This is the Mary Stith House, located in Colonial Willamsburg, Virginia.
What a gorgeous building.
“Mary Stith lived to see independence and the establishment of the Republic. She wrote her will in 1813. Among its beneficiaries were her African American servants, to whom she left her shop. Her will shows her depth of feeling for them:
“All the coloured people in my family being born my slaves, but now liberated, I think it my duty not to leave them destitute nor to leave them unrecompensed for past services rendered to me. As in the cause of humanity I can do but little for so many, and that little my conscience requires me to do, therefore I subject the whole of my estate to the payment of my just debts, and to the provision which I herein make for them.”
With the exception of few small legacies to white friends, Stith left most of her considerable estate, including three buildings and the ground on which they stood, to her freedmen.”
Learn more about her at…
http://www.history.org/almanack/places/hb/hbstith.cfm
Originally posted 2015-08-29 15:12:19.