March is Women’s History Month

Mary Elizabeth Bowser-Freed Slave, Union Spy, and Abolitionist

Mary Elizabeth Bowser was born Mary Jane Richards on May 17, 1846, near Richmond, Virginia.  She was born a slave to the Van Lew family, Eliza Baker and John Van Lew, of Richmond, Virginia.

Records show that Mary was baptized at St. John’s Church, the white congregation of the Van Lew family, as opposed to the First African Baptist Church in Richmond. This fact proves that Mary was treated differently by other slaves, by the Van Lew family from birth.

When she was of age, Eliza and John’s daughter, Elizabeth, sent Mary north to get an education. In 1885, she sent her to Liberia for missionary work and she did not return to the Van Lew home until 1860 again.

A few days after the battle of Fort Sumter, Mary married Wilson Bowser on April 16, 1861, in the same church she was baptized in.  The Civil War had just begun.

During the war, Mary was instrumental in helping Elizabeth with her spy operation and aided her in helping escaped slaves take refuge in the Van Lew mansion.  Mary, as well as many of the slaves freed by the Van Lew family, completed dangerous missions to get information to General Grant about the movements of the Confederate army. Mary even managed to obtain a position as a servant in the household of Jefferson and Varina Davis. She worked directly for Varina Davis and managed to learn about important strategies and plans of the Confederate government.

Soon after the war, Mary Bowser worked as a teacher to freed slaves in Richmond and, in 1867, founded her own school in Georgia.  She alone taught young children and adults, all former slaves, to read and write.

A letter surviving with the date, June 1867, stated her new name as Mary Garvin and the intention that she would be joining her new husband in the West Indies.

The year of her death is unknown, but a memorial plot was placed in her memory at Woodland Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia. It honors her memory as an agent who helped saved the Union during the Civil War.  The stone reads, “Mary Elizabeth Bowser, Born 1840, Union Military Intelligence Agent, She risked her life and liberty so that all could know freedom.”