John McKinney

John McKinney arrived in Brighton in the 1850s as an escaped slave who most likely survived hidden travel with families who operated the Underground Railroad, which helped Southern slaves escape to the North and to Canada under cover of darkness. He supported himself by performing odd jobs in the community and in later years lived above the B.H. Lawson Bank, built in 1871 and now the Yum Yum Tree restaurant, while acting as a night security guard. About 70 years old when he died in 1892, he was buried in Brighton's Old Village Cemetery, where his headstone says, "Stone erected by his friends in Brighton, whose true servant he was for 40 years."

Brighton, Michigan · United States