One of the Most Haunted States in America – Do You Live There?

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Missouri has the Gateway Arch, which is the largest arch in the world; the Ozark Mountains; and the Missouri River, the longest river in North America. It is the second largest cave state in the United States. With more than 6,000 recorded caves, it borders more than eight states, and is known as the Show Me State. Writers Mark Twain, Maya Angelou, and Langston Hughes; actor Brad Pitt; and rapper Nelly, among other notable celebrities, all hail from this great state. Missouri has both mid-western charm and southern neighbors, and, to top it all off, it’s one of the most haunted states in the country.

Missouri has the makings of a supernatural dream vacation with countless haunted towns, houses, mansions, roads, caves, graveyards, and more. It isn’t a trip for the faint of heart, or lovers of less than spooky hay-rides. Missouri is for true-blue believers, thick-skinned ghost hunters, and those who never shy away from an eerie spirit looking for help in solving their own murder. If you think you can handle the profoundly paranormal, then this guide through the haunts of Missouri is perfect for you.

Ghosts of St. Charles

There is a rich history of mysterious manifestations in this ghostly town. Instead of shying away from the unexplained noises, shadowy figures, and peculiar glows, they invite you to participate in hair-raising, captivating, and interactive excursions connecting with the other side. It isn’t a cold chill from the cool night you’ll be feeling; it’s a lost soul from the graveyard having a little fun. The wind isn’t what’s flowing through your hair; it’s the gentle touch of a roaming spirit trying to get your attention.

St. Charles Ghost Tours capture it all, from the lady in white (a young woman buried in her wedding dress) to the lost coven in the Tricot House. Are they still practicing their craft from beyond the grave? To find out the answers to your questions and more, immerse yourself in the history of local legends in the area, and then head out on a tour to bring it all to light – if you’re brave enough to do so in the dark.

Ghosts Along the Mother Road: Missouri’s Haunted Route 66

Unlike the Ghosts of St. Charles, Route 66 in the Show Me State might be better experienced through the turning of pages with a bat nearby, instead of exploring the ghostly roadside. John Steinbeck referred to old Route 66 as the Mother Road, but, where it meets Missouri, this lively playground of the dead is so eerie, it’s earned the title Bloody 66. A history of ghostly hitchhikers, amusement park spirits, Civil War dead, and Goatman’s Grave in Rolla make these some of the scariest miles of Route 66.

All along this dangerously curvy road, you will find stopping places as dark, shadowy, and grim as its history: Springfield’s Pythian Castle, an orphanage that turned into a military hospital that housed World War II POWs; Lemp Mansion, where family members took their own lives one at a time; and Zombie Road. These are just a few of the dark and mysterious stops along the route. If you can survive the stories, maybe you’ll be brave enough to take on the drive the next time you find yourself in Missouri.

Haunted Hannibal

Known as one of the most haunted towns in America, Hannibal, Missouri, is one supernatural spot too notoriously eerie to miss. The added allure of Mark Twain’s boyhood town, where he experienced his own paranormal premonition of his brother’s death back in 1858, makes this one haunt you won’t want to miss. Twain’s own experience provided him with a lifelong attraction for the paranormal, including the limestone cave he made legendary in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, where real-life ghastly Dr. McDowell experimented on his daughter’s corpse.

You can do more than read about the spine-tingling town of Hannibal; experience it for yourself, the next time you’re in Missouri. Tour companies offer guided shuttles to the most infamously haunted sites in town, from the murderous trickery during Twain’s younger years to modern ghosts from the mansions on Millionaires Row. You’ll even get a chance to explore the Old Baptiste Cemetery filled with the graves of Civil War soldiers and slaves; take your time looking for signs of supernatural activity among them.

Don’t Miss Out on These Scary Stops

Warrensburg, Brentwood, Cape Girardeau, Jefferson City, the Boonslick Trails, the Graveyards of the Ozarks, and Excelsior Springs in Missouri are all additional towns and places that have strong supernatural histories. From north to south, and east to west, you can find abundant spooky haunts in the Show Me State. So, the next time you want to head out on an eerie adventure, grab a road map and your favorite creepy mysteries, and journey through Missouri.

​Evolution of the Coal Industry in America

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As the nation deals with questions pertaining to climate change and energy independence, coal remains in the headlines. The coal industry in the United States has a long history, intertwined with the rise of the industrial economy and the emergence of labor unions.

