Margaret Mercer

Margaret Mercer (July 1, 1791 – September 17, 1846) was an American abolitionist and educator. She worked to end slavery and freed the slaves that she inherited from her father, sending six of them to Africa. Mercer started a school and a chapel that welcomed black people. Her school continued for a short while after her death. In 2018, a Virginia historical marker was dedicated in her honor.

Margaret Mercer
Born	July 1, 1791 Galesville, Maryland, US
Died	September 17, 1846 (aged 55) Virginia
Nationality	American
Occupation	Abolitionist, educator

Life and career

Margaret Mercer was born on July 1, 1791, to Maryland governor John Francis Mercer and his wife Sophia Sprigg.[1] Mercer was their fourth child.[2] She grew up in the family home named Cedar Park in Galesville. She had an issue with her father owning slaves; he had 72 of them by the time he died.[3][1]

After her father's death in 1821, Mercer taught at a school in Elmwood for four years. She taught classes five days a week, including helping teach Sunday school. On Saturdays, she worked as a member of the Virginia Colonization Society, a part of the American Colonization Society. The aim of the society was to purchase slaves' freedom and have them settle in Africa. In 1823, the American Colonization Society bought land from tribes on Guinea Coast, which is in West Africa. The land purchase was named Liberia. Three of Mercer's cousins participated in the movement: members of Congress Charles Fenton Mercer and James Mercer Garnett, as well as architect John H. B. Latrobe. Charles Fenton Mercer and Garnett were vice presidents of the Virginia Colonization Society, while Latrobe was a well-known colonizationist in Maryland.[1]

Mercer had previously inherited some of her father's slaves upon his death, but she was unable to send any of them to Africa because her father's estate was in debt. She started a school for girls at her Cedar Park home in 1825 with all of her money, and she later paid off the debt with the profit raised from the school.[1][2] Mercer freed all of the slaves, sending six of them to Liberia.[3] They arrived in Monrovia on a schooner named Margaret Mercer.[1] The captain of the schooner was Abels, who remained in Liberia for 13 days and wrote a positive letter about his experience in 1832.[4] Three years after the freed slaves arrived in Monrovia, three of them died, one moved back to the United States, and another one moved further away. It is unknown what happened to the sixth freed slave. The colonization movement later ended due to similar situations.[1]

In 1836, Ludwell Lee, the organizer of the Loudoun chapter of the American Colonization Society, died and his 1,000-plus-acre plantation was for sale. The plantation was named Belmont and Mercer opened a school there named Belmont Academy. Mercer intended to emphasize how important agriculture is and how learning about it could remove slave labor. Along with agriculture, other courses were in philosophy, ethics, the Bible, French, Latin, geography, geology, and astronomy. Her students were mostly daughters of southern gentry and they paid $250 each year for tuition. She employed seven teachers and only one of her students was a boy, John Morris Wample, who was the son of one of the teachers and later became a Confederate engineer.[1]

Due to the nearest church being far away on horseback, Mercer asked Latrobe to build Belmont Chapel. In 1841, the chapel opened for services and Bible study. Children of slaves and freed slaves participated with the schoolgirls at the chapel. Services were held at the chapel until 1936.[1] The chapel was destroyed by arson in 1967.[5][1]

Death and legacy

Mercer died of tuberculosis on September 17, 1846, aged 55, in Belmont.[1] At the time of her death, Mercer was impoverished.[2] The school continued to operate for another 12 years under Eugenia Kephart. In 1856, the school was moved to George C. Marshall's Dodona Manor, then known as Oak Hill. The school was closed in the early 1870s.[1]

In 2018, public figures from Loudoun County, Virginia, and Liberia visited St. David's Episcopal Church and School in Ashburn to dedicate a Virginia historical marker in Mercer's honor. Community leaders and politicians attended the event. An actress also dressed up as Mercer for the occasion.[3]

Bibliography

• Morris, Caspar (1848). Memoir of Miss Margaret Mercer. Lindsay and Blakiston.

References

1. Scheel, Eugene (March 17, 2002). "A Life Devoted to Freedom and Opportunity". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 12, 2020.
2. Christine M. Totten (December 31, 2018). Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd: Eleanor's Rival, FDR's Other Love. Eliot Werner Publications. p. 140. ISBN 978-1-73337-692-1.
3. Stinnette, Elizabeth (September 10, 2018). "More than a footnote: Locals honor the legacy of Margaret Mercer". Loudoun Times-Mirror. Retrieved August 12, 2020.
4. Mathew Carey (1834). Letters on the Colonization Society; with a view of its probable results, under the following heads, The origin of the Society; Increase of the coloured population; Manumission of slaves in this country ... Second edition, enlarged, etc. L. Johnson. p. 24.
5. Mary Fishback (February 15, 2001). Loudoun County: A Family Album. Arcadia Publishing. p. 20. ISBN 978-1-4396-2777-8.