Henry O. Wagoner

Henry O. Wagoner
Wagoner in 1897
Born	(1816-02-27)February 27, 1816 Hagerstown, Maryland
Died	January 27, 1901(1901-01-27) (aged 84) Denver, Colorado, United States
Occupation	Typesetter, miller, journalist, saloon keeper, grocer, sheriff
Political party	Republican

Henry O Wagoner (February 27, 1816 – January 27, 1901) was an abolitionist and civil rights activist in Chicago and Denver. In the 1830s, as a free black in Maryland, he worked on a farm and worked to free slaves with a loose group of individuals that is known as the Underground Railroad. He left Maryland in 1838 under suspicion for his activities and settled in Illinois and eventually Chicago after spending a few years in Chatham, Ontario. Continuing to work with the Underground Railroad, he was also a typesetter and journalist for radical anti-slavery newspapers before the abolition of slavery in Chicago. Around this time he befriended Frederick Douglass, with whom he would remain close throughout his life. During the American Civil War (1861–1865), he helped recruit black soldiers for Illinois and Massachusetts regiments. After the war, he moved to Denver, where he had spent some time previously. He continued to be a leader in Denver, working to secure blacks the right to vote and equality in education and under the law.

Henry O. Wagoner was born in Hagerstown, Maryland on February 27, 1816. As a child, Wagoner was taught to read by his paternal grandmother, but was rarely able to attend school, achieving less than a years schooling while working on a farm. Starting about 1835, Wagoner became active trying to free slaves, and he remained a part of the Underground Railroad and various anti-slavery movements until the abolition of slavery in 1865. In 1838 he moved to Baltimore, where he assisted the local Underground Railroad until he was suspected for his actions and had to leave town. On September 8, 1838, Wagoner left for the west. In mid-September he arrived in Wheeling, West Virginia where he stayed six weeks before moving on to Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio, where as a literate black man, he taught school until the spring. Moving on, he arrived in New Orleans April 11, 1839, and then traveled through St. Louis, Missouri and finally settling in Galena, Illinois. There, he learned to set type and took work at the Northwestern Gazette and Galena Advertiser. In Galena, he befriended Elihu B. Washburne, with whom he did some business and maintained a friendship long after.