Eliza Winston

[1] In the summer of 1860 Eliza Winston, an enslaved thirty-year-old woman, was taken to St. Anthony, Minnesota by her owners, Richard and Mary Christmas of Issaquena County, Mississippi.

During that time it was typical for wealthy southern tourists to escape the yellow fever season by traveling via steamboat up the Mississippi River to northern destinations during the summer months.

The Christmases traveled with their five-year-old daughter, Norma, and Winston to the Winslow House in St. Anthony, Minnesota, which was a free state.

Winston had already determined to seek her freedom there and told her story to Ralph and Emily Grey, who were free black citizens.

[3] That evening, a pro-slavery mob surrounded the Greys' home and demanded that Winston be returned to the Christmases, but with the aid of people in the Underground Railroad, she was already on her way to Windsor, Ontario Canada, which had abolished slavery, though other accounts of her life exist.