Mary Beckett
Mary Beckett came to Linnaean Hill in 1829, when she was about 14 years old. Joshua Peirce had “purchased” her from the Addison family with the condition that she be released from bondage at the age of 28. At 18, Mary Beckett gave birth to her first child, and called him William. His last name was Beckett, but recently discovered evidence reveals that the child’s father was Joshua Peirce. And because his mother was enslaved, so too was William Beckett. Mary Beckett was emancipated on or shortly after her 28th birthday. Her youngest child, Maria, was born free. And Mary Beckett lived long enough to see all her children emancipated. She died in 1885 at the age of 70–twenty years after the end of the Civil War.
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This document describes how William Beckett’s younger brother, James, came to be enslaved. His mother was Mary Becket(t), and he was “born while she was a slave.”
Mary Beckett’s name appears on this 1860 census of “Free Inhabitants in 1st Ward Washington.” Her occupation is identified as “cook.”