Biography

At the end of the nineteenth century in rural eastern Kentucky, Mary Draughn was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Although racial restrictions within her new faith had not yet been formally codified as doctrine, Black people could not receive full access to temple rituals or priesthood ordination at the time of her baptism. It is not clear what Mary understood about these teachings but despite such obstacles, Mary, as a fifty-four-year-old Black woman, chose to convert.[1]

There are no known records of Mary before she appears in the 1880 census. She was most likely born into slavery in western Virginia or eastern Kentucky. Her baptismal record indicates that she did not know the name of her mother or her father or her birthdate, all significant indications that she was born enslaved and that the horrors of slavery tore her family apart. The 1900 census suggests that she was born in December 1844, so she would have most likely been enslaved for the first twenty years of her life.[2]

In 1880, Mary lived in the household of John and Valeria Draughn and worked as a domestic servant.[3] As a single woman, her work allowed her to provide for her needs, and, like many Black women after the Civil War, she survived by working as a “domestic.” White Southerners attempted to maintain a pseudo-slavery system by hiring the people they previously enslaved at extremely low wages. Newly freed African Americans resisted and used their liberty to negotiate better wages, improve their working conditions, and leave the families that had enslaved them. Like others in domestic servitude, Mary would have performed tasks such as cleaning, cooking, laundry, and caring for the children. However, the freedom that Mary and other domestics enjoyed was limited by the prejudice they experienced in the Jim Crow South and the labor exploitation that accompanied racism.[4]

Mary may have gone by a different name before working for John and Valeria. No records indicate that the Draughns enslaved her, and it is possible that Mary adopted their last name as a free woman working in their home. It is also possible that a familial connection may have existed between Mary and the Draughns, although no evidence currently substantiates that possibility. In 1894, John died.[5] The resulting changes that must have occurred in the Draughns’ household dynamics likely contributed to Mary’s departure. By 1899, Mary had moved a few miles away to Knott County, Kentucky, and was no longer working for the Draughns.[6]

Continuing her work as a servant, Mary lived in the household of George and Sarah Johnson. The Johnsons owned farmland in eastern Kentucky.[7] Before the Civil War, George had enslaved several Black workers; the 1850 and 1860 censuses each indicate four unnamed enslaved persons who worked under George’s oversight.[8] In 1850, the slave schedule listed a nine-year-old girl among George’s enslaved people, and in 1860, the schedule included a seventeen-year-old young woman. The approximate birth years – 1841 and 1843, respectively – are close enough to Mary’s birth year of 1844 to make it possible that Mary was the woman who George and Sarah Johnson enslaved. If that is the case, the Johnsons probably enslaved Mary until the Civil War. Though she did not have the means to move far from the site of her former enslavement, it is possible that Mary was asserting her agency in choosing to leave the Johnsons and work for the Draughns following the Civil War. This could have been a way of finding independence after a life of enslavement. Then, when John Draughn died, Mary would have needed a place to live and work. Returning to the Johnson’s home was a reliable option for her. If the Johnsons had enslaved her, she would have been familiar with their habits and attitudes. Mary may have found it safer to work for people who were known to her than deal with the risks of unknown employers.

The 1900 census shows that George and Sarah employed both Mary Draughn and a younger servant, Mary Christian.[9] The Johnsons were in their mid-eighties in 1900 and likely would have required assistance with maintaining their farm and home. As the only hired hands, both Mary Draughn and Mary Christian may have participated in grueling agricultural labor on the Johnson farm as well as tended to domestic duties.

Though the 1900 agricultural census is not available, the 1880 census gives details about the Johnsons’ land. George owned 60 acres of improved land, and his farm was worth about $2200.[10] Mary Draughn and Mary Christian would have had to maintain some level of farm production while also accomplishing household tasks, even if the Johnsons hired day labor to perform the bulk of the farm work. The census does not provide information on how much the Johnsons paid Mary Draughn and Mary Christian, but they were likely under compensated for the work they performed. The 1880 agricultural schedule states that George Johnson paid white hired farm laborers $50 for twelve weeks of work - a little over $4 a week.[11] Mary made much less than that as a Black woman; the average wage for Southern domestic workers at the time was $2.50 per month.[12] Mary’s work allowed her to provide for her own basic needs but did not give her much more than that.

There are no surviving sources that indicate how Mary first met Latter-day Saint missionaries or what attracted her to their message. It is probable that Mary was first exposed to the Church in 1897. That year, her former employer Valeria Draughn, as well as the daughter and granddaughter of her current employers, were all baptized.[13] Undoubtedly, Mary was aware of the LDS Church for a couple years before her own decision to be baptized.

What is known is that Willard White Pitkin from Millville, in Cache County, Utah, baptized both Mary Draughn and her employer Sarah Johnson into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on 2 July 1899.[14] Mary was fifty-four years old at the time and Sarah Johnson was eighty-three.[15] Perhaps Mary felt drawn to the Church for its message of peace and joy through Jesus Christ. She had undoubtedly endured hardships in enslavement and servitude; gospel teachings could have provided a sense of relief. It is also possible that Mary joined the Church to appease her employer, Sarah Johnson. Because domestic servants were living and working in their homes, employers often felt that they were responsible for the morality of their servants.[16] Even still, George Johnson did not convert, only Sarah and Mary. Perhaps the two women developed a bond that was strengthened through a shared faith. It is likely that Mary and Sarah attended meetings together held by LDS missionaries, perhaps in the Johnson home, where they learned about the Church and decided to receive baptism at the same time.

