Osborne Perry Anderson

He completed basic schooling and later attended Oberlin College in Ohio, after which he moved to Chatham in Canada West (now Ontario) in 1850 and opened shop as a printer.

[2]: ix The same year, he was a member of the Chatham Vigilance Committee that sought to prevent former slaves from being returned to the United States and brought back into slavery, such as the case of Sylvanus Demarest.

[4] Because of his writing skills Anderson was appointed as the recording secretary at several of the meetings and was eventually promoted to a member of Brown’s provisional congress.

[7] Of the slaves who followed us to the Ferry, some were sent to help remove stores, and the others were drawn up in a circle around the engine-house, at one time, where they were, by Captain Brown's order, furnished by me with pikes, mostly, and acted as a guard to the prisoners to prevent their escape, which they did.

Phil, the slave who died in prison, with fear, as it was reported, was wounded at the Ferry, and died from the effects of it… The first report of the number of 'insurrectionists' killed was seventeen, which showed that several slaves were killed; for there were only ten of the men that belonged to the Kennedy Farm who lost their lives at the Ferry, namely: John Henri Kagi, Jerry Anderson, Watson Brown, Oliver Brown, Stewart Taylor, Adolphus Thompson, William Thompson, William Leeman, all eight whites, and Dangerfield Newby and Sherrard Lewis Leary, both colored.

Though Anderson did not name the friends who aided his escape in his account, later analysis concluded that William C. Goodridge, a conductor on the Underground Railroad, hid him in York, Pennsylvania, then sent him by rail to Philadelphia.