Home of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' slave to be preserved
The home of a former slave in the United States who inspired the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin is to be preserved.
Officials in the state of Maryland accepted the deed to the property in Bethesda, which is about 12 miles north of Washington DC.
Josiah Henson’s short autobiography, The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, was published in 1849. His work inspired author Harriett Beecher Stow whose novel three years later helped focus world attention on the brutality of slavery.
The home became available last year following the death of Hildegarde Mallet-Prevost, aged 100, who owned the three-bedroom, wood-frame house.
It has been bought by the state for $1m and could become a historical heritage site.
“This house represents, literally, the flesh-and-blood heritage of a county and a nation,” Montgomery County Councillor Nancy Floreen said during a ceremony at the 18th-century farmhouse.
Stowe in part based her characterisation of “Uncle Tom” on experiences Henson described in his narrative.
It detailed his life as a slave in Maryland and Kentucky and his 1830 decision to flee to Canada with his family after his owner refused to honour a commitment to allow him to buy his freedom.
The house was the centre of a 3,700-acre tobacco plantation. Slaves working a 500-acre section of the farm used the adjoining split-log kitchen as sleeping quarters.
The house was officially deeded to the Maryland National Capital Parks and Planning Commission.
Members of Montgomery County’s delegation to the Maryland General Assembly are seeking bond financing to cover the costs of restoring and preserving the site.
“Let us use this log cabin as a means of looking back,” said Jim Henson, 69, of Savage, Maryland, a distant relative of Josiah Henson.
