Of this self-educative work of Negroes some of the best was accomplished by colored women.  With the assistance of Father Vanlomen, the benevolent priest then in charge of the Holy Trinity Church, Maria Becraft, the most capable colored woman in the District of Columbia at that time, established there the first seminary for the education of colored girls.  She had begun to teach in a less desirable section, but impressed with the unusual beauty and strong character of this girl, Father Vanlomen had her school transferred to a larger building on Fayette Street where she taught until 1831.  She then turned over her seminary to girls she had trained, and became a teacher in a convent at Baltimore as a Sister of Providence.[1] Other good results were obtained by Louisa Parke Costin, a member of one of the oldest colored families in the District of Columbia.  Desiring to diffuse the knowledge she acquired from white teachers in the early mixed schools of the District, she decided to teach.  She opened her school just about the time that Henry Smothers was making his reputation as an educator.  She died in 1831, after years of successful work had crowned her efforts.  Her task was then taken up by her sister, Martha, who had been trained in the Convent Seminary of Baltimore.[2]

[Footnote 1:  Ibid., p. 204.]

[Footnote 2:  Special Report of the U.S.  Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 203.]

Equally helpful was the work of Arabella Jones.  Educated at the St. Frances Academy at Baltimore, she was well grounded in the English branches and fluent in French.  She taught on the “Island,” calling her school “The St. Agnes Academy."[1] Another worker of this class was Mary Wormley, once a student in the Colored Female Seminary of Philadelphia under Sarah Douglass.  This lady began teaching about 1830, getting some assistance from Mr. Calvert, an Englishman.[2] The institution passed later into the hands of Thomas Lee, during the incumbency of whom the school was closed by the “Snow Riot.”  This was an attempt on the part of the white people to get rid of the progressive Negroes of the District of Columbia.  Their excuse for such drastic action was that Benjamin Snow, a colored man running a restaurant in the city, had made unbecoming remarks about the wives of the white mechanics.[3] John F. Cook, one of the most influential educators produced in the District of Columbia, was driven out of the city by this mob.  He then taught at Lancaster, Pa.

[Footnote 1:  Ibid., p. 211.]

[Footnote 2:  Ibid., p. 211.]

[Footnote 3:  Special Report of the U.S.  Com. of Ed., p. 201.]