Lott Cary - Legacy and Honors

Legacy and Honors

The remarkable story of Lott Cary has been inspiration for United States and Liberian school children. Despite starting life as a common slave in a rural county with few apparent opportunities, Cary became educated and industrious, bought his own freedom, became both a minister and a physician, and helped found a new nation.

• His mission and memory have been kept alive through the work of the Lott Carey Foreign Mission Convention, based in Washington, DC.

• In Richmond, Virginia: Cary Street, and the Carytown shopping district.

• Providence Baptist Church in Monrovia, Liberia celebrated its 175th anniversary in 2001.

• Lott Cary Road in Charles City County was named in his honor.

• The Lott Cary House is a designated state historical landmark. It is used as a private residence. Virginia historical marker, V27-Lott Cary Birthplace, notes the site at the intersection of Virginia State Highways 155 and 602. While little is left of the original 18th century house, and it appears the original is more likely Bowry's plantation house than a slave quarter home where Cary would have been born, the site is important as a landmark of the man and his achievements.

• The Board of Supervisors of neighboring James City County, Virginia declared March 21, 2001, to be "Lott Cary Day" in his honor.