Emily Goodridge Grey arrived in territorial Minnesota with her young son, William, in 1857. Her husband, Ralph, had moved from Pennslyvania to St. Anthony two years earlier, and when Emily and William joined him, the black population of Minnesota was quickly growing. Emily and Ralph were active in the abolitionist movement. In 1860, they were involved in the case of Eliza Winston, an enslaved woman brought north by her owners who won her freedom from a Minnesota court.

This article includes excerpts from Emily Grey's memoir, written in 1893. She died in 1916.