Mary Smith Peake, teacher of classes for "contrabands," dies of tuberculosis in Hampton, Virginia

Mary Smith Peake died of tuberculosis in Hampton, Virginia.  She had been hired the previous year by the American Missionary Society to teach recently free slaves who had gathered in large numbers around the Union lines around Fort Monroe.  She reportedly held her first classes for "contrabands" on September 17, 1861, under a tree on the grounds that would become officially in 1868 the Hampton Institute. She was thirty-nine years old.  (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
Cassandra L. Newby-Alexander, An African-American History of the Civil War in Hampton Roads (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 210), np.
    Date Certainty
    Exact
    Type
    Personal
    How to Cite This Page: "Mary Smith Peake, teacher of classes for "contrabands," dies of tuberculosis in Hampton, Virginia," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/index.php/node/38882.