Read Part One HERE
In this post I will continue to focus on a woman named Zilpha Elaw. She lived from 1790 - 1873.
After nearly twenty years of preaching in America, Zilpha relocated to the United Kingdom in 1840 to continue her ministry. Although the British had abolished slavery in 1833, Zilpha did not explicitly preach an abolitionist message. Nonetheless, her presense in England was often seen through the lens of her race. In 1846 she published "Memoirs of an American Female of Colour" which contains most of the information known about her life and was one of the first autobiographical works published by a black woman.
Though accounts of her British ministry are scarce, records indicate that Zilpha was settled in London by 1850 with her second husband, a white man, Ralph Bressey Shum, who died four years after their marriage. Continuing to preach across rural England in the 1860s, she even had a chapel built in London to further her ministry. By the early 1870s, census records indicated that Zilpha was suffering from partial paralysis and dementia, requiring a caretaker to accomplish daily tasks. Still living in Londoin, and after a career of service spanning half a century, Zilpha passed away on August 20, 873 at 83 years of age.
Read Part Nineteen HERE
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