Pre-industrial Use of Coal

People have been using coal for thousands of years. Coal heated the homes of ancient Romans. The Hopi Indians in the American Southwest started using the fuel in the early 1300s for baking pottery, cooking food, and heating homes.

English settlers discovered coal in Eastern North America in 1673, but commercial coal mining did not begin until the 1740s. It remained a small industry until the early 1800s, as American settlers preferred to use the plentiful supplies of wood. 

The Rise of Coal

The American coal industry began in Virginia, with the exploitation of the coal of the Richmond Basin. Early economic nationalists, including Alexander Hamilton, thought coal could help drive national growth and development. Because of slavery, colliers, or coal miners as we now call them, had access to cheap labor to exploit the coalfields, but the demands of the plantation system and the poor transportation network limited its potential.

Meanwhile in Pennsylvania, miners began extracting a higher carbon form of coal, known as anthracite, on an industrial scale. It rapidly became a common source of residential heating in Philadelphia and other northeastern cities, and by the 1840s, anthracite became the standard form of coal used throughout the Eastern seaboard.

A Slavic immigrant worker in one of Pennsylvania’s anthracite mines. Reprinted from The Anthracite Coal Region’s Slavic Community

Through the middle of the 19th Century, the coal industry expanded and spread. Ohio produced over a million tons of coal by 1853, and by 1861 coal mining had expanded to 20 states.

At the time, coal mining operations remained small businesses. A skilled miner could employ a few laborers to extract coal close to the surface. Many coal seams were exposed on hillsides or river banks, and those rivers allowed coal barges easy access to the mines.

Labor relations and coal mining did not become contentious until much later. Surface mining meant minimal danger to laborers. In addition, because the mines were small, workers and management worked alongside each other. Several attempts to organize mine workers took place in the 1840s and 1850s but generally had little lasting influence.

Coal Before the Civil War

In 1840 people began using anthracite coal to make iron. This advance increased the efficiency of the iron furnaces, as well as improved the quality of the iron. By 1860, anthracite produced 56% of American pig iron.

Production levels remained high through the years leading up to the Civil War, even though prices fell. By 1860, over 20 million tons of anthracite came out of American coal mines.

The Civil War and the End of the 19th Century

The Civil War affected many aspects of the national economy, and coal was no exception. The war increased prices by nearly 50%. The demands of the Union military led to more coalfields opening, including new bituminous coal mines in Maryland, Ohio, and Illinois. Railroads expanded to reach these new mines and became an integral part of the coal trade.

Railroads also began purchasing coalfields directly and leasing them to mining companies. The railroads opened the coalfields of West Virginia by connecting them with industrial outlets. The coast-to-coast railroad built immediately following the Civil War provided access to coalfields west of the Mississippi River.

Reliance No. 7 Mine, 1951. Reprinted from Coal Camps of Sweetwater County

New technology drove the evolution of the industry. Extraction of coal went underground, requiring pumps and new machinery to obtain the coal. The industry also developed methods to clear bituminous coal of its impurities by producing coke, a fuel with few impurities and a high carbon content, crucial to making iron and steel.

The increase in coalfields meant national production reached 80 million tons by 1880. Prices for coal, however, remained relatively low, and the industry fluctuated with boom and bust periods.

Labor unions began forming as mining became more capital-intensive. It remained industry standard to pay miners by the ton rather than the hour, continuing the model begun before the Civil War. After initial false starts, including the rise of the Molly Maguires secret society, the United Mine Workers firmly established itself and had over 250,000 members by 1903.

State of the Coal Mining Industry Today

Contentious labor relations continued into the 1900s, even as the industry grew. Soon, however, the oil boom began in earnest; primarily due to refinement improvements and the expanded use by the public of the automobile as a primary means of transportation. Technology helped make hydroelectric power more efficient. By the mid-20th century, oil and natural gas began to overtake coal as the leading fuel source for energy production

The coal industry reached peak employment in 1924, with over 860,000 miners employed. That number fell consistently until the late 1960s — though with several slight upticks around World War II.

Despite a slight rise in mine employment in the 1970s in response to the energy crisis of 1973, the coal industry, as of September 2016, employs just over 75,000 mineworkers. Most of the mining jobs disappeared as a result of technological advances: machines can extract coal more efficiently than a human can.

Competition from natural gas, solar, wind, and other sources also bedevil the industry. As solar and wind power become both more efficient and prevalent, the need for coal-fired power plants will decrease even further.

