Cynical-C Blog

From Wikipedia:

Henry “Box” Brown (1815-1879) was a 19th century Virginia slave who escaped to freedom by arranging to have himself mailed to Philadelphia abolitionists in a dry goods container. He became a noted abolitionist speaker and later a showman.

Henry “Box” Brown was born into slavery in 1815 in Louisa County, Virginia. In 1830, Brown was sent to Richmond to work in a tobacco factory. There, he married another slave, Nancy, and the couple had three children. Brown used his wages to pay Nancy’s master for the time she spent caring for them. However, in 1848, his wife and children were sold to a slave trader and sent to North Carolina. Brown was powerless to prevent this.

He then became determined to escape to freedom. With the help of a friend, the freed man James C. A. Smith, and a sympathetic white storekeeper named Samuel Smith, Brown devised a plan to have himself shipped to a free state in a box, as if he were a container of dry goods. Brown paid $86 (out of his savings of $166) to Samuel Smith, who contacted Philadelphia abolitionist James Miller McKim. McKim agreed to receive the box. Henry burned his hand with oil of vitriol so he could miss work and go to the box.

During the trip, which began on March 29, 1849, Brown’s box traveled by many means: by wagon, then railroad, steamboat, wagon again, railroad, ferry, railroad, and finally delivery wagon. Several times, workers placed the box upside-down or handled it roughly, but Brown always remained still and gave no indication that he was inside. It was hard for Brown to be handled like this in a box. But he did a very good job of keeping quiet and not being jerked around in the box.[citation needed] Brown escaped detection on the 27-hour-long journey.

(via Best of Wikipedia)