Emily Catherine (Edmonson) Johnson (abt. 1835 - 1895)

Born about 1835 in Montgomery, Maryland, United States

Descendants

Died 1895 at about age 60 in Anacostia, Washington, District of Columbia, United States

Problems/Questions Profile manager: US Black Heritage Project WikiTree [send private message]

Emily (Edmonson) Johnson is a part of US Black history and has a Platinum Profile. Join: US Black Heritage Project Discuss: black_heritage

Biography

Emily (Edmonson) Johnson is Notable.

Emily, born about 1835, was a daughter of Paul and Amelia Edmonson, a free Black man and the enslaved woman he married in Montgomery County, Maryland. Because their mother was enslaved, under the law the children were also born into slavery.

On April 15, 1848, in an event historically known as The Pearl Incident, Emily, her sister Mary, and four of their brothers joined seventy-one other slaves on a small schooner called the Pearl in the largest escape attempt by enslaved people in U.S. history. A posse organized by Washington D.C. area slave owners captured the Pearl on Chesapeake Bay at Point Lookout, Maryland, and towed the ship and its freedom-seeking passengers back to slavery in Washington D.C.

Upon their recapture, Emily, her sister Mary, and their four brothers were sold and sent to New Orleans where their new owners, slave trader partners Joseph Bruin and Henry P. Hill, displayed them on an open porch facing the street, hoping to attract buyers. However, a yellow fever epidemic struck New Orleans, forcing Bruin and Hill to send the two girls back to Bruin's Slave Jail in Alexandra, Virginia, to protect their investment.

Meanwhile, their father had started a campaign to free his daughters. When Bruin and Hill demanded $2,250 for the sisters’ release, Edmonson went to New York and met with members of the American Anti-Slavery Society, who then sent him to Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, a prominent abolitionist and pastor of the Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn, New York. Beecher, who was also the brother of novelist Harriet Beecher Stowe, took the challenge and raised enough money to buy their freedom.

The Edmonson sisters were emancipated on November 4, 1848. Plymouth Congregational Church continued to contribute money for their education. They were enrolled at New York Central College in Cortland, New York, in August 1850. While there, they attended the Slave Law Convention, organized by Theodore Dwight Weld, in Cazenovia, New York, to protest the proposed Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. There they met Frederick Douglass and were introduced to the abolitionist movement.

In 1853, the Edmonson sisters attended the Young Ladies Preparatory School at Oberlin College in Ohio through the support of Beecher and his sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe. That same year, Stowe included part of the Edmonson sisters' history with other factual accounts of slavery experiences in A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Eighteen-year-old Emily returned to Washington with her father, where she enrolled in the Normal School for Colored Girls. Located near current-day Dupont Circle, the school trained young African-American women to become teachers. For protection, the Edmonson family moved to a cabin on the grounds. Emily and Myrtilla Miner, the founder of the school, learned to shoot for added protection. Emily taught school for Black women, and there continued her abolitionist work.

In 1860 Emily married the widowed father of four, Larkin Johnson.^[1] After living twelve years in Sandy Spring, Maryland, they moved to Washington D.C., purchasing land in the Anacostia neighborhood in the southeastern section of the city, and becoming founding members of the mostly Black Hillsdale community.

Together they had these known children:

• Ida Louisa Johnson (1861-)
• William Johnson (1863)^[2]
• Frances "Fanny" Johnson (1866)
• Emma Johnson (1867)^[2]
• Robert Johnson (c.1871-c.1876)^[2]

Edmonson Sisters

Emily Edmonson maintained her relationship with fellow Anacostia resident Frederick Douglass, and one of her grandchildren described their relationship as "close as brother and sister."^[3]

Emily Edmonson died on September 15, 1895, at her home in Anacostia, Maryland,^[3][4] seven months after the death of her more prominent neighbor, Frederick Douglass.

In 2010, a statue of Mary and Emily Edmonson was erected in Alexandria near where Bruin’s slave pens once stood.^[3]

Slave Owners

1. Rebecca Culver (abt.1785-aft.1860), Maryland, 1826-1848
2. Joseph Bruin (abt.1808-abt.1882) and Henry Hill, slave dealers of Alexandria and Baltimore, April - November 1848

Sources

1. ↑ "United States Census, 1860", database with images, FamilySearch (ark:/61903/1:1:M69H-S5Q : Mon Jun 26 15:05:57 UTC 2023), Entry for Larkin Johnson and Emily Johnson, 1860, 5th District, Montgomery, Maryland, United States.
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2} "United States, Freedman's Bank Records, 1865-1874," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NSTC-BY7 : 9 March 2018), Emily C. Johnson in entry for Emma, citing bank District of Columbia, United States, NARA microfilm publication M816 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1970); FHL microfilm 928,575.

   Children: Charles, Ida, William, Frances, Emma, Robert.

3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1 3.2} Wikipedia contributors, "Edmonson sisters," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Edmonson_sisters&oldid=1141447806 (accessed July 15, 2023).
4. ↑ Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/195879813/emily-catherine-johnson: accessed 15 July 2023), memorial page for Emily Catherine Edmonson Johnson (1835–15 Sep 1895), Find a Grave Memorial ID 195879813, citing Hillsdale Cemetery (Defunct), Douglass, District of Columbia, District of Columbia, USA; Burial Details Unknown; Maintained by FamilyTies (contributor 47950600). Contains death notice with date.

See also:

• "Edmonson Sisters Wikipedia Page"
• "Emily Catherine Edmonson", Montgomery County, Maryland Government Biography
• United States Census, 1860
• United States Census, 1870
• United States Census, 1880
• "Joseph Bruin and the Slave Trade"
• Maryland Women's Hall of Fame
• Wikidata: Item Q5338973