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FANNY JACKSON-COPPIN, A Priceless Gift to Humanity

© Maisah B. Robinson, Ph.D.

Fanny Jackson was born a slave in Washington, D.C. on October 15, 1837. Fanny had fond memories of her maternal grandmother whom she called "Mammy." Her grandmother smoked a pipe. Unfortunately, Jackson was in the care of Mammy when she received one of two severe burns as a child. The coal from Mammy's pipe burned her chest on one occasion and on another, she received a burn on the side of her leg from being placed too close to a stove. Jackson also suffered from severe fevers and chills, "Sometimes I would be taken with a shaking ague on the street, and would have to sit down upon a doorstep until I would stop shaking enough to go on my way."

When she was about 12, Fanny's freedom was purchased by her aunt, Sarah Orr Clark. Sarah Orr was a housekeeper and earned six dollars a month. She saved $125 to buy her neice Fanny. In 1851, when Fanny was 14, she and another aunt, Elizabeth Orr, moved to Newport, Rhode Island. In order not to be a burden on her aunt, Fanny lived with, and worked for, George H. Calvert, the great grandson of Lord Baltimore, the settler of the state of Maryland. Mr. Calvert was married to Mary Stuart, who was a descendant of Mary, Queen of Scotland. The Calverts did not have any children of their own. They loved Fanny like a daughter and cared for her health. While living with the Calverts, Fanny recovered from having the chills and fevers that she had her during her childhood. The Calverts enrolled Fanny in the Rhode Island Normal School. Attending school sparked Fanny's desire for an education. She took private lessons in French and was the organist for the Colored Union Church of Newport. Of her life with the Calverts, Jackson recalled:

"My life there was most happy, and I never would have left her, but it was in me to get an education and to teach my people. This idea was deep in my soul. Where it came from I cannot tell...It must have been born in me."

Fanny completed a two-year course at the Rhode Island Normal School. In1860 she entered Oberlin College in Ohio. Oberlin was the first college in the United States to accept blacks and female students. To help pay for her education, Fanny gave piano lessons to children of Oberlin's faculty members. She also received money from her aunt Sarah Orr Clark and other black leaders.

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