James Miller McKim

James Miller McKim (November 10, 1810 – June 13, 1874) was a Presbyterian minister and abolitionist. He was also the father of the architect Charles Follen McKim.

McKim was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and educated at Dickinson College and Princeton. In 1835, he was ordained pastor of a Presbyterian church at Womelsdorf, Pennsylvania. A few years before, the perusal of a copy of Garrison's Thoughts on Colonization had made him an abolitionist. He was a member of the convention that formed the American Anti-slavery Society, and in October 1836 left the pulpit to lecture under its auspices for the cause of emancipation. He delivered addresses throughout Pennsylvania. In 1840, he moved to Philadelphia to work for the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society as lecturer, organizer, and corresponding secretary. At times, he served as the editor of the Pennsylvania Freeman.

In 1849, he was on the receiving end of an unusual and historic shipment, when Henry "Box" Brown, an innovative and determined escaped slave from Richmond, Virginia, arrived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in a small shipping box and emerged into freedom. McKim was depicted in the The Resurrection of Henry Box Brown at Philadelphia, a lithograph by artist Samuel W. Rowse, which was widely published to help raise funds for the Underground Railroad. Brown wrote his autobiography in 1851. McKim's labors frequently brought him in contact with the operations of the underground railroad, and he was often connected with the slave cases that came before the courts, especially after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.

...
Wikipedia