A Woman's Life-Work — Labors and Experiences of Laura S. HavilandHaviland, Laura S. (Laura Smith)
Religion
A Woman's Life-Work — Labors and Experiences of Laura S. Haviland
Haviland, Laura S. (Laura Smith)
Freed persons; Haviland, Laura S. (Laura Smith), 1808-1898; Underground Railroad
At twelve o'clock we landed at Jamestown. In this old, dilapidated
place were yet standing brick walls of three old buildings open to the
birds and the bats. The brick of these half-torn down buildings were
transported from England more than two hundred years ago. I saw a piece
of a marble slab from the graveyard dated 1626, broken in pieces by
soldiers for relics. We were soon met by the ambulance-driver, and he
took us through a nice field of wheat owned by William Allen, just
referred to, who was one of our passengers to the ancient city of
Williamsburg. Here was a large insane asylum, built of imported bricks
from England, with a marble front, erected, by Lord Bottetourt,
governor of the colony. It was founded in 1688. The tower was
ninety-six feet high, and the number of inmates one hundred and one,
forty-two of whom were colored. Robert M. Garrett was the physician and
superintendent. This is the oldest institution of the kind in the
Union. In the front yard of this asylum stands, in life-size, the
statue of Lord Bottetourt. As we were passing through the apartments we
listened to a very sweet voice singing a hymn. Said my guide, "Mr.
Scott is singing for you. He is General Winfield Scott's nephew. He bet
both of his plantations that the Confederates would succeed in this
war, and when Richmond fell he became insane and was brought here two
weeks ago."
I was shown an old brick church in which was a colored school of one
hundred and ninety-six scholars, taught by Miss Barton, of Connecticut,
and a gentleman from Michigan. Here I found myself at home at once.
There were here, previous to the late war, two institutions of
learning--the William and Mary College at one end of the main street,
and at the other, three and a quarter miles distant, the female
seminary. The college was burned in the war of 1776, again in the war
of 1812, and, for the third time, a few months before I was there.
There was no school now in the female seminary, and it looked as if
waiting for repairs. Here is the old ivy-bound church in which George
Washington was married. The bricks of this building were also brought
from England. This town was the capital of tins State previous to its
removal to Richmond.
I walked nearly two miles to Fort Magruder, where I found a colored
school of one hundred and fifty-eight members, taught by Maggie Thorpe
and Martha Haines, of New York, under the auspices of the Society of
Friends. To accommodate men and women who could not leave their work
during the day they opened a night school, and had fifty of that class.
Half of these did not know their letters when their school opened in
February, and could then read quite fluently in the second and third
readers. A few miles further there was another school of thirty
scholars who had made commendable progress.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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