Henry Highland Garnet was a clergyman, abolitionist, and diplomat.

He was born in 1815 on a slave plantation in New Market, Md. In 1824, Quaker abolitionists helped his family to escape. Garnet graduated from the Oneida Theological Institute in Whitesboro in 1840.

In his 1843 "Address to the Slaves," Garnet advocated a general strike among slaves and the use of physical resistance.

By the late 1840s, Garnet was living in Peterboro, where wealthy abolitionist Gerrit Smith had provided property. While he lived in Peterboro, Garnet wrote a letter to Frederick Douglass and included the memorable line: "There are yet two places where slaveholders cannot come, Heaven and Peterboro." Douglass printed the letter on the front page of his North Star newspaper on Dec. 8, 1848.

Beginning in 1850, Henry was a delegate to the World Peace Congress in Germany, became active in the free produce movement, and addressed antislavery societies in Europe. In 1856, he returned to the United States and became pastor of Shiloh Presbyterian Church in New York City.

In 1864 Garnet became pastor of the 15th Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. He was the first African American to deliver a sermon before the House of Representatives. Garnet was appointed ambassador to Liberia, where he died in 1882.

This story was adapted from a 2003 research project by Donna Dorrance Burdick, Smithfield town historian. It is part of The Post-Standard's 2012 observance of Black History Month. This year coincides with the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. The Post-Standard observes the month with accounts of Central New York's African-Americans who lived in the Civil War era, especially those who risked their lives as abolitionists and those who fought for the Union.

You can explore Post-Standard reporting from previous years by searching for Black History. Or you can follow these links for a sampling of related stories:

» "Stops on the Road to Freedom," the sites and people in Central New York that played a significant role in the abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad.

» "On the Front Lines of History," the story of local blacks' military service.

» "Witnesses: Scars of a Southern Childhood," how Syracusans who grew up in the American South experienced legal segregation before the great changes brought about by the Civil Rights movement a century after the Civil War.