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possibly his eldest son on the
Maryland census) owned a total of 49 enslaved people in Alexandria. The 1860 Federal census for Loudoun County, Virginia classified George as "Merchant" and his son William as "Tradeing", but the Kephart family (now without George Junior who disappeared from the census but would be buried nearby in 1888, and to which 6 year old Julius had been added, only owned one slave, an 18 year old mulatto woman. Kephart either provided for his children who chose not to continue the business or encountered financial difficulties by 1858, when the firm's name changed to Price, Birch and Co. (which remained the name when Union authorities converted the Alexandria office in 1862 into a jail for Confederate and other prisoners) and in 1860 the Loudoun Circuit Court ordered various properties including Coton liquidated. In 1864, Virginia abolitionist
33:
207:. The schooner's Captain Abels remained in Liberia for 13 days and in 1832 wrote a positive letter about his experience, which colonizers published. However, three years after the freed slaves arrived in Monrovia, three had died, one moved back to the United States, and another moved further away. . Similar results for other freed slaves sent to Africa led to the colonization movement's decline.
146:, and read widely in her father's library (which contemporaries had admired, as they had the library of her grandfather Mercer). Although her father and both grandfathers had operated their Virginia and Maryland plantations using enslaved labor, Margaret found slavery immoral. She also did not want to marry, and never did. She corresponded with her
218:, his 1,000-plus-acre plantation for sale. Mercer returned to Virginia, bought it and opened a school there named "Belmont Academy". She intended to emphasize agricultural education and how learning about it could remove the need for slave labor. Other courses were: philosophy, ethics, the Bible, French, Latin, geography,
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destroyed it in 1967. In 1990, St. David's
Episcopal Church was built on the former Belmont Chapel site. In 2018, community leaders and politicians from Loudoun County, and Liberia visited St. David's Episcopal Church and School in Ashburn to dedicate a Virginia historical marker in Mercer's honor.
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Mercer inherited some of her father's 72 slaves upon his death in 1821, but was unable to send any of them to Africa because her father's estate was in debt, and their sale (which creditors wanted but
Margaret knew would break up families) could pay off that debt. While her brother remained at the
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was a teacher's son and later became a
Confederate engineer. 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
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at 1315 Duke Street (about 40 miles from
Belmont, or 50 miles from Buckeystown). George Kephart classified himself as a farmer in the 1850 Federal census for Maryland, and the accompanying slave census only showed him as owning 17 enslaved persons there, but two men of the same name (the other
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In 1825, Mercer returned to
Maryland to start a similar school for girls at her family's Cedar Park home, and she managed to pay off the estate's debt with profits raised from the school. Mercer then freed all of the slaves she inherited, sending six of them to Liberia. They arrived in
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Although much of the former
Belmont estate was developed in recent years, the manor house was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, and remains today as an event venue, surrounded by the Belmont golf club and gated community developed by Toll Brothers in 1995.
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Because of the distance to the nearest church (difficult even 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.
440:
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,
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were prominent
Virginia lawyers, and her father had served in the Virginia House of Delegates after his service in the American Revolutionary War and before marrying her mother and moving to her family's estates in
274:(which is about 28 miles away from Belmont, with a nearly direct crossing of the Potomac River along historic Route 15). George Kephart had considerable notoriety, particularly among Loudoun County Quakers at the
214:, a planter and politician who had served as speaker of the Virginia Senate (1799) and also helped C.F. Mercer organize the Loudoun chapter of the American Colonization Society, died and his heirs placed
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She had never married, and her executors Thomas S. Mercer and Richard S. Mercer sold the Belmont estate in 1851 to George Kephart of Frederick County, Maryland, who also bought the former
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and specifically criticized Kephart, who died at Belmont in 1869, about two years after his wife. His Alexandria slave trading office and jail is now also a historic site and museum.
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for four years. Margaret Mercer taught classes five days a week, and also helped teach Sunday school. On Saturdays, she worked for the Virginia Colonization Society, a part of the
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paternal relatives, including about the important people who visited Cedar Park, the siege of Baltimore during the War of 1812, and her brother's surviving his military service.
262:, before closing in the early 1870s when the new Virginia constitution enabled free public education. Richard S. Mercer may have used some of the sale proceeds in 1858 to erect
187:, who lived on a westward road and also became known for education both education and internal improvements (like roads, canals and later railroads). She also knew architect
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171:. The society advocated purchasing slaves' freedom and then settling them in Africa. In 1823, the American Colonization Society bought land on the Guinea Coast (in
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278:(about 18 miles from Belmont), for his and his sons' slave catching activities, and 1836 had purchased the Alexandria, Virginia slave-trading firm once known as
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plantation called "Coton" across the Leesburg Pike. Eugenia Kephart, George Kephart's eldest daughter, operated the school and moved it by 1856 to
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that welcomed black people and continued for a short while after her death. In 2018, a Virginia historical marker was dedicated in her honor.
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on September 17, 1846, aged 55, at Belmont, and was buried on the estate. Two years later, Morris Caspar published a biography of her life.
