Birth and Parentage.—Education.—Religious Convictions.—Prayers in the Tomb.—Union with the Church.—Labors for the Poor.—Marriage. The subject of this narrative was born in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1823. Her maiden name was Mary Smith Kelsey. Her mother was a free colored woman, very light, and her father a white man—an Englishman of rank and culture. She was a very lovely child in person and manners, and as she grew up, developed traits of character which made her a universal favorite. When she was

Commencement of the Mission at Fortress Monroe.—Flight of the Rebels from Hampton.—Burning of the Town.—The Place reoccupied by Freedmen. About the first of September, 1861, the writer commenced the mission at Fortress Monroe, under the auspices of the American Missionary Association, and was quartered in a building called the Seminary . Three months before this, the Union troops entered Hampton from Old Point. The exciting scenes connected with this event have been narrated to me by eye-witness

Opening of Religious Services and Schools.—Mrs. Peake a Teacher.—Singing in the Schools.—Christmas Festival. The religious and educational part of the mission has been one of blessedness and promise. And in this, as in everything else, I have aimed to teach self-development. In connection with the gathering of the people in religious meetings, I proposed to commence Sabbath and week-day schools, with such teachers as I had at hand. Meanwhile, some of the children of the vicinity, getting perhaps

Failing of Health.—Religious Joy.—Farewell Messages.—Death.—Funeral.—Conclusion. After the exciting scenes of the Christmas festival, Mrs. Peake's health sensibly declined, and in a week or two she was obliged to suspend, and soon to give up entirely, the charge to which she had clung with such tenacity. I visited her frequently, and was the bearer of clothing and other tokens from friends at the North. Every thing in our power was done to cheer her, and never were ministerings more cordially be

On the 8th of August, 1861, a letter was addressed to Major-General Butler, then in command at Fortress Monroe, Virginia, by the treasurer of the American Missionary Association, respecting the people whom he had denominated "contrabands." In this letter, the writer communicated to General Butler the wishes of some persons in the free states, that, as considerable embarrassment was felt by the public authorities with regard to the increasing numbers of colored persons who had fled and were fleei

Many highly interesting facts have been communicated with regard to the freedmen—their natural endowments, their facility in acquiring knowledge in letters and arms, their industrial habits, their shrewdness in business transactions, their gratitude, their courage, their acquaintance with passing events, their confidence that the result of the rebellion will be the liberation of their people, and their piety. Some of these facts have been extensively published, and have been read with high grati

A young teacher at Hampton, Virginia, writes as follows: "When I first commenced the school here, I found the children such as slavery makes—quarrelsome, thievish, uncleanly in their persons and attire, and seemingly inclined to almost every species of wickedness; and it appeared to me that they were too far gone to be ever raised to any thing like intelligent children at the North. But I found that I had reckoned without my host in the persons of these children. "At the end of the first week th

After the mission had been established, one of the officers' wives remarked to another, "I do not miss my things nowadays." Nearly all the church members had taken the temperance pledge. "They have their vices," writes a northern physician on one of the plantations on Port Royal Island; "deception and petty thieving prevail. They are careless, indolent, and improvident. They have a miserable habit of scolding and using authoritative language to one another. All these vices are clearly the result

A very large portion, probably, at least, more than half of the "married" freed people, had been married only in slave fashion, by "taking up together," or living together by mutual agreement, without any marriage ceremony. The missionary proposed to such that they should be married agreeably to the usages in the free states. The leaders of the colored people were conversed with, and they, without exception, agreed as to the propriety of the measure. One, now advanced in life, said, that when he

Not a few of the freedmen, though illiterate, exhibit remarkable powers of eloquence. The missionary, in describing the address of one of them, after a discourse by the former, says, "The address was a masterpiece. It melted every heart. He appealed to the soldiers present who were in rebellion against God, striving to put down rebellion in this land, and asked them how they, who had been taught to read the Bible, and had learned the Lord's Prayer in infancy from a mother's lips, could stand in

The missionary wrote: "Last Thursday I had an opportunity to observe the intellectual state of a considerable number of the brethren at a church meeting. I was surprised at their understanding and wisdom in regard to church order and propriety, and tone of discipline. As the church records had been burned up in the church edifice at Hampton, I inquired how far any of them could recall their contents. One or two replied that they could almost repeat the church regulations from memory. "In the dis