Early Life
Elizabeth Van Lew was born on October 25, 1818, in Richmond, Virginia to John Van Lew and Eliza Baker, whose father was Hilary Baker, mayor of Philadelphia from 1796 to 1798. Elizabeth's father came to Richmond in 1806 at the age of 16 and, within twenty years, had built up a prosperous hardware business and owned several slaves.
Elizabeth was educated at a Quaker school in Philadelphia, where her family's abolitionist sentiments were reinforced. Upon the death of her father in 1843, Elizabeth's brother John Newton Van Lew took over the business and the family freed their nine slaves, even though John had been somewhat opposed to the idea. Those slaves included the young future Union spy Mary Bowser. In the depths of the 1837-44 depression, Elizabeth used her entire cash inheritance of $10,000 (nearly $200,000 in current money) to purchase and free some of their former slaves' relatives. For years thereafter, Elizabeth's brother was a regular visitor to Richmond's slave market, where, when a family was about to be split up, he would purchase them all, bring them home, and issue their papers of manumission.
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