THE subject of this memoir, though born a slave, was of illustrious parentage, inasmuch as her father and mother were virtuous and patriotic, this combination having always been esteemed the foundation of noble character. Her father, Perry Blake, was a marine in the United States navy, and Commodore Porter himself informed my father that Perry Blake fought bravely under his command. He was a powerfully built man, and no doubt he rendered willing and efficient service to his country in the War of 1812-15 against Great Britain. Perry Blake was married to Charlotte, a slave belonging to my father. Charlotte was as patriotic as her free husband, and took long walks to bear provisions to the young men of her master's household who were under arms during the attack of the British on the city of Baltimore. Her unremitting and cheerful service during this anxious time in comforting the soldiers with home news and dainties won the gratitude of her master, Mr. Jesse Levering, and he manumitted Charlotte, thus making her equal to her husband. But it was strange that she looked back to her old home with infinite longing and desired to return to her bonds. This could not be granted her, and, failing in that petition, she begged that none of her children should be set free. That was agreed upon, and during my parents' lifetime the children of these free parents remained slaves. Perry and Charlotte Blake had several children. Margaret Jane was born in 1811, in my father's house on Lombard street, in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, and throve with the children of the family until the measles broke out among the young folks, and several of them were left in a weak condition after the scourge had passed through the household. Margaret was one of the weaklings, and was indulged over-much, perhaps, and became somewhat self-willed, but only to an amusing degree. One day she was seated on the front steps, getting the fresh air, when a woman belonging to the neighborhood addressed her with numerous questions about the family and as to the treatment she received from her mistress. I presume the strange voice among the childish group drew my mother to the window over their heads in time to witness the interview. Margy listened patiently and politely to all the lady had to say, then lifting one hand to an ear she replied: “Woman, all you have said goes in at this ear, and goes out at the other one.” After such a rebuke the gossiper did not waste further time at that portal. Many a hearty laugh has been enjoyed at the child's answer to her mischievous interrogator. Time passed on. Margaret grew to be a large girl, and I was born in 1825, and when the baby was big enough it fell largely to Margaret's charge. Well do I remember one delightful race I enjoyed in Margy's arms, though only four years old at the time. It was in 1828, on the 4th of July. The corner-stone of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was to be laid—the pioneer railroad of the country! Being a great enterprise, it was duly celebrated with distinguished guests to participate in the ceremonies. The venerable Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, aged ninety-one years, was to lay the cornerstone with a silver trowel. A grand procession, with flags flying and floats displaying various trades, all richly adorned, and the whole animated by martial music, went up Baltimore street. The servant girls from our neighborhood went with the host of sightseers, taking along with them the children under their care, I among them. When our vantage ground was gained, corner of Eutaw street, Margy lifted me up in her arms to behold what has never faded from my memory—the magnificent civic demonstration in honor of the first railroad that was built on the Western Continent. The printing-press float pleased me best of all, with its attendant imps dressed as mercuries, who scattered sheets that were being printed as the procession moved along. The last division passed, the blare of the trumpets grew faint from a distance. Then the girls turned down Eutaw street, full of fun, and singing a popular song of the day, “The Blue Bonnets are over the Border,” “Hurrah for the Bonnets of Blue,” raced to the top of their speed back home. It was a ride full of peril as well as fun, but Margy was sure-footed and she landed me on terra firma unharmed. She loved children, and all children that ever were placed under her care loved her. Our family grew larger and we moved into a larger house, Margy going along with us. Charlotte was off with her husband, and Margy was installed as housemaid. One day she was occupied near the front door in some sort of cleaning, when a little boy drew her attention. He was trying to reach the bell-knob, but, failing in his efforts, Margy hastened to his assistance. Alas! for her kind heart caused her to move too quickly from her elevated position. She fell and was badly injured. The injury sustained by her on this occasion caused an internal tumor from which she suffered great pain at intervals during the rest of her life.

Another servant had been added to the household by purchase. My father attended a sale of household goods and chattels; a sickly-looking girl, emaciated to a painful degree to sensitive perceptions, moved his compassion, and Ann Dutton was sent home to my mother's fostering care.

Ann's first act on reaching her new home was to attack the slop barrel, from which she extracted food to comfort her famished system.

Margy and Ann never became very warm friends, although associated in the same family for so many years. According to the rules of the peculiar institution, the bought slave was always looked down upon by those “to the manner born.” And Margy was a dark woman, Ann of mixed blood; the mixture she claimed to have was Indian; the unmixed nature held herself purer than the mongrel. Ann was a woman of fashion, as far as she possibly could go; Margy was plain in her tastes and always clean and neat in her attire. Thus there were three good and sufficient reasons, according to them, for their frequent disagreements.

