Margaret Mercer [1791 – 1846 was a significant American abolitionist who labored to end slavery in Maryland.

Although her father and both grandfathers had operated their Virginia and Maryland plantations using enslaved labor, Margaret found slavery immoral. Upon her father’s death, she inherited her father's 72 slaves. She refused to sell them, as this would necessarily disband their families, and so engaged to have them patriated to Liberia under the auspices of the Colonization Society.

Believing that education was critical to the flourishing of freed persons, Mercer started a school and a chapel for “colored” children in Loudoun County. She taught classes five days a week, and also helped teach Sunday school.

On Saturdays, she worked for the Virginia Colonization Society, a part of the American Colonization Society. The society advocated purchasing slaves' freedom and then settling them in Africa, i.e. Liberia.

In 1836, Ludwell Lee, a planter and politician who had served as speaker of the Virginia Senate (1799) and also helped C. F. Mercer organize the Loudoun chapter of the American Colonization Society, died and his heirs placed Belmont, his 1,000-plus-acre plantation for sale. Mercer returned to Virginia, bought it and opened a school there named "Belmont Academy". Her purpose was simple, train Southern wealthy women about the evils of slavery and about farming methods that would flourishing without it. Her students were mostly daughters of southern gentry and paid $250 each year for tuition. She employed seven teachers. In the 1840 census, 56 free white people lived on the property (of which 8 were male and 20 females of between 10 and 15 years old and 15 of between 15 and 20 years old, as well as nine enslaved Black women and girls and two free Black girls, all of whom seem to have participated in the educational process.

Because of the distance to the nearest church, Mercer asked Latrobe to build Belmont Chapel. In 1841, the chapel opened for services and Bible study. Children of slaves and freed slaves participated with the schoolgirls at the chapel openly and freely.

A fascinating memoir of a particularly innovative expression of the abolitionist movement.

Morris, Caspar. Memoir of Miss Margaret Mercer. Second Edition, with Additions. Philadelphia. Lindsay & Blakiston. 1848. 268pp.

A good + copy, bound in cloth, with the binding a bit cocked, and split to the cloth on the front hinge. Text is lightly shaken, with light to moderate foxing.