Reading Highlight

One of the most fascinating stories that Still recounted, and which received enormous international attention, began on March 23, 1849, when Henry Brown (1816–1889)escaped slavery by having himself mailed from Richmond to Philadelphia in a wooden crate. Outraged that his family, including his pregnant wife, had been sold away to North Carolina, Brown had trusted friends seal him up in a wooden crate and ship him by Adams Express to abolitionists in Philadelphia. When Still and his antislavery colleagues pried open the box, out popped Brown, reaching out his hand, saying, “How do you do, gentlemen?” and then singing the hymn “I waited patiently for the Lord, and He heard my prayer.”