Virginia (c 1839-?)

Mary Jane Richards, AKA Mary Elizabeth Bowser, was born enslaved. She was a missionary to Liberia and a teacher at Freeman’s school. Bowser also served as a Union spy in the Confederate White house during the Civil War (1861-1865). She was born somewhere around 1839 on a plantation owned by John Van Lew of Richmond. Details about her life are little known as family members inadvertently discarded her diaries in the 1950s. Upon Van Lew’s death, in either 1843 or 1851, his wife, Elizabeth freed their slaves. An outspoken abolitionist, Elizabeth arranged for Bowser to be educated.