On the fourth day of our walk to Dresden, we journeyed from the Amherstburg Freedom Museum to Harrow, a small farming community about 16km/10 mi east of Amherstburg, and just 11km/7mi north of Lake Erie. We were journeying to the Central Grove African Methodist Episcopal Church where we were going to meet descendants of Harrow’s early Black settlement.
One of the church members we met was Mr. Jerome Johnson, who kindly shared the story of his great grandfather, Gabriel Timberlake, who in 1847, made a daring escape with 18 others from Florence, Kentucky. After getting help across the Ohio River the bondsmen walked more than 300 miles to Detroit, Michigan before reaching freedom in Canada. In the video clip below Mr. Johnson holds up evidence of his great grandfather’s escape. His grandfather changed his last name to Johnson like so many Freedom Seekers once he was free.