Browse Items (16 total)

A Unionist during the Civil War, Caroline Bradby Cook protected, preserved, and passed on the Pamunkey heritage.

King William County

Dangerfield Newby was one of five African Americans who took up arms against slavery with fellow abolitionist John Brown at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in October 1859.

Culpeper County

Seamstress Elizabeth Keckly bought her freedom and later served as dressmaker for Mary Todd Lincoln at the White House.

Dinwiddie County

Seamstress and confidante of Mary Todd Lincoln, former slave Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly wrote a book detailing her life and experiences in the White House.

Dinwiddie County

Elizabeth Van Lew oversaw an effective and significant Union spy network during the Civil War.

Richmond

Born into slavery, Fields Cook became a prominent African American leader in Richmond and Alexandria in the aftermath of the Civil War.

Richmond and Alexandria

After his family was suddenly sold out of the state in 1848, he shipped himself in a wooden crate to freedom in 1849.

Richmond

Isabella Gibbons learned to read while enslaved and later educated hundreds of African Americans as a teacher in the freedmen's schools and public schools of Charlottesville.

Charlottesville

Kate Mason Rowland is best known for her biography of her great-great-granduncle George Mason.

Richmond

Born enslaved, Lucy Goode Brooks founded the Friends' Asylum for Colored Orphans in Richmond.

Richmond