By Andrea Downing
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| Mary Ellen Pleasant |
It never ceases to amaze me how some people
can cram in about three lifetimes of a normal person into their one. I
constantly feel as if I just haven’t done enough living. And doing the research
on Mary Ellen Pleasant made me feel like that, especially as there are so many
conflicting stories.
Pleasant was born either in Philadelphia,
which she claimed in her autobiography, or Virginia, either in 1812 or 1814
(you begin to see the problem here, right?) either to a LA African American
woman and a Kanaka Hawaiian father or to the son of the Governor of VA and a
Haitian voodoo priestess in VA, or into slavery in GA. My pick is the first
one. No matter, at some stage (aged between 10 & 13) she was sent to
Nantucket RI as a bonded servant to the Hussey family, Quaker abolitionists who
ran a store. There she not only met many abolitionists on this stop on the
Underground Railway but she learned how to act with people, studying men and
women, their manners and speech.
Sometime in the 1840s, when Mary was in her
twenties, she had worked out her contract and the Husseys helped her obtain a
position in Boston working for a tailor. She also became a paid soloist in a
church where she met and eventually married James Henry Smith. While Smith was of
mixed race—part mulatto Cuban, part white—both he and Mary were able to pass as
white. Smith was a flour contractor and also had inherited a plantation near
Harper’s Ferry from his white father (where he had freed his own slaves). A
wealthy man, he was also an abolitionist, working a track on the Underground
Railroad that took runaway slaves up to Nova Scotia. However much he believed
in free men, he was apparently somewhat restrictive of Mary and some believe
she was ‘responsible’ for his death four years after they wed. Whatever the
truth of that, he certainly left her a fortune in the tens of thousands of
dollars.
Mary continued her abolitionist work. There
is some evidence to support her life as a ‘slave stealer,’ masquerading as a
jockey and taking enslaved persons to freedom. But in 1848 she married another
abolitionist, John James Pleasant, and with slavers after them, they went first
to New Orleans where Pleasant had family, including, apparently, Marie Laveau.
Then it was on to San Francisco around 1852.
West at last!
The Gold Rush had begun and with women at a
premium, Mary saw her opportunity to make more money. She continued to pass as
white in order to avoid California’s Fugitive Slave Act. She initially worked
as a boarding house steward and cook but eventually opened various dining
establishments for miners, moving on to restaurants for wealthy and influential
men. There she picked up tidbits of gossip helping her to make various investments in the
surging economy, in everything from laundries to Wells Fargo. She also
anticipated the need for oil and invested in that. She teamed up with a young Scots
banking clerk, Thomas Bell, whom she had met on the ship to CA, and together
they made millions. This association would have benefitted Mary in not bringing
her finances to the attention of the white populace. It would have been
difficult for her as a black woman to make such investments. Her husband, J.J.,
passed away in 1877, by which time Mary had changed her ethnicity in the city
directory to black--the Civil War was over!
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| Pleasant in her later years |
But let’s back-track for a moment. From 1857
to 1859 Mary returned east to help John Brown in his cause. She donated some thirty thousand dollars to
his abolitionist movement. When Brown was hanged on Dec. 2, 1859, a note was
found in his pocket: ‘The ax is lain at
the foot of the tree. When the first blow is struck there will be more money to
help.’ It was believed at the time it had been written by some northerner
but Mary Ellen Pleasant was apparently the author.
When she and another black woman were
forcibly ejected from a San Francisco streetcar in 1866, she sued both the
streetcar company and the city. Her case
was won although the damages awarded her were reversed. Still, that case was used as precedent to win
another suit as late as 1983. Further lawsuits in San Francisco depleted her
fortune, including one brought by the
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| The Bell/Pleasant home around 1870 |
Mary Ellen died in reduced circumstances in
1904.
Pleasant is considered the Mother of
California Civil Rights. She had been
befriended by the Sherwood family and is buried in their family plot in Napa,
CA, with a brass plaque to mark the spot.
The site of her former mansion, now demolished, is marked with a small
park in San Francisco, which also has a Mary Ellen Pleasant Day. She has been
mentioned in numerous literary works as well as in films.
In 1965, her gravestone was amended with a
line she had requested on her deathbed, 'A Friend of John Brown.’
First photo provenance unknown
2nd photo public domain via wikimedia
3rd photo courtesy SF History Center, San Francisco Public Library, SFG City Guides
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