Enslaved African Americans would continue to escape from the Eastern Shore in the summer and the fall of that year. Some were caught and were forced to return to a life of enslavement while many others made their way to St. Catharines.
General Tubman: St. Catharines, 1858 – Part II
We do know that on April 7th,1858, Tubman was in St. Catharines at the boarding house she rented. The boarding house, which no longer stands, was located in the “Colored Village” on North Street behind the British Methodist Episcopal Church (BMEC) which she attended. The Black settlement was located on the outskirts of the town. It was at this boarding house where she received and met, John Brown, a notorious, radical abolitionist, for the first time.
General Tubman: St. Catharines, 1858 – Part I
At the start of 1858 Tubman was living in the boarding house she rented in St. Catharines, Canada West (now Ontario) with her elderly parents; Benjamin Ross Sr. and Ritta ‘Rit’ Green Ross. The town of St. Catharines was a hub for abolitionist activity. With a population of about 6,500 in 1857, around 600 were people of African descent, and the majority of them were self-liberated African Americans.
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