Ed Brennen Born a slave on a Virginia plantation in 1826, Nathaniel Booth escaped at age 17 and sought freedom in the North. He arrived in Lowell around 1844 and opened a barbershop on Dutton Street.Â
When Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, making it a crime to aid âFreedom Seekers,â Booth briefly fled to Canada. But in 1851, Boott Cotton Mills Agent (CEO) Linus Child raised $750 from the Lowell community to purchase Boothâs freedom.
Thatâs just one example of the anti-slavery and abolitionist movements that existed in Lowell two centuries ago â movements that are chronicled in âUntold Lowell Stories: Black History,â an online research guide recently published by the UMass Lowell Libraryâs Center for Lowell History.