Both were good servants, well-mannered, industrious, truthful, faithful in the discharge of every duty in their sphere. Neither pampered the whims of the children within the range of their influence, but were quick to reprove whatever fault they deemed it proper to correct, and the children knew it was right for them to yield respectful attention without giving back any impertinence when reproved. My mother of blessed memory taught her children to request service of her slaves, never to command or exact service from them. “If they are slaves,” she would say, “they are God's creatures, and you must treat them politely.”

Ann took the name of Duncan, in honor of the Rev. John M. Duncan, a popular minister of Baltimore in the days of which I write, and it being allowable for slaves to assume any name they preferred she was known from thence always by that name while she lived with us. Both of these young women had offers of marriage, but neither of them chose to marry, because their children would be held in bondage, and they were unwilling to breed slaves for any master. If all the bondwomen had been of the same mind, how soon the institution would have vanished from the earth, and all the misery belonging to it been lifted from the hearts of the holders and the slaves! Glorious in the estimation of all true patriots is the memory of Abraham Lincoln for having signed the Emancipation Act. Our country was forced, while colonies of Great Britain, to take the slaves brought to our shores in Dutch ships by the mother country. I have yet to learn that any of the unhappy creatures were landed on British soil proper. Very many of them tilled the soil and picked the cotton and gathered the coffee berries on the West India islands under British rule, and terribly they suffered on the island of Jamaica, notably not many years ago by a general massacre, reminding the reader of history of the massacre of the Helots in Greece while Greece was still a heathen country. But Great Britain had the grace to investigate and condemn the massacre in Jamaica, while no voice ever was raised in censure of the flow of blood that stained the soil of classic Greece that I ever read of. There the master had the life and death of his slave under absolute control. Slavery, as we knew it here, was a mitigated evil, really more harmful to the masters and their families than to the slaves, and now that it is banished from our soil, even the heaviest owners are prepared to say it is a good riddance.

After a few years, death and reverse of fortune caused changes in our family which were displeasing to Margaret, and she was allowed to choose a home for herself, and the wages paid for her services went to pay for her clothes and her physician's bills. She had much suffering from the tumor and often was obliged to return to her old home for rest and to be nursed back to ordinary health. The first place where she hired was in the family of Mr. J. B., and her record there was one of obedience and faithfulness. She claimed some indulgence and it was granted her, for they knew she had been allowed many privileges. The second place where she hired was in the family of Mr. H. G. Here, too, she claimed her privileges, and they were granted her, for she was liked and the family desired to retain her. During this time with Mrs. G., Blake was much annoyed by the abolitionists. She complained very much of them. They tormented her. She would say: “I want my freedom, but I do not want to steal it.” Mrs. G. went one summer to the North to visit her husband's relatives and gained the consent of Margaret and her mistress that she could attend her as lady's maid. Mother consented to the trip being taken, hoping the change of scene and climate might benefit Margaret's health, knowing that the moment she set foot on that soil she was free, and if she pleased to do so she might stay there. But Margaret was of a different mind. Upon the arrival of the party in the city of New York lodgings were taken in a hotel, and the Irish waiters belonging to the establishment immediately bothered the lady's maid with attentions, inviting her to walk out with them to view the city. Icily she repelled them. “No,” she replied, “I will not walk out with you in the streets of New York. I shall not do in New York what I would be ashamed to do in Baltimore. Colored women are disgraced in Baltimore if they are seen in the company of white men on the streets.” “Are you free?” asked the waiters. “I am as free as you are,” she rejoined; “I come and go as I please.” Thus the free slave rebuffed her white suitors. She was afraid of them.

When night came on she begged Mrs. G. to have a bed laid on her bedroom floor, that she might be safe from the impudent Irish waiters. She was afraid they might steal her off and sell her to Georgia. That arrangement was made to Blake's satisfaction. She was safe from the much-dreaded Irish waiters. The party she was traveling with proceeded on their way and soon reached one of the New England States to spend the summer among relatives who were permanent residents there.

The pleasant visit ended, and Mrs. G. prepared to turn Southward. And Margaret? How was it with her? She, too, was ready to return to Baltimore. The free slave? Yes; the free slave returned to face her mistress and her young ladies, not ashamed to show her face to her people!

Ann Dutton, or Duncan, as she preferred to be called, was of a different mind. One day she informed her mistress that she was desirous of attending a funeral to take place that afternoon. Permission was given her to attend the funeral, and she was much helped in her work that she might be there in proper time. When she was ready to leave the house it was noticed that she wore a wadded merino cloak, a long cloak with a large cape to it. Her mistress said to her: “Ann, why do you wear that heavy cloak this warm afternoon ?” “Oh!” she replied, “the evenings are cool, and I shall need it before I get back.”

