The life story of a Virginian man born into slavery more than 200 years ago was found at the Stowe Center in Hartford.

Hundreds of documents and artifacts are kept at the Stowe Literary Center for Activism, many of which belong to the Harriet Beecher Stowe and her family.

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Cat White, the center's director of historic collections, stumbled upon a manuscript detailing the life of Dr. Rev. William H. Phillips, a formerly enslaved man who became a nationally respected minister in Philadelphia.

"I was actually looking for documents related to 19th century spiritualism," White said. "I looked it up in our card catalog, went down to the archive to the box and folder where I thought it would be, and opened it up to page 30,

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