Mary Heuston 182?-1913

Mary Heuston was born Clara Battease in the 1820s and lived in South Carolina (Beaufort), where she was enslaved by the Turner family. The Turners were relations of the Tupper family of the Kennebec River Valley (Maine) region. Mary was brought to Bath, Maine in 1850 to take care of the children while the Turner family was visiting their local relatives.

That summer, Mary Heuston self-emancipated with the help of the local free African American community. At that same time the federal Fugitive Slave Law was passed, prohibiting those in Northern states from protecting freedom seekers like Mary. She lived, first as a fugitive, then free, in the Bath-Brunswick area, where she married Francis Heuston. She later lived in Portland, Maine and died in 1913.

This article below, based on an interview with her, was originally published in 1912.

2. Mary Heuston appears as “Clara Burston” on line 13 of the 1850 federal census recorded in Bath, Maine. Click here to see the whole record.

4. Map of Sagadahoc County The Francis Heuston homestead is indicated with "F. Huston". It's in East Brunswick just below the word "Toll House" at the bridge across Androscoggin River / Merrymeeting Bay to Topsham.

3. Mary Heuston appears as “Mary Scott” on line 11 of this census record, taken just a few weeks and a few miles away after she had self-emancipated. Click here to see the whole record.

5. “Mr. Francis Heuston” [obituary]. Brunswick Telegraph, June 11, 1858, pg. 2, 6th col. It references his wife Mary, and the circumstances under which she came to Maine from South Carolina.