Historical Background

Born free in 1815, Leonard A. Grimes grew up in Loudoun County, Virginia. While in his twenties, and working for a slaveholder, Grimes witnessed the brutality of slavery first-hand on a journey through the South. The experience radicalized him and, on his return, he committed himself to the task of assisting freedom seekers. 

He drove a hackney carriage in Washington, D.C. which provided the perfect cover for transporting fugitives on the Underground Railroad. He contributed to an unknown number of escapes before authorities arrested and convicted him in 1839. He served two years hard labor in the Richmond Penitentiary and paid a fine of $100.

After his release, Grimes and his family left Washington and settled first in New Bedford, Massachusetts and then Somerville in 1869. Grimes conducted gambling in his home to raise money to support the Underground Railroad. He and his wife, Octavia Grimes, also an abolitionist and organizer, founded an employment agency that matched freed and escaped black slaves to jobs. Grimes became minister of the Twelfth Street Baptist Church, a hub for abolitionist activities, and purchased the freedom of Anthony Burns, a fugitive slave who had been returned to slavery under the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. During the Civil War, Grimes organized and presided over the 1863 New England Anti-Slavery Convention and called for the enlistment of black soldiers, which led to the creation of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, one of the war's first African American regiments.   

A park named for Leonard Grimes is at 31 Tufts Street in Somerville, a 10-minute walk from where he lived on Phillips Street, #2, where there is a plaque.