Early Years
Mary Ellen made contradictory claims about her earliest years. Her birthday is known to be August 19; the year has been listed as unknown, probably between 1814–1817, however, her gravestone at Tulocay Cemetery in Napa, California, states 1812. In one version of her memoirs dictated to her god-daughter, Charlotte Downs, she claimed she was born a slave to a Voodoo priestess and the youngest son of a Governor of Virginia, James Pleasants. In any case, she showed up in Nantucket, Massachusetts circa 1827 as a 10-13 year old bonded servant to store keeper, "Grandma" Hussey and worked out her bondage, then became a family member and lifelong friend to Grandma's granddaughter Phoebe Hussey Gardner. The Husseys were deeply involved in the abolitionist movement, and Mary Ellen met many of the famous luminaries of the movement during her youth on Nantucket.
Read more about this topic: Mary Ellen Pleasant
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:
“In early times every sort of advantage tends to become a military advantage; such is the best way, then, to keep it alive. But the Jewish advantage never did so; beginning in religion, contrary to a thousand analogies, it remained religious. For that we care for them; from that have issued endless consequences.”
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“But you were not living at all,
and I was half-living,
so where the years blight these others,
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