Milwaukee Streets named after Black Wisconsinites Joshua Glover and Sherman Booth
by Angie Cope
Joshua Glover escaped enslavement from Benammi Stone Garland’s Missouri farm in 1852 and traveled by foot to Racine, Wisconsin. Because of The Fugitive Slave Act, Garland was legally able to hunt down Glover and recapture him in March 1854. Garland and his men took Glover to a jail in Milwaukee with the plan of returning Glover to Missouri.
However, the morning after Glover’s jailing, it is said that abolitionist Sherman Booth and a mob stormed the jail. Glover was freed but then spent 40 years on the run, finding safe spots along the Underground Railroad system. After decades of running, Glover found ultimate freedom in Canada, where he died.
In 1857, Booth Street in Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood was named after Sherman Booth.
In 2016, some homeowners in the area signed a petition approving the renaming of part of Reservoir Avenue to Glover Avenue. Now there is a cross where Booth Street and Glover Avenue intersect.
View the maps in more detail
Milwaukee neighborhood map / V. Robie and Big Stick, Inc. 2002
https://collections.lib.uwm.edu/digital/collection/agdm/id/11909/rec/2
Riverwest neighborhood / Dru Maki, artist 1981
https://collections.lib.uwm.edu/digital/collection/agdm/id/5918/rec/6
American Geographical Society Library 