The Manhattan Project’s First Big Bomb

Yesterday's America Editorial Team
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The Manhattan Project’s First Big Bomb

On August 6, 1945, an American bomber dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. But that world-changing moment would never have happened without an explosion that occurred a few weeks earlier.

At 5:29 a.m. on July 16, the Trinity Test explosion of the first atomic bomb changed the world forever. It was the first blast in what is now known as White Sands Missile Range, and it marked the beginning of the end of World War II. In southern New Mexico, although the Manhattan Project was still top secret, everyday people witnessed the test, experienced its light and power, felt the earth move, and knew the world had changed. Here are some of their stories.

Americans see the preparation

The New Mexico desert where the Trinity test occurred.
The New Mexico desert on the Jornado del Muerto has changed little since the atomic
bomb explosion at the Trinity Site. Photo by Elva K. Österreich, 2019.

Clara Snow’s reaction was “stunning, emotional, a combination of fear, anger and bitterness that led her to tears.” “It was as if the air had died,” Snow told Tularosa Basin historian David Townsend, who interviewed many locals in the 1970s.

Most of Townsend’s sources did not notice much unusual activity prior to July 16, 1945. The people of Carrizozo, a railroad town, were used to heavy movement of men and equipment as the war still raged in the Pacific.

Some who were interviewed were convinced there was unusually heavy truck traffic at the time. Snow told Townsend that the government was moving a huge amount of garden hose somewhere. Union Pacific men had heard about some unusual equipment being moved on the Santa Fe through Socorro. Townsend wrote that official records reflect a frenzy of activity from July 12 to July 16, “but mostly in the Stallion Range area, across the Basin from Carrizozo.”

One of the interviewed witnesses had to go to the Trinity Site to move some equipment and knew “something was up” because of the tense atmosphere. “He saw a tower with what looked like a ‘little black pot hanging out on an arm of it,’” Townsend wrote. “When he asked about it, he was told simply that it would not be there when he came back.”

Americans see the explosion

Since the bomb went off at 5:25:45 a.m., the sources who remember the experience were “early risers, readying for work, cooking breakfast, or had been up all night nursing a sick child.” Townsend continued:

“They remember the light above all else, above the noise, above the tremors, above everything. One minute it was dark; then it was bright as day. The light faded gradually into what seemed a deeper darkness. Then the sound, not much noisier than distant thunder, and the tremor that rattled windows and dishes. The first thoughts were religious: the end of the world; the next, practical and reflective of wartime thoughts: they have sabotaged the train, or blown up the base, or.…Those who went outside to see what had happened were treated—or condemned—to a view never seen before by man. A giant column of smoke with light gradually dying down its stem was visible in the re-gathering darkness. As this false dawn was dying in the west, the true dawn was giving a hint of a purer light from the east. That picture stuck in the minds of the witnesses, indelibly imprinted. Then the silence came—an eerie silence where it seemed the air had died.”

Another interviewer, Howard Tate, spoke to a man who was in a remote location at the time, closer to the Trinity Site than to Carrizozo. The man said he was lying in bed under a sheet in a room with windows open. The curtains were moving gently in the breeze. Suddenly, it was daylight, and the sheet and curtain were blown in one direction. Then it was dark, and the sheet and curtains were sucked back in the other direction. Townsend said that sucking behavior may explain the silence reported by other witnesses.

Americans deal with the fallout

Flora Millfelt, a woman who witnessed the Trinity test.
Flora Millfelt during a change of command event at White Sands Missile Range. Flora observed the Trinity explosion with her siblings on the banks of the Rio Grande near her father’s ranch. Photo by Elva K.
Österreich, 2019.

Flora Millfelt saw the Trinity test explosion from the banks of the Rio Grande. Her family owned a ranch along the river near San Antonio, New Mexico, and while most people in the area were not told about the Trinity test, her father had been instructed to move some of his animals away from their grazing areas, so he took his family out to watch.

“We went and watched it,” Millfelt said, “my mother and all of us kids along the river. And it was five o’clock in the morning, and it was supposed to be dark, but it was just brighter than daylight. It looked like it was a ball of cotton coming up, you know. It was red. We were about a half a mile away. There were fourteen of us kids. Father knew about the bomb because they told him to move his cattle and sheep and goats. We got along the river; my dad got the information. We knew exactly where to go to watch. And we just saw this red cloud comes up, then it turns orange then it turns yellow then a boom, and it was brown and clear up in the air and everything was just as light as day.”

