Read Part One HERE
In this story I will continue to focus on sisters Mary and Emily Edmonson. Mary lived from 1832 - 1853 and Emily lived from1835 - 1895. Both Mary and Emily were emancipated on 4 November 1848. Plymouth Congregational Church continued to contribute for their education. They were enrolled in the co-ed and interracial New York Central College in Cortland, New York, in August 1850.
While there, they attended the Slave Law Convention In Cazenovia, New York, to protest the proposed Fugitive Slave Act in 1850. There they met Frederick Douglass and were introduced to the abolitionist movement.
Mary and Emily continued their education at Oberlin College in Ohio in 1853. Six months after entering Oberlin, Mary died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty. Emily returned to Washington, D.C. and continued her studies at the Normal School for Coloured Girls.
In 1860 Emily married Larkin Johson and, after living 12 years in Sandy Spring, Maryland, they moved to Washington, D.C., purchasing land in the Anacostia neighbourhood in the souteastern section of the city and becoming founding members of the mostly black Hillsdale community. Emily maintained her relationship with fellow Anacostia resident Frederick Douglass, and both continued working for African American civil and political rights.
Emily died in 1895.
Read Part One Hundred And Sixty-Three HERE
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