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and his wife, the former Sophia Sprigg. Mercer was their fourth child, and one of the descendants of her brother John Mercer would be
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163:(a former member of Congress as well as a prominent planter), and with his daughters taught at a school nearby in
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family's Anne Arundel county plantations, Mercer moved to Essex County, Virginia, where she lived with her uncle
93:(July 1, 1791 – September 17, 1846) was an American abolitionist and educator. She worked to end
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and paid $ 250 each year for tuition. She employed seven teachers and only one of her students was a boy (
179:. Another of her Mercer cousins (who had helped found the American Colonization Society), was Congressman
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https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/VLR_to_transfer/PDFNoms/053-0106_Belmont_1980_Final_Nomination.pdf
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Margaret Mercer was born on July 1, 1791, to Maryland governor, planter and veteran politician
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1850 U.S. Federal census slave schedule for Buckeystown, Frederick County, Maryland p. 8 of 9
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and freed the Maryland slaves that she inherited from her father, sending six of them to
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1850 U.S. Federal census for Alexandria City, Alexandria County, Virginia pp. 3, 6 of 15
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1860 U.S. Federal Census for Loudoun County, Virginia, p. 25 of 168; also available at
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1840 U.S. Federal Census for District 1, Loudoun County, Virginia, pp. 89-90 of 96.
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1850 U.S. Federal census for Buckeystown, Frederick County, Maryland p. 64 of 68
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1860 U.S. Federal Census schedule for Loudoun County, Virginia p. 24 of 28
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121:(who much later became known for her relationship with U.S. President
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327:"More than a footnote: Locals honor the legacy of Margaret Mercer"
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556:"The Ghosts of Belmont: From Margaret Mercer to George Kephart"
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Religious services continued at the Belmont chapel until 1936.
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https://lincolnquakers.com/george-kephart-misc-documents/
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Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd: Eleanor's Rival, FDR's Other Love
570:"Former Alexandria slave trading complex seized: 1862"
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226:. Her students were mostly daughters of southern
191:, a prominent colonization advocate in Maryland.
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641:People of the American colonization movement
494:"Chain of Title Narrative, 1315 Duke Street"
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374:"A Life Devoted to Freedom and Opportunity"
325:Stinnette, Elizabeth (September 10, 2018).
407:. Eliot Werner Publications. p. 140.
138:. Mercer grew up in the family home named
101:. Mercer started a school and a chapel in
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636:People from Anne Arundel County, Maryland
401:Christine M. Totten (December 31, 2018).
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691:American women civil rights activists
686:19th-century deaths from tuberculosis
651:19th-century American women educators
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666:People from Loudoun County, Virginia
592:Mary Fishback (February 15, 2001).
598:. Arcadia Publishing. p. 20.
16:American abolitionist and educator
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372:Scheel, Eugene (March 17, 2002).
681:Tuberculosis deaths in Virginia
656:19th-century American educators
595:Loudoun County: A Family Album
467:Memoir of Miss Margaret Mercer
289:Testimonies Concerning Slavery
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169:American Colonization Society
136:Anne Arundel County, Maryland
696:Abolitionists from Virginia
646:Abolitionists from Maryland
480:Belmont NRIS, available at
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444:. L. Johnson. p. 24.
427:Morris biography pp 32-40
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470:. Lindsay and Blakiston.
74:Loudoun County, Virginia
676:Educators from Virginia
671:Activists from Virginia
661:Educators from Maryland
464:Morris, Caspar (1848).
280:Franklin & Armfield
148:Essex County, Virginia
84:Abolitionist, educator
437:Mathew Carey (1834).
181:Charles Fenton Mercer
109:Early and family Life
331:Loudoun Times-Mirror
161:James Mercer Garnett
54:Galesville, Maryland
378:The Washington Post
276:Goose Creek meeting
260:Oak Hill plantation
125:). Her grandfather
115:John Francis Mercer
256:Thomas Ludwell Lee
232:John Morris Wample
189:John H. B. Latrobe
123:Franklin Roosevelt
65:September 17, 1846
605:978-1-4396-2777-8
558:. August 3, 2020.
414:978-1-73337-692-1
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185:Loudoun County
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81:Occupation(s)
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381:. Retrieved
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334:. Retrieved
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249:tuberculosis
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131:James Mercer
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67:(1846-09-17)
50:July 1, 1791
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631:1846 deaths
626:1791 births
272:Buckeystown
212:Ludwell Lee
173:West Africa
127:John Mercer
119:Lucy Mercer
620:Categories
383:August 12,
336:August 12,
307:References
287:published
144:Galesville
140:Cedar Park
129:and uncle
46:1791-07-01
266:manor in
264:Parkhurst
224:astronomy
210:In 1836,
72:Belmont,
201:schooner
197:Monrovia
268:Harwood
235:girls.
220:geology
216:Belmont
177:Liberia
165:Elmwood
95:slavery
602:
411:
228:gentry
222:, and
203:named
154:Career
99:Africa
300:Arson
199:on a
183:, of
600:ISBN
582:NRIS
409:ISBN
385:2020
338:2020
62:Died
56:, US
40:Born
441:etc
142:in
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393:^
376:.
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329:.
315:^
608:.
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340:.
48:)
44:(
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