In the nineteenth century, the LDS Church experienced substantial prejudice in the South, primarily because of its doctrine concerning plural marriage as well as theological disagreements about the nature of God, prophetic authority, and the publication of the Book of Mormon.[17] With the end of the practice of plural marriage in the 1890s, persecution towards Latter-Day Saints in the South began to decline. In 1900, the LDS Church had 1,700 members in Kentucky. Of those, only three were Black. George and Susan Jett in neighboring Breathitt County had converted just one year before Mary. Their daughters and George’s second wife would follow in 1909. There is no evidence that Mary was acquainted with the Jett family, but it is possible that they met at a regional church function sometime after their conversions.[18] By this time, the trend of gathering in the West had begun to decline among Latter-day Saints. Increasingly, members of the Church would stay where they were after baptism and contribute to local branches, something true for Mary Draughn and the Jett family.[19]

A single line in a Latter-day Saint membership record offers all we know about Mary after 1900. The document indicates that she moved to Campbell County, Virginia, but does not specify when she made that move. Mary does not appear under that name in other Latter-day Saint records in Virginia and does not show up on census or other vital records either. It is possible that Mary changed her name again. It is unknown exactly why she left Kentucky. However, George Johnson died in June of 1900, and Sarah died just a few months later, in January, 1901.[20] Again, a disruption in the family for whom she worked no doubt prompted Mary to seek means of employment elsewhere.

As a woman born into enslavement and later emancipated, Mary acted on the freedom she had gained. Although low wages likely prevented her from escaping the sphere of rural labor, Mary used her autonomy to choose with whom she worked. She also decided to be baptized into the LDS Church. Mary might have sought relief from the moral expectations of her employers, or perhaps Mary’s baptism and faith provided personal respite from her hardships. Whatever the circumstances, she became a Black Latter-day Saint in rural Kentucky at the turn of the twentieth century and charted a new path for herself in doing so.

By Abby Hilbig

[1] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Kentucky State, Part 1, Segment 1, CR 375 8, image 347 and Part 1, Segment 2, CR 375 8, image 108, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. For the development of racial priesthood and temple restrictions over time see W. Paul Reeve, Let’s Talk About Race and Priesthood (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2023).

[2] United States, 1900 Census, Kentucky, Knott County, Carr; United States, 1880 Census, Kentucky, Letcher County, McPherson.

[3] United States, 1880 Census, Kentucky, Letcher County, McPherson.

[4] Vanessa May, "Domestic Workers in U.S. History," Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History, last modified September 26, 2019.

[5] Kentucky, Jefferson County, Cabinet for Human Resources, Birth and Death Records, Film 7,007,128, Louisville, Books 7-8, died 9 August 1894, Walter Draughn, Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, Frankfort, Kentucky.

[6] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Kentucky State, Part 1, Segment 1, CR 375 8, image 347 and Part 1, Segment 2, CR 375 8, image 108, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[7] United States, 1900 Census, Kentucky, Knott County, Carr.

[8] United States, 1850 Census, Slave Schedules, Kentucky, Letcher County, District 1, Entry for Washington Johnson; United States, 1860 Census, Slave Schedules, Kentucky, Letcher County, District 1, entry for Washington Johnson.

[9] United States, 1900 Census, Kentucky, Knott County, Carr.

[10] United States, 1880 Census, Agricultural Schedules, Kentucky, Letcher County, Voting Precinct 10, entry for George W. Johnson.

[11] United States, 1880 Census, Agricultural Schedules, Kentucky, Letcher County, Voting Precinct 10, entry for George W. Johnson.

[12] May, "Domestic Workers in U.S. History."

[13] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Kentucky State, Part 1, Segment 1, CR 375 8, image 347 and Part 1, Segment 2, CR 375 8, image 108, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[14] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Kentucky State, Part 1, Segment 1, CR 375 8, image 347 and Part 1, Segment 2, CR 375 8, image 108, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[15] United States, 1900 Census, Kentucky, Knott County, Carr; United States, 1880 Census, Kentucky, Letcher County, McPherson; Sarah Sally Francis Johnson, Findagrave.com.

[16] May, "Domestic Workers in U.S. History."

[17] Patrick Q. Mason, The Mormon Menace: Violence and Anti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010); J. Spencer Fluhman, A Peculiar People: Anti-Mormonism and the Making of Religion in Nineteenth-Century America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012).

[18] Serena Juhasz, “George Jett,” Century of Black Mormons; Serena Juhasz, “Susan Jackson Jett Strong Satterwhite,” Century of Black Mormons.

[19] “United States information: Kentucky,” Deseret News (Salt Lake City, Utah), 2 February 2010; Ronald D. Dennis, "Gathering," in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, edited by Daniel H. Ludlow, 536–37 (New York: Macmillan, 1992), Digitized by Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.

[20] Sarah Sally Francis Johnson, Findagrave.com.

Documents

Click the index tab in the viewer above to view all primary source documents available for this person.