Stop #6: Henry Anthony’s House at 40 Spring Street
40 Spring Street was the home of Henry Anthony, one the first African Americans to live in Florence. We believe he was the fiddle-playing “fugitive from injustice” that was living in the Swamp House when Lydia Maria Child purchased 100 acres of land on Florence Road in 1840. When the Childs moved into the house it is likely Anthony moved out and built this house. He was one of five Florence fugitives to sign a call to meeting to resist the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Henry Anthony's wife, Maria, was native-born Irish, making them one of the earliest interracial couples to live in Florence.