Biddy Mason was an American nurse, real estate entrepreneur, and philanthropist. She was a southern slave who became free after she moved with her masters to California. She built a career in Los Angeles as a nurse, bought a piece of property, and used her business skills to become one of the wealthiest black women in the United States after the Civil War, as well as a notable philanthropist.
Background
Ethnicity:
Biddy Mason was of mixed African American and Native American descent.
Biddy Mason was born on August 15, 1818, in Hancock County, Georgia, the United States, though some historians cite her birthplace as Mississippi. She was given the name Bridget without a surname and was later nicknamed Biddy. As a slave child, she was separated from her parents and sold several times, working on plantations in Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina.
Education
Biddy Mason spent much of her childhood working on John Smithson's plantation in South Carolina, where she assisted the house servants and midwives. In 1836 Smithson gave the 18-year-old Mason, two other female house servants, and a blacksmith to his cousins, Robert Marion Smith and Rebecca (Crosby) Smith, as a wedding present.
As a slave, Bridget had no formal education. She did learn about midwifery and herbal medicines from the other slave women and healers and became well-regarded as a midwife. These skills made her a valuable asset to the Smiths on their plantation in Logtown, Mississippi.
Career
Mason took care of Rebecca Smith, who was often ill and helped with the deliveries of the Smiths' six children. She also worked outdoors in the cotton fields and cared for livestock. Around 1844, Smith became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Mormon religion. On March 10, 1848, Smith and a group of Mississippi Mormons left Fulton, Mississippi, for the Salt Lake area in present-day Utah, where Mormon leaders had established a center for their faith. The group consisted of 56 whites and 34 slaves, including Mason and her three daughters, the youngest only an infant.
They followed the Overland Trail through Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and Wyoming. The trip covered over 2,000 miles and took about seven months. Mason, her children, and the other slaves walked behind the wagons and the livestock. The slaves cooked, cleaned, and tended the livestock. Mason was responsible for setting up camp each evening and packing up the next morning. Several children were born to slaves and white women during the trip, and Mason helped deliver them.
When a group of Mormon pioneers left for San Bernardino, California, to establish a new settlement, Smith decided to join them. Mason and the other slaves again walked behind the wagons, most of them not knowing they were walking to potential freedom.
With her three young daughters, the youngest on her back, Biddy walked behind her master’s wagon train for seven months as they moved to the Salt Lake area of Utah, where Mormon leaders had established a settlement. Several children were born to slaves and white women during the trip, and Mason helped deliver them.
When church leader Brigham Young sent a group of Mormons to San Bernardino, California to establish another community, Smith decided to join them. Young counseled Smith again to free Biddy and his other slaves before going to California, but he refused. Biddy and the other slaves again walked behind the wagons, through mountains and deserts to San Bernardino.
Smith probably did not know that California had been admitted into the Union as a free state in 1850, though there was strong sentiment to the contrary. The law specified that any slave brought into the state was automatically free. Charles Owens, who was courting Biddy’s 17-year-old daughter Ellen, and several other free blacks told Biddy how she could gain her freedom.
By 1855 anti-slavery sentiment was growing stronger in California. Smith decided to move his family and his slaves to Texas, a state that allowed slavery. He planned to settle there or sell his slaves and make a profit. Smith's journey was delayed because Hannah was about to give birth to another of Smith's children. The group camped in the Santa Monica Mountains and awaited the child's birth.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth Rowan and Robert Owens, the father of Charles Owens and a successful businessman, persuaded the county sheriff to prevent Smith from taking his slaves out of the state. The sheriffs kept the Smith slaves in the county jail for their protection until their legal status could be determined. Rowan and Owens filed a petition claiming that Smith was holding his slaves illegally in a free state. Smith claimed they were not slaves but members of his family. Los Angeles County District Judge Benjamin Hayes granted the petition and set the Smith slaves free on January 21, 1856.
After spending five years enslaved in California, Mason challenged Smith for her freedom. On January 21, 1856, Los Angeles District Judge Benjamin Hayes approved Mason’s petition. The ruling freed Mason and thirteen members of her extended family. She took the surname Mason from the middle name of Amason Lyman, who was the mayor of San Bernardino and a Mormon Apostle. Mason moved her family to Los Angeles where her daughter married had the son of Robert and Minnie Owens. She continued working as a midwife and nurse, saving her money and using it to purchase land in what is now the heart of downtown Los Angeles.
Biddy earned $2.50 a day, a good wage for an African-American woman at that time. She also often gave her services to those unable to pay. Saving her money and living frugally, she soon became financially independent. After working for ten years, Biddy had saved $250.
On November 28, 1866, she bought two lots bounded by Spring, Fort, Third, and Fourth Streets on the outskirts of the city, becoming one of the first African-American women to own property in Los Angeles. On one parcel of her property, she built a clapboard house, which she occupied until her death.
Mason initially used the land for gardening and built some small wooden houses to rent for additional income. She continued to rent accommodations for the next 18 years. Mason finally moved to her own land in 1884, when she was 66. She sold part of her land for $1,500 and built a commercial building on another part. Mason rented out storerooms on the ground floor and lived with her family on the second floor. Her neighborhood developed quickly, and by the early 1890s, the main financial district of Los Angeles was one block from Mason's property. Due to her shrewd investments, Mason was the wealthiest African-American woman in Los Angeles by the late 1800s.
Achievements
Religion
In 1872 Biddy and her son-in-law Charles Owens founded and financed the First African Methodist Episcopal Church, the city’s first black church, and she donated the land on which the church was built. The church was organized in her living room and she put up the funds to pay the minister and pay the church's property taxes. (The church now has 19,000 members.)
Views
Biddy became known as Grandma Mason - generously donating money to charities (she would occasionally pay the expenses of both Black and white churches), visiting prison inmates with gifts and aid, and giving food and shelter to the poor of all races. Needy people often lined up in front of 331 South Spring Street. One source says she also ran an orphanage in her house. Mason was instrumental in founding a traveler’s aid center and an elementary school for black children. Biddy’s legacy lives on through philanthropic institutions that bear her name.
Quotations:
"If you hold your hand closed, nothing good can come in. The open hand is blessed, for it gives in abundance, even as it receives."
Personality
Mason fluently spoke Spanish. Biddy, like countless other enslaved women, was almost certainly the victim of sexual violence.
Quotes from others about the person
"Biddy Mason and her life is a story of inspiration. For her to overcome the obstacles in her path is almost unbelievable." - Jackie Broxton
Interests
gardening
Connections
Biddy had three daughters, Ellen, Ann, and Harriet, all supposedly fathered by Smith.