Robert Cromwell is remembered in local history as a freedom seeker who lived and worked in Flint in the mid-1840s. His attempted recapture after being enslaved in Missouri became one of Michigan’s best-known “slave rescue” stories.

The slaveowner traveled to Flint in pursuit of Cromwell to capture him and return back to Missouri.

This incredible story is commemorated as a Michigan Historic Site on the grounds of the 7th Circuit Courthouse in downtown Flint.

The sign reads:

Robert J. Cromwell escaped enslavement in the south in 1840. He settled in Flint around 1846 and opened a barbershop. That year Cromwell wrote a letter to his former enslaver, a man named Dunn, in an effort to purchase his daughter’s freedom. Dunn noted the Flint postmark and began searching for Cromwell. This advertisement, which appeared in the Flint Republican, confirmed to Dunn that Cromwell was indeed in Flint. Cromwell fled to Detroit. Dunn pursued him, but was foiled by African American and Irish American sympathizers there. By 1851, an African American barber named Robert Cromwell had opened a shop in Chatham, Ontario.

To read more about Cromwell’s incredible story, check out the work of Dr. Roy E. Finkenbine of the University of Detroit Mercy.