Josiah Henson (June 15, 1789 – May 5, 1883) was an author, abolitionist, and minister.

He was born enslaved, in Port Tobacco, Charles County, Maryland, and he escaped to Upper Canada (now Ontario) in 1830. Josiah founded a settlement and laborer's school for other fugitive slaves at Dawn, near Dresden, in Kent County, Upper Canada, of Ontario.

Henson's autobiography, The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself (1849), is believed to have inspired the title character of Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852).[1]

Following the success of Stowe's novel, Henson issued an expanded version of his memoir in 1858, Truth Stranger Than Fiction. Father Henson's Story of His Own Life (published Boston: John P. Jewett & Company, 1858). Interest in his life continued, and nearly two decades later, his life story was updated and published as Uncle Tom's Story of His Life: An Autobiography of the Rev. Josiah Henson (1876).

At age twenty-two Henson married another slave some reports say her name was Charlotte, other reports say her name was unknown-they had twelve children.
Josiah and Nancy married circa 1856 in Canada, following the 1852 death of his first wife .
Nancy was a free-born widow before her marriage to Josiah.
In 1877, Josiah and Nancy traveled to England and were famously summoned to Windsor Castle to meet Queen Victoria.
Nancy outlived Josiah, who died in May 1883 in Dresden, Ontario.

Sources: Wikipedia; Enslaved dotorg; Documenting The South dot edu