Biography
Leonard Grimes was a free-born African American Underground Railroad activist in Washington, DC. He served two years in the Virginia penitentiary on circumstantial evidence that he had helped an enslaved family escape. After his release he moved to Massachusetts, became pastor of the Twelfth Baptist Church in Boston, and worked with the Boston Vigilance Committee in the efforts to prevent the renditions of Anthony Burns, Shadrach Minkins, and Thomas Sims. (Recorded as Leonard Andrew Grimes)
Deborah A. Lee’s historical account distinguishes the January 20, 1840 warrant from Grimes’s actual arrest: he was in custody without bail by March 2, and the Leesburg court convened March 10. General Walter Jones, John Janney and B. W. Harrison defended him. The account reports conviction on circumstantial evidence, an imposed two-year Richmond penitentiary sentence and $100 fine, and two unsuccessful pardon petitions. It does not supply an exact arrest or discharge day; the imposed term is not used to calculate new custody endpoints or totals. Lee, The Leonard Grimes Trial (1840), retained historical account, printed pages 36–37.
