Joshua Glover

Word spread of his capture, leading prominent abolitionists like Sherman Booth to galvanize popular support to free him.

He settled outside the city of Toronto, in present-day Etobicoke.The tale of Glover's dramatic escape spread in newspapers across the north, making him a local folk-hero.

Historians[1] today view his story from the perspective of the final decade of slavery in America, amid rising tensions between the north and south in the years leading to the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861.

[6] Records show that on New Year's Day, 1850, he was sold at St. Louis Courthouse Auction to Benammi Stone Garland, a local estate owner.

[6] Reporting directly to Garland, Glover worked outside the fields, caring for farm animals, logging and clearing land.

[3] Having been unable to track him down, Garland put an ad in a local newspaper offering two hundred dollars for Glover's return, who he deemed his property.

Two years after his escape, Glover is said to have been betrayed by his friend Nathan Turner, also a former slave, who gave up his location to Garland.

[1] This act enabled federal marshals to pursue fugitive slaves anywhere in the United States, arrest them and return them to their slavers.

Glover was hit repeatedly with a club to the face by St. Louis Police Deputy Marshal John Kearney, and the butt of a gun.

[8] Residents gathered in the town square, and local abolitionists mobilized popular support and contacted newspapers.

Using pickaxes from a nearby construction site, and as pieces of lumber as a makeshift battering ram, the crowd broke through the jail walls, freeing Glover.

"But just think of it, a man to have to flee from the land of the free, to the realms of Monarchical and Aristocratic Britain, to enjoy even personal freedom."

[1] Glover rented from Montgomery, living in Lampton Mills, before buying his own property, becoming one of the first black homeowners in the area.

[10] He was seen as active member of the community and is recorded as having attended the fall fair of Annual Agricultural Association of Upper Canada in 1858.

[3] Members of the community had come to his defense, including (then deceased) Montgomery Sr.'s son, William, who provided him with new clothes for court while in prison and access to the family lawyer, who did not charge for the case.

[3] Following Glover finding freedom and subsequent attention, the Wisconsin Supreme Court declared the Fugitive Slave Act was illegal, and other states followed suit.