The bombing may have had dangerous consequences for locals like Millfelt. “We weren’t watching for radiation or anything like that,” she said, “we didn’t know about that. We had six doctors that were partners with us in 2002. I came up with breast cancer and was talking to him about it. He says 99 percent of my patients of people with breast cancer [at his Albuquerque practice] were people that were there when the atomic bomb went off. Most of my family died of some kind of cancer.”

The Manhattan Project Trinity Test: Witnessing the Bomb in New Mexico

By Elva K. Österreich

At 5:29 a.m. on July 16, 1945, the Trinity Test explosion of the first atomic bomb changed the world forever. The dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan followed soon after, but it was the first blast in what is now known as White Sands Missile Range that marked the beginning of the end of World War II. In southern New Mexico, although the Manhattan Project was still top secret, everyday people witnessed the test, experienced its light and power, felt the earth move and knew the world had changed. Author Elva K. Österreich shares the stories of their experience and how their lives were transformed.

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The forgotten history of Napa Valley’s original Chinatowns

Yesterday's America Editorial Team
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The forgotten history of Napa Valley’s original Chinatowns

Napa Valley is known for its wine and winemakers, but just beneath the fertile soil lies another, more complex version of its history. That history stretches from African American farmers to female brothel owners. But one of the most surprising and heartbreaking stories involves the forgotten history of the first Napa Valley Chinatowns, which were once home to thousands of immigrants. These towns thrived – until they were undercut by outsiders, which led to shrinking populations and razed buildings.

New beginnings

Thanks to the jobs that came from building the railroads and also working at the vineyards, Chinese immigrants formed permanent settlements in nearly every community in Napa County. Work gangs passing through the area for contract jobs at farms, mines and vineyards lived in boardinghouses and temporary encampments, but families and entrepreneurs also established residential and business districts. They formed Chinatowns to maintain their cultural traditions, protect themselves from hostile Americans and because, in many cases, they were the only places where they were allowed to live.

Not long after the first Chinese immigrants arrived in the valley in the early 1850s, the county’s first Chinatown was established in Napa. It was built on a small spit of land bordered by the Napa River, Napa Creek, Soscol Avenue and First Street. Anywhere from three hundred to two thousand residents occupied several businesses, private homes, boardinghouses, gambling houses, opium dens, brothels, two commercial gardens and at least one Chinese restaurant.

George Cornwell, landowner and developer of the neighborhood, was Napa’s first postmaster; therefore, Napa’s first post office was erected in Chinatown. It also boasted a Taoist temple, the Temple of the Northern Realm, built in 1886 in part by Chan Wah Jack. Inside was an altar brought from the old country by Wah Jack in 1860. During Chinese New Year, the temples were filled with offerings of rice, meats, fruits, coconuts, candies and Chinese delicacies. The second floor of a gambling hall held another small temple.

Life in Napa’s Chinatowns

A family in one of Napa Valley Chinatowns.
On February 19, 1896, Elmer Bickford photographed this unidentified family celebrating the Chinese New Year in Napa Chinatown. Courtesy of Napa County Historical Society

Residents of Napa Valley Chinatowns made the best of their limited circumstances. A few operated mercantile and grocery stores specializing in Chinese goods and foods. Store owners also often doubled as employment agents or onsite crew bosses. The agent or crew boss distributed wages to workers, settled disputes and organized work schedules, among many other responsibilities.

In St. Helena in the 1880s, Ung Ching Wah ran a store that offered both workers and a boardinghouse for them to live in. Yung Him ran a triple-threat store in Rutherford in the 1880s that offered groceries, employment and laundry services. In Napa in the 1890s and 1900s, Bing Kee operated an employment office out of his store where he also sold goods from China and Japan, women’s underwear, items made of bamboo and fireworks.

Competition was fierce between employment agents, and conflicts occasionally turned violent. One fight erupted in June 1890 between Sam Lee of Calistoga and Quong Wing of St. Helena; both had secured contracts for their laborers to chop wood for Charles Edward Loeber. Lee and Wing exchanged words in a store in the St. Helena Chinatown, then shots were fired. Two men were charged with attempted murder, a third was charged as an accessory for instigating the attack and a fourth went on the lam.

