Elizabeth Mars Johnson Thomson

Elizabeth Mars Johnson Thomson (November 1807 – 26 April 1864) was an African-American missionary in Liberia, "a major figure in Liberian education and religion."[1]

Early life

Elizabeth Mars was born in Connecticut, the daughter of free black parents who were born in slavery. She attended the African Sunday School in Hartford, Connecticut.[2]

Career
Cape Palmas mission, c. 1840, when Elizabeth Mars Johnson Thomson was teaching there

In 1830 Elizabeth Mars Johnson and her husband volunteered as missionaries for Liberia. They trained at the African Mission School in Hartford;[3] by 1834 they were in Liberia. Elizabeth and her second husband established a Sunday school at Monrovia and Elizabeth taught at the school at Cape Palmas from 1835 until 1845, under the authority of the Episcopal Mission Board.[4] She took a furlough journey back to the United States, and then returned to Liberia, where she continued teaching for many years.[5] Her school at Mount Vaughan in Cape Palmas was burned down in 1856 during an outbreak of violence. She went back to work after the school was rebuilt, until she experienced declining health and left the classroom in 1862.[6]

Personal life

Elizabeth Mars Johnson Thomson was married and widowed twice, and had at least two children who died before she did. She married William Johnson in Connecticut in about 1830; he died soon after their arrival in Liberia, along with their infant son.[7] She remarried to James Madison Thomson, who was born in Demerara (British Guiana) and educated in England; he died in 1838.[8] A daughter died in an epidemic in 1855. Elizabeth Mars Johnson Thomson died in 1864, aged 57 years, in Liberia.[6]

References
  1. Karen Fisher Younger, "Philadelphia's Ladies' Liberia School Association and the Rise and Decline of Northern Female Colonization Support" Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 134(3)(July 2010): 235-261. doi: 10.5215/pennmaghistbio.134.3.235
  2. "Elizabeth Mars Johnson Thomson" in Don S. Armentrout, ed., An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church (Church Publishing Company 2000): 520. ISBN 9780898697018
  3. Hilary J. Moss, Schooling Citizens: The Struggle for African American Education in Antebellum America (University of Chicago Press 2010): 39. ISBN 9780226542515
  4. H. Augustus Roberts, "The Episcopal Church of Liberia in the New Millennium: Challenges and Prospects" Archived 2016-08-11 at the Wayback Machine The Liberian Episcopal Community in the United States (LECUSA).
  5. Rosemary Skinner Keller, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Marie Cantlon, eds., Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America (Indiana University Press 2006): 272. ISBN 9780253346858
  6. Randall J. Burkett, "Elizabeth Mars Johnson Thomson (1807-1864): A Research Note" in Judith Weisenfeld, ed., This Far by Faith: Readings in African-American Women's Religious Biography (Psychology Press 1996): 187. ISBN 9780415913126; originally published in |Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church 55(1)(March 1986): 21-30.
  7. Kevin Ward, A History of Global Anglicanism (Cambridge University Press 2006): 120. ISBN 9780521008662
  8. Elwood D. Dunn, Amos J. Beyan, Carl Patrick Burrowes, eds., Historical Dictionary of Liberia (Scarecrow Press 2000). ISBN 9781461659310
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