William "Jerry" Henry

1811 – 1853

William Henry, known as Jerry, was an escaped enslaved man living and working as a cooper in Syracuse, New York when federal marshals arrested him under the Fugitive Slave Act on October 1, 1851. That evening, a crowd of Black and white Syracusans broke into the police station and freed him, allowing him to escape to Canada, in an event that became known as the Jerry Rescue.