Mary Black

Mary may have been one of the children who left Sherwood with the seamstress who was likely Eliza Black. Mary received aid from the Freedmen’s Bureau in Fort Monroe alongside Eliza, Ellen, Joseph, and Thadious Black in 1865. [1] This record does not indicate her age, but she was probably born in the 1850s based on Julia Gardiner Tyler’s description of the children who escaped Sherwood Forest in May 1862: “the eldest a boy of fourteen, the youngest a child in the arms.” [2] Mary is not included on the 1870 census under Eliza Black’s household.

[1] The Freedmen's Bureau in Virginia, Names of the Destitute Freedmen Dependent Upon the Government in the Military Districts of Virginia, edited by Elizabeth Cann Kambourian, Heritage Books, Bowie, MD, 1997.

[2] Julia Gardiner Tyler to Commanding Officer, U.S. Forces at Jamestown and Williamsburg, 30 May 1862, Transcripts of Tyler Family Papers, Sherwood Forest Plantation Foundation, Charles City County, Virginia.