| Josiah Henson (1789-1883) was born a slave in Maryland and became a preacher in the Methodist Episcopalian Church. Fearing that they would be separated and sold, he and his wife fled to Canada. Following the North Star, they arrived in Canada in 1830. An advisor of other runaway slaves, Josiah Henson co-founded two schools for Blacks near what is now Dresden, Ontario. He has been identified as the hero in the famous novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe. In creating this design for a postage stamp, Toronto artist Tony Kew used an authentic portrait of Henson and combined it with a symbolic illustration of the "Underground Railroad." Acrylic on a panel
DD-2128-9 C |