“After returning home in 1864, I completed my high school education in New Orleans in 1870, graduated from Fisk University 1874, taught French there until 1883, married Prof.  Payman, teacher of history and English.  Since then I have lived in Washington, New York, and Louisianna.  For further information, write me c/o Y.W.C.A. (col.), Baltimore, to be forwarded”.

Maryland
Dec. 16, 1937
Rogers

Thomas Foote’s story, A free Negro. 
Reference:  Personal interview with Thomas Foote,
           at his home, Cockeysville, Md.

“My mother’s name was Eliza Foote and my father’s name was Thomas Foote.  Father and mother of a large family that was reared on a small farm about a mile east of Cockeysville, a village situated on the Northern Central Railroad 15 miles north of Baltimore City.

“My mother’s maiden name was Myers, a daughter of a free man of Baltimore County.  In her younger days she was employed by Dr. Ensor, a homeopathic medical doctor of Cockeysville who was a noted doctor in his day.  Mrs. Ensor, a very refined and cultured woman, taught her to read and write.  My mother’s duty along with her other work was to assist Dr. Ensor in the making of some of his medicine.  In gaining practical experience and knowledge of different herbs and roots that Dr. Ensor used in the compounding of his medicine, used them for commercial purposes for herself among the slaves and free colored people of Baltimore County, especially of the Merrymans, Ridgelys, Roberts, Cockeys and Mayfields.  Her fame reached as far south as Baltimore City and north of Baltimore as far as the Pennsylvania line and the surrounding territory.  She was styled and called the doctor woman both by the slaves and the free people.  She was suspected by the white people but confided in by the colored people both for their ills and their troubles.

“My mother prescribed for her people and compounded medicine out of the same leaves, herbs and roots that Dr. Ensor did.  Naturally her success along these lines was good.  She also delivered many babies and acted as a midwife for the poor whites and the slaves and free Negroes of which there were a number in Baltimore County.

“The colored people have always been religiously inclined, believed in the power of prayer and whenever she attended anyone she always preceeded with a prayer.  Mother told me and I have heard her tell others hundreds of times, that one time a slave of old man Cockey was seen coming from her home early in the morning.  He had been there for treatment of an ailment which Dr. Ensor had failed to cure.  After being treated by my mother for a time, he got well.  When this slave was searched, he had in his possession a small bag in which a stone of a peculiar shape and several roots were found.  He said that mother had given it to him, and it had the power over all with whom it came in contact.