So she departed. Night fell, and Ann still out! The family became anxious about her and feared she might be ill-treated by rough crowds on the streets. It was the night of the day of General William H. Harrison's election to the Presidency, and much excitement prevailed. Wait! wait! and no Ann Duncan in sight yet! At last it occurred to one of the family, in consideration of the strange freak of the donning of her heavy cloak, to go to her room and examine her bureau. Her room was looked over and not a garment was to be seen that belonged to her. All gone! We never saw her more. It was a cleverly-managed escape.

The election day was chosen by a large party of fugitives to make for Canada.

Margaret often told us of Ann's movements. She married up there, and, after many years, desired to return to her former owners, but we were not willing to receive her. She had to abide by her choice. To Ann's credit it must be said she took nothing away with her but what belonged to her. She had a good supply of clothes for the approaching winter, and a sheet from her bed (one was missed) must have been used to tie her garments in and then dropped from her window to the yard below to be carried off for her to the place of departure.

Not long after this occurrence we left Baltimore and went to Ellicotts Mills, ten miles from the city. Blake did not wish to leave Baltimore and was allowed to remain there. From that time she went and came as suited her, and never was with us but as an invalid to be nursed or as a visitor to be entertained. It was concluded after we moved to Harford county, Md., to allow Blake to buy herself. The family with whom she hired named the price, and she was granted her wages to pay for herself. The price agreed upon was not large, and before Blake was old she had her free papers. It was a happy day for me when I accompanied my dear nurse to Bel-air to obtain her free papers. Three of us went with her, and a joyous party it was—glad in her happiness.

After the slaveholders' rebellion she showed me her free papers; she was spending the summer with us in Harford county, Md., while her employers were in Europe, and had brought her papers with her.

“Oh!” she said, “there was not a drop of blood shed for my freedom.” It gave her the utmost satisfaction to consider that she was free before that war. She inquired if it was necessary for her to keep the free papers. I told her it was not necessary, but she had better keep them; it might be pleasant to look at her papers.

The last change Blake made in service was to enter the family of Mr. Walter B. B. She remained in that family many years, helping Mrs. B. to rear her children from their infancy. Among them she was called Mammy Blake, and is never spoken of except as Mammy Blake.

Baby Eleanor grew to womanhood, was wooed and won to wifehood, and, loving old Mammy Blake, and devotedly loved by her in return, she attended her young lady up to the pulpit railing where the gallant groom waited for his promised bride, in Brown Memorial Church. To see the gayly turbaned negress bearing the wraps of the dainty bride was a rare sight as she entered the church, dispensing odors from the orange blossoms that adorned her spotless bridal robes, as leaning on her father's arm he led her up the aisle to bestow her upon Mr. McC., of Chicago, Mammy Blake bringing up the rear of the bridal procession. It was the crowning indulgence of the life of the affectionate servant.

After Mrs. McC. was established in Chicago Mammy Blake was taken out there to help her to raise the infants her home was blessed with.

While Blake was still living with Mrs. Walter B. B., her little son Walter was present when a little girl from the North was visiting them, and was kissed by Mammy Blake. The little girl was terrified, and immediately wiped off the kiss, saying she did not want to be made black, like her. The little Walter resented the indignity done to his dear old mammy, and threw his arms around her neck, kissing her fondly, exclaiming: “My old mammy will never make anybody black.”

In the winter of 1879 Mrs. McC. came on from Chicago to Baltimore with her infant daughter, Mary G. McC., and her nurse, Mammy Blake, to spend the Christmas holidays with her mother's family.

In a letter to me Mrs. McC. says: “I brought her from Chicago for the Christmas holidays, and she took cold soon after we reached Baltimore, which developed into erysipelas, and I was obliged to return to Chicago without her, with the understanding that she would follow as soon as she was well enough. She grew worse, and because mother was very ill at the time and worried very much over her, father and the doctor thought it best for her to go to the hospital (Baltimore Infirmary), where she died March 10 1880. She was buried in Laurel Cemetery, and I have just now ordered a stone with her name on it and the date of her birth, if you know it. Mother wants on it, ‘Faithful unto Death.’ ”

No word more fitting to be placed on her tombstone. Fidelity was the keynote of her life. She served her earthly masters well, and when her heart was turned by the grace of God to the Lord Jesus Christ she held her faith to the end, in childlike simplicity, growing more and more like her Divine Master until the close of her life, and to all who were acquainted with her there is an assurance given that she has realized the promise of, “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.”