"Ask a Slave: The Web Series
Like This Page · February 15, 2014 · Edited ·
Biddy Bridget Mason (1815-1891) was born into slavery and given as a wedding gift to a Mormon couple in Mississippi named Robert and Rebecca Smith. In 1847 at age 32, Biddy Mason was forced to walk from Mississippi to Utah tending cattle behind her master’s 300-wagon caravan.
After four years in Salt Lake City, Smith took the group to a new Mormon settlement in San Bernardino, California in search of gold. When Biddy Mason discovered that the California State Constitution made slavery illegal, she had Robert Smith brought into court on a writ of habeas corpus, and the court freed all of Smith’s slaves.
Now free, Mason and her three daughters (probably fathered by Smith) moved to Los Angeles where they worked and saved enough money to buy a house at 331 Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles. Biddy was employed as a nurse, midwife, and domestic servant. She was one of the first black women to own land in the city of Los Angeles. She was crafty enough to use part of her land as a temporary resting place for horses and carriages, and people visiting town paid money in exchange for the space. This can be considered the first "parking lot" in Los Angeles!
Knowing what it meant to be oppressed and friendless, Biddy Mason immediately began a philanthropic career by opening her home to the poor, hungry, and homeless. Through hard work, saving, and investing carefully, she was able to purchase large amounts of real estate including a commercial building, which provided her with enough income to help build schools, hospitals, and churches. Her financial fortunes continued to increase until she accumulated a fortune of almost $300,000. Her grandson, Robert Curry Owens, a real estate developer and politician, was the richest African-American in Los Angeles at one time.
Her most noted accomplishment was the founding of First African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, now the oldest church in Los Angeles, where she also operated a nursery and food pantry. Moreover, her generosity and compassion included personally bringing home cooked meals to men in state prison.
In 1988, Mayor Tom Bradley had a tombstone erected at her unmarked grave site and November 16, 1989 was declared “Biddy Mason Day”. In addition, the highlights of her life were displayed on a wall of the Spring Center in downtown Los Angeles, an honor befitting Los Angeles’s first Black female property owner and philanthropist."
WOW! I would love to read more about this Biddy Bridget Mason, who was a legendary AME church-founding; Mississippi-to-Utah-walking; personal freedom lawsuit filing; financial empire-building; philanthropic-LA sister!
Friday, February 12, 2016
BIDDY BRIDGET MASON
"Ask a Slave: The Web Series
Like This Page · February 15, 2014 · Edited ·
Biddy Bridget Mason (1815-1891) was born into slavery and given as a wedding gift to a Mormon couple in Mississippi named Robert and Rebecca Smith. In 1847 at age 32, Biddy Mason was forced to walk from Mississippi to Utah tending cattle behind her master’s 300-wagon caravan.
After four years in Salt Lake City, Smith took the group to a new Mormon settlement in San Bernardino, California in search of gold. When Biddy Mason discovered that the California State Constitution made slavery illegal, she had Robert Smith brought into court on a writ of habeas corpus, and the court freed all of Smith’s slaves.
Now free, Mason and her three daughters (probably fathered by Smith) moved to Los Angeles where they worked and saved enough money to buy a house at 331 Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles. Biddy was employed as a nurse, midwife, and domestic servant. She was one of the first black women to own land in the city of Los Angeles. She was crafty enough to use part of her land as a temporary resting place for horses and carriages, and people visiting town paid money in exchange for the space. This can be considered the first "parking lot" in Los Angeles!
Knowing what it meant to be oppressed and friendless, Biddy Mason immediately began a philanthropic career by opening her home to the poor, hungry, and homeless. Through hard work, saving, and investing carefully, she was able to purchase large amounts of real estate including a commercial building, which provided her with enough income to help build schools, hospitals, and churches. Her financial fortunes continued to increase until she accumulated a fortune of almost $300,000. Her grandson, Robert Curry Owens, a real estate developer and politician, was the richest African-American in Los Angeles at one time.
Her most noted accomplishment was the founding of First African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, now the oldest church in Los Angeles, where she also operated a nursery and food pantry. Moreover, her generosity and compassion included personally bringing home cooked meals to men in state prison.
In 1988, Mayor Tom Bradley had a tombstone erected at her unmarked grave site and November 16, 1989 was declared “Biddy Mason Day”. In addition, the highlights of her life were displayed on a wall of the Spring Center in downtown Los Angeles, an honor befitting Los Angeles’s first Black female property owner and philanthropist."
WOW! I would love to read more about this Biddy Bridget Mason, who was a legendary AME church-founding; Mississippi-to-Utah-walking; personal freedom lawsuit filing; financial empire-building; philanthropic-LA sister!
