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"Yarrow Mamout"
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From Slave Ship to Harvard:Yarrow Mamout and the History of an African American Family
A true story of six generations of an African American family in Maryland. Based on paintings, photographs, books, diaries, court records, legal documents, and oral histories, the book traces Yarrow Mamout and his in-laws, the Turners, from the colonial period through the Civil War to Harvard and finally the present day.
eBook
Untold. Yarrow Mamout : from slavery to financier
African Muslim Yarrow Mamout rose from a life of slavery to become a popular businessman in Washington, D.C. Artist Charles Willson Peale painted his portrait and discovered his incredible story.
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From Slave Ship to Harvard
From Slave Ship to Harvard is the true story of an African American family in Maryland over six generations. The author has reconstructed a unique narrative of black struggle and achievement from paintings, photographs, books, diaries, court records, legal documents, and oral histories. From Slave Ship to Harvard traces the family from the colonial period and the American Revolution through the Civil War to Harvard and finally today. Yarrow Mamout, the first of the family in America, was an educated Muslim from Guinea. He was brought to Maryland on the slave ship Elijah and gained his freedom forty-four years later. By then, Yarrow had become so well known in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C., that he attracted the attention of the eminent American portrait painter Charles Willson Peale, who captured Yarrow's visage in the painting that appears on the cover of this book. The author here reveals that Yarrow's immediate relatives-his sister, niece, wife, and son-were notable in their own right. His son married into the neighboring Turner family, and the farm community in western Maryland called Yarrowsburg was named for Yarrow Mamout's daughter-in-law, Mary \"Polly\" Turner Yarrow. The Turner line ultimately produced Robert Turner Ford, who graduated from Harvard University in 1927. Just as Peale painted the portrait of Yarrow, James H. Johnston's new book puts a face on slavery and paints the history of race in Maryland. It is a different picture from what most of us imagine. Relationships between blacks and whites were far more complex, and the races more dependent on each other. Fortunately, as this one family's experience shows, individuals of both races repeatedly stepped forward to lessen divisions and to move America toward the diverse society of today.
eBook
D.C. yard may hide a historic figure
According to old land deeds, Mamout purchased the lot in the early 1800s.
Newspaper Article
From Slave Ship to Harvard
James H. Johnston, a D.C. lawyer and freelance writer, spent eight years investigating Mamout's story for his 2012 book\"From Slave Ship to Harvard: Yarrow Mamout and the History of an African American Family.\" According to Johnston, Mamout was sold Into slavery as a teenager in Senegal in 1752.
Magazine Article
The Man in the Knit Cap
The real Yarrow might not be quite the man you see in the Peale painting, at least not if you compare it with [James Alexander Simpson]'s portrait. Simpson taught art at Georgetown College and earned money by doing portraits. He painted Yarrow in 1822, just three years after [Charles Willson Peale] did, but Yarrow looks much older and far less prosperous. The Simpson painting was called \"an admirable likeness\" by the Rev. Thomas Bloomer Balch in an 1859 lecture. Balch's opinion deserves weight. He grew up in Georgetown and succeeded his father as minister of the Presbyterian church two blocks from Yarrow's house. Whatever Yarrow told Peale, he wasn't 134 years old in 1819. He was in his eighties. This more plausible age comes from two sources. First, after Yarrow's owner died, the 1796 inventory of his estate listed Yarrow's age as 60. Second, when [David Warden] visited Georgetown in 1811 for his book, he was told that Yarrow was older than 80. This may not have been the only instance of Yarrow pulling Peale's leg. He told Peale that he didn't drink whiskey, but Gen. [John Mason] had told Warden that Yarrow fired a gun on Christmas morning as a signal for his \"dram,\" by which Warden presumably meant alcohol. According to Peale's diary, [Margaret Beall] told him that Yarrow came from Guinea when he was about 14 years old and was purchased by the Beall family from a Capt. Dow. She said her husband planned to build a new house in Georgetown and asked Yarrow to make the bricks for it. He told Yarrow that he would free him when the house was finished. Yarrow made the bricks, but [Thomas Brooke Beall] died before the house was completed. So, Margaret Beall freed Yarrow.
Newspaper Article
From Slave Ship to Harvard: Yarrow Mamout and the History of an African American Family
An educated Muslim, Mamout, the first of the family in America, was brought to Maryland on the slave ship and gained his freedom forty-four years later. Yarrow's immediate relatives - his sister, niece, wife, and son - were notable in their own right. His son married into the neighboring Turner family, and the western Maryland farm community, Yarrowsburg was named for Yarrow Mamout's daughter-in-law, Mary \"Polly\" Turner Yarrow.
Book Review