{"product_id":"1848-caspar-morris-memoir-of-abolitionist-slave-educator-miss-margaret-mercer-copy","title":"1848 CASPAR MORRIS. Memoir of Abolitionist \u0026 Slave Educator, Miss Margaret Mercer.","description":"\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eA very scarce biography of an important regional American abolitionist, Margaret Mercer [1791 – 1846]. She remains one of the most practical and interesting of persons in the cause. Although her father and both grandfathers had operated their Virginia and Maryland plantations using enslaved labor, Margaret, under a sense of intense religious conviction described in the present work, came to see slavery as immoral. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eAs a result, upon her father’s death, when she inherited his 72 slaves, she worked to see them set at liberty. Refusing to sell them, as this would necessarily disband their families, and lacking any mechanism to otherwise see them established with their families intact, she engaged to have them patriated to Liberia under the auspices of the Colonization Society.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eWith her family's wealth then at her disposal, and believing that education was critical to the flourishing of freed persons, Margaret set about establishing a school and a chapel for “colored” children in Loudoun County, Virginia.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eIn 1836, Ludwell Lee, a planter and politician who had served as speaker of the Virginia Senate (1799) and who had also helped Margaret's cousin, C. F. Mercer, organize the Loudoun chapter of the American Colonization Society, died and his heirs placed Belmont, his 1,000-plus-acre plantation for sale. Mercer bought it and opened a school there named \"Belmont Academy\". Her purpose was simple, train Southern wealthy women about the evils of slavery and about farming methods that would flourish without it. Her students were mostly daughters of southern gentry and paid $250 each year for tuition. She employed seven teachers. In the 1840 census, 56 free white people lived on the property (of which 8 were male and 20 females of between 10 and 15 years old and 15 of between 15 and 20 years old, as well as nine enslaved Black women and girls and two free Black girls, all of whom seem to have participated in the educational process.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eBecause of the distance to the nearest church, 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 openly and freely, forming one of the first fully integrated churches in America.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eA fascinating memoir of a particularly innovative expression of the abolitionist movement.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"p2\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eMorris, Caspar. Memoir of Miss Margaret Mercer. Second Edition, with Additions. Philadelphia. Lindsay \u0026amp; Blakiston. 1848. 268pp.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003eA good + copy, bound in cloth, with the binding a bit faded and rubbed as shown. Light to moderate foxing. Very solid. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Specs Fine Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51328655294500,"sku":null,"price":350.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/specsfinebooks.com\/products\/1848-caspar-morris-memoir-of-abolitionist-slave-educator-miss-margaret-mercer-copy","provider":"Specs Fine Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}