An unjust future

Although Napa County once contained many Chinese settlements, none remain. The St. Helena Chinatown was partially destroyed in 1884 by a fire believed to have been caused by a lamp in Quong Loong High’s store. The neighborhood was quickly rebuilt, but two years later, John and Mary Gillam sold the land out from under its residents after concerns that someone might try to burn it down again.

The Chinese residents published a letter in a local paper reminding anti-Chinese agitators that they had legal leases but offered to leave if compensated fairly. A representative from the Six Companies tried to buy the land for more than it was worth, but it was instead sold to members of St. Helena’s Anti-Chinese League.

The new owners jacked up the rent, so the residents took them to court. The Chinese stayed and paid no rent during the several years of legal maneuvering. An out-of-control cooking fire wiped out half of Chinatown in 1898. Another blaze in 1911 caused by a spark from a backyard fire destroyed what little was left of St. Helena’s Chinatown.

The plans for razing the last of the Napa Valley Chinatowns were first announced in 1920, when the H. Shwarz Company selected the site to build some new warehouses. No progress was made, and the matter was dropped. A decade later, the city opted to move Chinatown to a new site so as to beautify the neighborhood by turning it into a yacht club. By that point, only seventeen people lived in Chinatown, ten of whom were members of the Chan family.

Over the intervening years, many priceless personal items were stolen, and the Chans eventually packed up and left town. The yacht club was never built. Much of the old Chinatown site washed away in the 1986 flood, and what little remained was lost in the flood control project of the early 2000s. All that is left is a plaque on the First Street Bridge.

Hidden History of Napa Valley

by Alexandria Brown

Napa Valley is known for its wine and winemakers, but just beneath the fertile soil lies another, more complex version of its history. Uncover the story of Napa’s first Chinatown—once home to nearly five hundred immigrants—that dwindled to fewer than seventeen residents before the last buildings were razed in the early twentieth century. Meet the small but determined group of African American farmers and barbers who called Napa home and the indomitable May Howard, a successful businesswoman and brothel owner. Learn about the Bracero Program that kept many of Napa’s wineries, including Krug, Beaulieu and Stag’s Leap, thriving during World War II. Join author Alexandria Brown as she explores these lesser-known stories of the ordinary people who helped shape modern-day wine country.

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Hip-Hop in H-town

Yesterday's America Editorial Team
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Hip-Hop in H-town

While Austin is the Live Music Capital of the World, its big sister, Houston, is the historic heart of Texas music. For decades, amateur blues and jazz musicians went to Houston to make it big, and established acts came to Bayou City studios to cut records. In a city as large as Houston, multiple generations of performers and audiences built the music culture and created a laboratory for musical innovation. Beginning in the 1980s, hip-hop developed new styles, its own unique culture, and unforgettable performers — in Houston.


Rap-A-Lot Records

If hip-hop culture is all about geography, then the East Coast and West Coast are nothing like the Gulf Coast. The so-called Third Coast found its voice in the 1980s, when Houston’s Rap-A-Lot record label was founded. James Smith founded Rap-A-Lot in 1986 after meeting up-and-coming teens Keith Rogers and Oscar Ceres and decided to back them financially. Rap-A-Lot broke through to the mainstream with the Geto Boys, and while they were on the road repping Houston, Rap-A-Lot signed on more acts, including Choice, The Convicts, O.G. Style and The Terrorists. There were many rappers and groups that began to record hip-hop music around 1985–86, but Rap-A-Lot and its most prominent group, the Geto Boys, kicked down doors so that outsiders could hear what was special about Houston. By 1991, Houston, with its many nightclubs, was exposing thousands to hip-hop culture on a weekly basis and serving as the training ground for future rappers. It had established itself as a hip-hop city.


Kidz Jamm

In 1981, Texas Southern University’s KTSU general manager Charles Porter launched a weekly radio program for his high school–aged children. The weekend show centered on youth music and culture. Kidz Jamm played R&B and pop music, as hip-hop music was still not widely available. When high school student Lester “Sir” Pace came to work for the show, that all changed. Few in Houston knew much about hip-hop, but Kidz Jamm proved to be a singular resource for young listeners of the small radio station. Throughout the 1980s, it was school for many DJs, radio personalities, producers and even a few rappers. Along with the proliferation of new music in Houston’s large nightclubs, Kidz Jamm was also responsible for breaking new hip-hop music. And as the lone station in Houston playing hip-hop, KTSU and Kidz Jamm was instrumental in shaping Houston’s hip-hop culture.


