Henrietta Phelps Jeffries was an African American midwife and a founding member of the Macedonia African Methodist Episcopal Church located in Milton, North Carolina.
Background
Henrietta Phelps was born the daughter of a slave, Elija "Phelps", and Charlotte Ann Bennett, a midwife. She grew up in her family home with her parents until her first marriage to George Lawson of Milton, North Carolina, on January 21, 1872, at the age of 15.
Career
Henrietta was the oldest daughter in a family of 7 children. The marriage produced a son, George, Junior. Henrietta was widowed by age 22.
The family resided in Milton, North Carolina.
Henrietta was literate, able to read, and listed the nature of her occupation as "doctress", working on her own account as a "midwife", according to the 1910 United States. Census. She is recorded having birthed "hundreds of children, both black and white" throughout Caswell County, North Carolina.
lieutenant appears that Henrietta learned midwifery from her mother, who was also a midwife. Henrietta Phelps Lawson Jeffries died August 22, 1926.
She is buried at Macedonia African Methodist Episcopal Church on Yarborough Road in Milton, North Carolina.
Henrietta was brought to trial on charges of "practicing medicine without a license" in 1911. The penalty, at the time in United States. history, if convicted, was death by hanging. Jeffries" trial was a historic event for the small town of Milton, North Carolina, as it gained national attention in the press of that time.
The jury was an all-white, all-male bench.
Such a trial dismissal was unprecedented for an American woman of color during the early part of the 20th century. Henrietta Jeffries continued her profession as midwife until her natural death in 1926.
The trial has been recorded in William South. Powell"s book, When the Past Refused to Die: A History of Caswell County, North Carolina, 1777-1977. The trial has also been made into a reenactment film, entitled, "The of Henrietta Jeffries".
The film was produced by Piedmont Community College, Roxboro, North Carolina, in 2002, featuring many of Henrietta Jeffries" descendants as characters in the work.
Views
The judge in the case listened to an unrepresented Henrietta defend herself based on her Christian faith. The judge then dismissed himself from the bench, came down and stood beside Mistress Jeffries, defended her cause, and then as judge, overrode any jury decision, and dismissed the charges.