Leonard Grimes

Portrait of Reverend Leonard Grimes, minister of Twelfth Baptist Church in Boston.

Library of Congress

Quick Facts

Significance:

Social Activist and Minister

Place of Birth:

Loudoun County, Virginia

Date of Birth:

November 1815

Place of Death:

Boston, Massachusetts

Date of Death:

March 14, 1873

Place of Burial:

Everett, Massachusetts

Cemetery Name:

Woodlawn Cemetery

Reverend Leonard Andrew Grimes led the Twelfth Baptist Church in Boston and dedicated himself to helping freedom seekers escape slavery on the Underground Railroad.

Born free in 1815, Leonard A. Grimes grew up in Loudoun County, Virginia. While in his twenties, 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 became a hackman in the District of Columbia and discovered that his profession provided the perfect cover for helping fugitives escape from Virginia. 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 Boston, where he became minister of the Twelfth Baptist Church. With scores of self-emancipated slaves among its members, Twelfth Baptist became known as "The Fugitive Slave Church." As minister, Rev. Grimes mobilized the Black community of Boston in their efforts against the Fugitive Slave Law, raised funds for fugitive assistance, and participated in every major fugitive slave case including those of Shadrach Minkins, Thomas Sims, and Anthony Burns. In addition to raising funds to purchase the freedom of members of his congregation, he also raised money and traveled to Baltimore to purchase the freedom of Anthony Burns.¹

During the Civil War, Grimes joined the chorus of Black leaders agitating 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.

Upon his death in 1873, one obituary stated:

Brother Grimes was hated by the slave power, but he spurned their hatred. Free himself, he remembered his brethren in bonds. His heart and home were always open to welcome them, and as a conductor on the ‘underground railroad,’ he gave them a free pass to Canada, then the only land of freedom for the slave...²

His remains are interred at Woodlawn Cemetery in Everett, Massachusetts.  

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Footnotes

1. Kathryn Grover and Janine V. Da Silva, "Historic Resource Study: Boston African American National Historic Site," Boston African American National Historic Site, (2002), 17, 96-99. hrs.pdf
2. “Rev. L.A. Grimes,” The Christian Era, March 20, 1873, p. 4