Henry Brown was born into slavery in Louisa County, Virginia, in 1815. When he was 15 years old he was sold to a plantation owner in Richmond. He later recalled that his parents were left on the plantation but he was taken to Richmond to work in a tobacco factory owned by hisold master's son William. Brown met another slave named Nancy who he wanted to marry. Brown went to Nancy's master for permission to marry; he was promised she would never be sold and his master promised he would never be sold either. Over the next few years Nancy gave birth to three children.
In 1848 Nancy and her three children were sold to a slave trader who sent them to North Carolina. Brown later recalled: "I had not been many hours at my work, when I was informed that my wife and children were taken from their home, sent to the auction mart and sold, and then lay in prison ready to start away the next day for North Carolina with the man who had purchased them. I cannot express, in language, what were my feelings on this occasion. I received a message, that if I wished to see my wife and children, and bid them the last farewell, I could do so, by taking my stand on the street where they were all to pass on their way for North Carolina. I quickly availed myself of this information, and placed myself by the side of a street, and soon had the melancholy satisfaction of witnessing the approach of a gang of slaves, amounting to three hundred and fifty in number, marching under the direction of a Methodist minister, by whom they were purchased, and amongst which slaves were my wife and children." The following year Brown, with the help of Samuel Smith, a store-keeper in Richmond, attempted to escape. The two men devised a plan where Brown would be shipped to a free state by Adams Express Company. Brown paid $86 to Smith, who contacted the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee, who agreed to receive the box. Smith sent the box to Philadelphia on March 23, 1849. According to one account, Brown's box traveled by wagon, railroad, steamboat, wagon again, railroad, ferry, railroad, and finally delivery wagon. Several times during the 27-hour journey, carriers placed the box upside-down or handled it roughly, but Brown was able to remain still enough to avoid detection. Brown became a well-known speaker for the Anti-Slavery Society. He was bestowed the nickname of "Box" at a Boston antislavery convention in May 1849 and thereafter used the name Henry Box Brown. He published two versions of his autobiography, "Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown" first in Boston in 1849 and the second in Manchester, England, in 1851. Brown exhibited a moving panorama titled "Mirror of Slavery" in the northeastern United States until he was forced to move to England after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Brown toured Britain with his antislavery panorama for the next 10 years, performing several hundred times a year and visiting virtually every town and city over that period. Brown stayed on the British show circuit for twenty-five years, until 1875. In the 1860s, he began performing as a mesmerist, and some time after that as a conjuror, under the show names Prof. H. Box Brown and the African Prince. Leaving his first wife and children in slavery (though he had the means to purchase their freedom), he married a second time, to a white British woman and began a new family. In 1875, he returned to the United States with a family magic act.
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