Born: 1852, Canada
Died: 1922
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Julia W. O’Ree
The following is republished with permission from the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail.
The Harriet Tubman Crusaders, an African American branch of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union in Boston, created the first Harriet Tubman House in 1904 as a residence for African American women who were excluded from the city’s college dormitories and respectable rooming houses. The Crusaders rented a brownstone on Holyoke Street until 1909 when member Julia O. Henson donated her own townhouse at 25 Holyoke Street as a permanent headquarters for the organization’s expanding programs.
Harriet Tubman visited Boston several times in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, often staying with Julia Henson at this site. In 1960, the Harriet Tubman House merged with other settlement houses in the area to form the United South End Settlements (USES).