Geto Boys

The Geto Boys, as developed and produced by James Prince, would become Houston’s first nationally recognized hip-hop group, on the strength of the group’s signature song, 1991’s “Mind Playing Tricks on Me.” The album, “We Can’t Be Stopped,” was the appropriate title; it also reflected the City of Houston’s own response to years of noise from haters and detractors. The Houston scene was something to be reckoned with. To that point, in 2012, Rolling Stone magazine ranked the paranoid hip-hop masterpiece “Mind Playing Tricks on Me” as the fifth-greatest hip-hop song ever.


DJ Screw

Hot on the heels of The Geto Boys, a young DJ named Robert Earl Davis Jr. began hawking his own mixtapes that would reinvigorate hip-hop and give Houston its own sound. Davis dubbed himself DJ Screw and perfected a technique where he rapped over slowed-down versions of existing songs — mostly Houston and West Coast rap, R&B, and funk and reggae. His new recipe would become known around the world as “chopped and screwed.” Screw’s influence grew following his death in 2000, and his style can still be heard in fellow Houston rappers Bun B, Pimp C, Paul Wall, Chamillionaire, and Slim Thug. And even Beyoncé herself acknowledged the musical legacy of chopped and screwed when her cut “Bow Down/I Been On” where she cemented her own royalty and repped Houston’s hip-hop legends, and even included verses from rappers Bun B, Scarface, Willie D, Lil’ Keke, and Z-Ro, with each giving props to Houston’s hip-hop history.

Hip Hop in Houston: The Origin and the Legacy

By Maco L. Faniel, Foreword by Steve Fournier & Afterword by Julie Grob

Rap-A-Lot Records, U.G.K. (Pimp C and Bun B), Paul Wall, Beyonce, Chamillionaire and Scarface are all names synonymous with contemporary hip-hop. And they have one thing in common: Houston. Long before the country came to know the chopped and screwed style of rap from the Bayou City in the late 1990s, hip-hop in Houston grew steadily and produced some of the most prolific independent artists in the industry. With early roots in jazz, blues, R&B and zydeco, Houston hip-hop evolved not only as a musical form but also as a cultural movement. Join Maco L. Faniel as he uncovers the early years of Houston hip-hop from the music to the culture it inspired.

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The true story behind Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Yesterday's America Editorial Team
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The true story behind Uncle Tom’s Cabin

It may surprise you to know that the basis for Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin was not only social commentary. There is a real person underpinning the tale: Josiah Henson.

Josiah Henson was born into slavery in La Plata, Maryland, and auctioned off as a child to pay for his owner’s debts. Many years later, he daringly escaped to Canada with his wife and children.

While Henson ended up publishing a bestselling autobiography, today he’s best known for someone else’s book: Henson was immortalized as the inspiration for the title character in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Yet the real story of his escape is more moving, and more harrowing, than anything one could put in fiction.

Planning the escape

Father Henson. Courtesy Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Historic Site.

Henson believed that if he was to be free, then his wife, Charlotte, and their children must also be free. In 1830, while living on a plantation in Kentucky, Henson developed a plan, but when he confided his intentions to his wife, she was terrified, saying, “We shall die in the wilderness, we shall be hunted down with bloodhounds; we shall be brought back and whipped to death.” Her fears were not exaggerated; those were the experiences of many escapees.

After a long night of entreaties and arguments, he left for work in the morning, only to hear Charlotte call him back to say she and the children would flee with him. That was on a Thursday, and Henson decided to leave on the following Saturday. The most common time for the enslaved to run away was Saturday after work. Because Sunday was not a workday, they might not be missed until Monday morning, giving them a little over a day’s head start before their absence was noticed.

Henson’s cabin was near the river’s landing, another advantage in quickly escaping across the Ohio River. The major difficulty would be transporting four children, especially the two youngest, two-year-old Peter and three-year-old Josiah. Henson had devised a plan—he would carry them on his back to Canada, a distance of about five hundred miles. He had asked Charlotte to sew a large bag made of tow cloth with sturdy straps for his shoulders. To prepare for the trip, he practiced walking at night carrying Peter and Josiah in the sack. The two older children, Tom and Isaac, would walk with Charlotte.

