tain his employer's consent to visit his old
master in Maryland that he might connect with friends in Ohio along
the way and obtain the sum necessary to purchase himself. His employer
readily consented and with the required pass and a letter of
recommendation from his Methodist friend to a preacher in Cincinnati,
Henson obtained contributions to the amount of one hundred and sixty
dollars on arriving in that city, where he preached to several
congregations. He then proceeded to Chillicothe where the annual
Methodist Conference was in session, his kind friend accompanying him.
With the aid of the influence and exertions of his coworker Henson was
again successful. He then purchased a suit of comfortable clothes and
an excellent horse, with which he traveled leisurely from town to
town, preaching and soliciting as he went. He succeeded so well that
when he arrived at his old home in Maryland, he was much better
equipped than his master. This striking difference and the delay of
Henson along the way from September to Christmas caused his master to
be somewhat angry. Moreover, as his master had lost most of his slaves
and other property in Maryland, he was anxious to have Henson as a
faithful worker to retrieve his losses; but this changed man would
hardly subserve such a purpose.

The conditions which he observed around him were so much worse than
what he had for some time been accustomed to and so changed was the
environment because of the departure or death of friends and relatives
during his absence that Henson resolved to become free. He then
consulted the brother of his master's wife, then a business man in
Washington, whom he had often befriended years before and who was
angry with Henson's master because the latter had defrauded him out of
certain property. This friend, therefore, gladly took up with Henson's
master the question of giving the slave an opportunity to purchase
himself. He carefully explained to the master that Henson had some
money and could purchase himself and that if, in consideration of the
valuable services he had rendered, the master refused to do so, Henson
would become free by escaping to Canada. The master agreed then to
give him his manumission papers for four hundred and fifty dollars, of
which three hundred and fifty dollars was to be in cash and the
remainder in Henson's note. Henson's money and horse enabled him to
pay the cash at once. But his master was to work a trick on him. He
did