
