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Local figure

Mary Walker

Born in Orange County in 1818, Mary Walker lived enslaved on Duncan Cameron's large plantation, where she learned the skills of a seamstress and cared for Cameron's daughters. In 1848, threatened with banishment to the Deep South, she slipped away from the family, and she spent years working to free her children before her death in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1872.

Source: Mount Auburn Cemetery: Mary Walker (1818-1873)

–1872 · Dates from the Library of Congress · On the Friends’ Local Authors roster → · Library of Congress authority record ↗

1 work about Mary Walker is indexed here. 1 held at OCPL →

Search this work Research sources View indexed works ↓

Life and Orange County connections

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

Stagville and Fairntosh: the Bennehan and Cameron plantations, 1799–18261799–1826 · Stagville and Fairntosh grew into the Bennehan and Cameron plantations on the labor of enslaved people, and the county court's records show how the law reached into their lives. Richard Bennehan built Stagville in 1799 on about 4,000 acres worked by 44 or more enslaved people, and Duncan Cameron built Fairntosh beside it from 1810. In 1809 the court let four men they enslaved carry guns and made patrollers return six guns taken from others. Mary Walker was born into a family they held in 1818, and by 1826 the plantations sold close to 30,000 pounds of tobacco.

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 1 dated event in the chronology →

  1. Mary Walker is born into an enslaved family held by the Bennehans and Camerons Mary Walker was born to Priscilla, whose mother Aggy had been one of the first enslaved children born on the Bennehan plantation in 1781. Her monument at Mount Auburn Cemetery records her birth in Orange County.Search the index · NC Historic Sites: TrueInclusion, Historic Stagville

Indexed works

Works about or by Mary Walker. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it. Background reading appears below.

To Free A Family

Nathans, Sydney · 2012 · Harvard University Press

Sydney Nathans's biography of Mary Walker, an enslaved woman from Orange County who escaped to the North in the mid nineteenth century and spent the following decades in Cambridge, Massachusetts, working to free the family she had left behind. Chapter titles trace her flight, her years among Northern friends, a rescue plot, a long silence, and the reunion that gives the book its close. Published 2012 by Harvard University Press, 330 pages with 20 pages of plates, illustrations and maps.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNCSA record: Walker, Mary, -1872.

Reviewed in Choice Reviews Online (2012), Civil War Book Review (2012).

✓ Held at OCPL · BIO WALKER NAT NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Chapel Hill PL Library of Congress Davidson Methodist Wingate UNCSA

Places in this person’s story

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows them all.

Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange, Orange County GIS, OpenStreetMap and a few other published sources named on each site’s page; town and community pins show approximate locations.

  • Fairntosh Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries · Little River · 1 event here
  • Stagville Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries · Little River · 1 event here

All places and the county map →

Research sources

Sources and research tools for this person. For ready-made searches of other catalogs, see Search further. Research guide: Trace a family through historical records.

Background

Historic sites, markers, and maps

Collections and databases

  • NC LIVE: prepared search for Mary Walker Library card Search NC LIVE for this subject and Orange County. You can change the search terms. Sign in through your North Carolina library to access the materials.
  • Ancestry Library Edition In the libraryOrange County Public Library Census, birth, death and marriage records, and more, free on the public computers at OCPL libraries

Local help

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Search other catalogs and collections for this name. Results may include other people with the same name and have not been reviewed by the Friends.

Books about Mary Walker

Books by Mary Walker

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Photographs, papers, and newspapers

Historical records and collections

Catalog searches use the Library of Congress name heading: Walker, Mary, -1872. Historical-record searches use the person’s name and may include namesakes. Links open in a new tab.

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