Margaret Anna Burwell

Life and Orange County connections

Storylines this person is part of, in date order. Each has its own page.

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 11 dated events in the chronology →

1. 1835 Elizabeth Hobbs is brought to Hillsborough in the household of Robert and Anna Burwell When the Reverend Robert Burwell became minister of the Presbyterian church in Hillsborough, he moved his household from Virginia, bringing the enslaved Elizabeth Hobbs, later Keckly. By her own account she was nearly eighteen. People: Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly, Robert Armistead Burwell, Margaret Anna Burwell Place: Hillsborough · Also named: Elizabeth Keckly, Robert Burwell, Anna Burwell, Elizabeth HobbsEncyclopedia Virginia (Virginia Humanities): Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly (1818–1907), by Jennifer Fleischner
2. About 1836 Schoolmaster William J. Bingham repeatedly beats Elizabeth Hobbs at Anna Burwell's urging Anna Burwell had William J. Bingham, the Hillsborough schoolmaster, flog Elizabeth Hobbs over a period of weeks in an attempt to break her spirit. Her memoir says Robert Burwell also beat her, and that she was eighteen at the time. People: Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly, Robert Armistead Burwell, William James Bingham, Margaret Anna Burwell Place: Hillsborough · Also named: William J. Bingham, Anna Burwell, Robert Burwell, Elizabeth HobbsDocumenting the American South: Behind the Scenes, or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House (Keckley, 1868)
3. 1837–1857 Burwell School for young women operates Robert and Margaret Anna Burwell operated their Hillsborough school for girls from 1837 to 1857. People: Margaret Anna Burwell, Robert Armistead Burwell, Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly Place: HillsboroughNCpedia
4. July 1837 Anna Burwell opens a school for girls in Hillsborough Anna Burwell advertised that she would open a female school in Hillsborough on July 17, 1837, teaching the usual English branches, with music available. She and her husband, the Rev. Robert Burwell, ran it in their home until 1857. People: Robert Armistead Burwell, Margaret Anna Burwell Place: Burwell School, Hillsborough · Also named: Robert Burwell, Anna BurwellInternet Archive: Charles L. Coon, North Carolina Schools and Academies, 1790-1840: A Documentary History (1915)
5. April 10, 1838 Elizabeth Hobbs writes to her mother from Hillsborough Elizabeth Hobbs wrote to her mother Agnes Hobbs in Virginia asking for news of home and saying she did not expect to see her family again. She wrote that Anna Burwell planned to go to Petersburg without her and that she had been told she would belong to Elizabeth Burwell once that daughter married. She also wrote that she had been a bridesmaid at Ann Nash's wedding a week before Christmas 1837. People: Margaret Anna Burwell Place: Hillsborough · Also named: Elizabeth Hobbs, Agnes Hobbs, Anna Burwell, Elizabeth BurwellProject Gutenberg: Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes (1868), p. 16
6. May 17, 1838 Frances Armistead Burwell is born to Robert and Anna Burwell of Hillsborough Frances Armistead Burwell, called Fanny, was the fourth of the twelve children of Robert and Margaret Anna Burwell. People: Frances Armistead Burwell, Robert Armistead Burwell, Margaret Anna Burwell Place: HillsboroughSearch the index · Orange County NCGenWeb: Burwell School
7. April 5, 1846 Smallpox at the Turner house sends students out of town Anna Burwell wrote that William Turner had caught smallpox from the clothes of a brother back from medical lectures in Philadelphia. Twenty or thirty students of the Institute left town, and both Burwell boarders went home, though no second case followed. People: Margaret Anna Burwell Place: Hillsborough · Also named: William Turner, Anna BurwellBurwell School Historic Site Task Force: Antebellum Hillsborough, Slavery, and Enslaved and Free People of Color who Worked at the Burwell School, 1837-1857 (2019), p. 46
8. March 27, 1855 Aunt Fariby saves Jane from burning Jane, a young enslaved servant at the Burwell School, caught fire. Anna Burwell wrote that she would have burned to death but for Aunt Fariby, who saved her life. People: Margaret Anna Burwell Place: Hillsborough · Also named: Anna Burwell, Jane · Also mentions: Burwell SchoolElizabeth Keckly Center research database: Jane
9. February 8, 1856 The Burwells resolve to sell their cook Hannah Hannah, who had come from Virginia with the family and cooked for the school, had been drinking heavily through 1855. Anna Burwell wrote to her daughter Fanny that she had made up her mind: Hannah would be sent to Richmond to be sold. People: Robert Armistead Burwell, Margaret Anna Burwell Place: Hillsborough · Also named: Anna Burwell, HannahBurwell School Historic Site Task Force: Antebellum Hillsborough, Slavery, and Enslaved and Free People of Color who Worked at the Burwell School, 1837-1857 (2019), p. 14
10. April 27, 1856 Fanny Burwell dies aboard the steamer Jamestown as her parents bring her home to Hillsborough Fanny Burwell had gone to New York to complete her music education, but fell ill with erysipelas in early March. Her mother went north to nurse her, and she died at dawn on the steamer Jamestown between New York and Norfolk with both parents beside her, in her eighteenth year; her body was brought home to Hillsborough for burial. People: Frances Armistead Burwell, Robert Armistead Burwell, Margaret Anna Burwell Place: HillsboroughSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, May 7, 1856, p. 3 (obituary)
11. 1857 Burwell School closes as the Burwells move to Charlotte The Burwells closed their Hillsborough school in 1857, the same year they took charge of a girls' school in Charlotte. People: Robert Armistead Burwell, Margaret Anna Burwell Place: Burwell School, HillsboroughDigitalNC: Burwell School Historic Site Materials Now Available on DigitalNC