farm in Montgomery
County. Josiah was purchased by a man named Robb, a tavern keeper
living near Montgomery Court-House. Both masters were unusually cruel,
in keeping with the tyrannical methods employed by planters of that
time. Because of ill health resulting from the lack of proper care,
Josiah became very sickly. He was then providentially restored to his
mother, having been offered to her owner by Robb for a small sum, for
the reason that it was thought that he would die.

His third master was "vulgar in his habits, unprincipled and cruel in
his general deportment and especially addicted to the vice of
licentiousness."[2] On his plantation Henson served as water-boy,
butler and finally as a field hand, experiencing the usual hardship of
the slave. He ate twice a day of cornmeal and salt herring, with a
little buttermilk and a few vegetables occasionally. His dress was
first a single garment, something like a long shirt reaching to the
ankles, later a pair of trousers and a shirt with the addition of a
woolen hat once in two or three years and a round jacket or overcoat
in the winter time. He slept with ten or a dozen persons in a log hut
of a single small room, with no other floor than the trodden earth,
and without beds or furniture. In spite of this, however, Henson grew
to be a robust lad, who at the age of fifteen could do a man's work.
Having too more mental capacity than most slaves, he was regarded as a
smart fellow. Hearing remarks like this about himself, Henson became
filled with ambition and pride, and aspired to a position of influence
among his fellows.

At times Henson would toil and induce his fellow slaves to work much
harder and longer than required to obtain from their master a kind
word or act, but these efforts usually produced no more from their
owner than a cold calculation of the value of Josiah to him. When,
however, the white overseer of this plantation was discharged for
stealing from his employer, Josiah had shown himself so capable that
he was made manager of the plantation. In this position his honest
management of the estate made him indispensable to his master also as
a salesman of produce in the markets of Georgetown and Washington. He
had during these years come under the influence of an anti-slavery
white man of Georgetown and had become a devout Christian with
considerable influence as a preacher among the slaves.

About this time, Josiah was serving his master in another capac