Born between 1812 and 1815 Leonard Andrew Grimes undertook a life of direct action as an operative on the Underground Railroad. He assisted at least four hundred freedom seekers in escaping bondage. In 1840, Grimes was imprisoned in Virginia for two years for helping an enslaved mother and her six children escape to freedom in the North. In prison he began preaching to guards and prisoners, and after his release became a licensed Baptist minister.
He and his family moved to Boston, where he restarted his freedom activities in his new home and church. Grimes was a member of the Boston Vigilance Committee. He played a leading role in widely publicized cases involving the capture of three members of his congregation following the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850 and his efforts to free fugitive slave Anthony Burns
The attention surrounding Rev. Grimes’ efforts to free these men helped to turn public sentiment in the North against the law and against slavery. Grimes was a delegate to the Colored Conventions Movement, including the 1853 convention in Rochester, NY, the Colored National Convention of 1855 in Philadelphia, and the 1859 convention in Boston.
He recruited soldiers for the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, and in 1863, he led a delegation of Black ministers to meet with President Abraham Lincoln in the White House. He died in 1873 at his home in East Somerville, Massachusetts, near Boston.
Grimes will be inducted into the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum in Peterboro NY on Saturday, October 19, 2024.
On Saturday afternoon October 19, the nominators of each of the four 2024 inductees will provide a program on the abolitionists to be inducted: Catharine White Coffin, Levi Coffin, Leonard Andrew Grimes, and James McCune Smith. Stephen Wyman, who nominated Grimes, will present “Abolitionist Rev. Leonard A. Grimes & His Unrelenting Quest to Lead His People to the Morning of Emancipation and the Noonday of Equality.”
Wyman who was an editorial assistant and staff writer at the Washington Post before returning to Maine where he manages Thos. Moser’s flagship furniture showroom in Freeport. He has compiled two books
including one on his great, great grandfather who was from Clinton NY and Hubbardsville NY.
One of his research projects focuses on the collective impact of four educational institutions founded by Northern Baptist churches in the early 19th century: Columbian College/George Washington University, Waterville /Colby College, Hamilton Theological Institution/Colgate University, and Newton Theological Seminar/Columbian College/Yale University. Members of Rev. Grimes 19th Street Baptist Church in Washington DC, including Deaconess E. Louise White, will also be presenting at Grimes’ induction.
At 7 pm on Friday October 18, Brian Frey, film maker from WSKG Public Television, will present North to Freedom, an original documentary on the role that Upstate New York played in the Underground Railroad in the years leading up to the American Civil War.
After a 19th century antislavery dinner served by the Peterboro Methodist Church at 5 pm on Saturday, October 19, the induction ceremonies at 7 pm will include nominations, introductions of the sponsors, and unveiling the banners that will be installed in the Abolition Hall of Fame.
On Saturday morning October 19 at 10 am, Norman K. Dann PhD will guide a tour of the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark, and Sunday morning October 20 at 9 am Tom Bennett, Chair of the
NAHOF Induction Committee and a retired Social Studies teacher, will describe the protest against the Fugitive Slave Law on its site in Cazenovia.
The National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum (NAHOF) is located at 5255 Pleasant Valley Road in Peterboro NY in the building of the inaugural meeting of the New York State Antislavery Society October
22, 1835. For more information and registration visit www.PeterboroNY.org or www.NationalAbolitionHallofFameandMuseum.org, call (315) 308-1890 or email nahofm1835@gmail.com.
Illustration: engraving of the Reverend Leonard A Grimes from William J Simmons, Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive and Rising (1887)
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