Related: 10 Unsung Black Heroes >>>READ NOW>>

One complication remained: the couple’s oldest son, Tom, lived in slaveowner Amos Riley’s house. Henson had to gain Riley’s permission for Tom to leave the house so the entire family would be able to flee. On Saturday, Henson went to Riley’s house and reported on his work, as usual. As he left, he seemed to suddenly recall something; he turned and told Riley that his wife had asked if Tom could come home for a few days so she could “mend his clothes and fix him up a little.” The request seemed so innocuous that Riley didn’t hesitate to give permission for Tom to leave.

Crossing the river

That night, they set out on the first leg of their journey, across the Ohio River from Kentucky to Indiana.

The night was dark and moonless, which increased their chance of crossing the river undetected. The man rowing the skiff, another of Riley’s enslaved whom Henson had persuaded to help them, was nervous and asked, “It will be the end of me if this is ever found out; but you won’t be brought back alive, Sie, will you?” Henson assured him that he did not intend to be brought back, but that even if he was captured, he would never, under any circumstances, reveal the name of the man who had helped the family set off on their journey to freedom. That rower later also made his way to freedom in Canada, and Henson said that they often discussed that night on the river.

From Southern Indiana, they headed northeast to Cincinnati, Ohio. The family continued to walk for two weeks, Henson carrying the two younger children on his back and his wife walking with the older two. They walked on a road at night, ducking into a hiding place if they heard a horse or a vehicle approach. During the day, they stayed hidden deeply in the woods.

They were only a two-day walk from Cincinnati when they ran out of food. Exhausted and hungry, the children cried all night, and Charlotte reproached Josiah for leading them into such a wretched situation. Henson said that had he been alone, he would have weathered the hunger and exhaustion rather than leave his hiding place, but he had an obligation to care for his wife and children. He, too, was exhausted, and his back and shoulders were rubbed raw from carrying the children. Moreover, whenever he slept, he would awake suddenly, his heart pounding, thinking that dogs and slave catchers had discovered them.

In search of food

To feed his family, Henson had to leave his hiding place and go out on the open road. To allay suspicions that he was a runaway, he headed south. At the first two houses where he stopped to ask if he could buy food, he was rudely turned away by men who said they would never offer any help to a black person. At the third house, the man also refused to sell him food, but his wife intervened, arguing that she would feed a hungry dog and that their children might sometime need the help of a stranger.

The woman refused his money and supplied him with venison and bread. Because the venison was so salty, the children became thirsty. Henson went in search of water, breaking bushes as he went so he wouldn’t get lost. He finally found a stream and drank. When he tried to carry water back in his hat, it leaked. His solution was to rinse out his shoes and use them to carry water back to his family.

Later in life, he reminisced about that night, saying, “I have since then sat at splendidly furnished tables in Canada, the United States, and England; but never did I see any human beings relish anything more than my poor famishing little ones did that refreshing draught out of their father’s shoes.”

Safety and celebrity

After walking for two more nights, the family reached Cincinnati. For the first time, Henson felt relatively secure. He was in a free state, and he had contacts who would help him along his journey. Before walking into town, he hid his wife and children in the woods. After he found his friends, who welcomed him into their safe house, he returned to the woods just before nightfall and retrieved his wife and children.

There was still a long journey ahead of them before they would reach Canada. In that country, Henson would establish a settlement and school for fugitives and repeatedly return to the United States to help lead others to freedom along the Underground Railroad. He would publish his book and become a popular preacher, lecturer, and international celebrity.

But before all that, he had to escape — with his family. As he put it when remembering his arrival in Cincinnati, “Two weeks of exposure to incessant fatigue, anxiety, rain, and chill, made it indescribably sweet to enjoy once more the comfort of rest and shelter.”

Learn more in Uncle Tom’s Journey from Maryland to Canada by Edna M. Troiano:

Uncle Tom's Journey from Maryland to Canada: The Life of Josiah Henson

Uncle Tom’s Journey from Maryland to Canada: The Life of Josiah Henson

By Edna M. Troiano

Josiah Henson was born into slavery in La Plata, Maryland, and auctioned off as a child to pay his owner’s debt. After numerous trials and abuse, he earned the trust of his slaveholder by exhibiting intelligence and skill. Daringly, he escaped to Canada with his wife and children. There he established a settlement and school for fugitives and repeatedly returned to the United States to help lead others to freedom along the Underground Railroad. He published a bestselling autobiography and became a popular preacher, lecturer, and international celebrity. He is immortalized as the inspiration for the title character in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Author Edna M. Troiano recounts the amazing life of Maryland’s Josiah Henson and explores the sites devoted to his memory.

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