Talk:Biddy Mason

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Mason's First Name

Every source about Biddy Mason's life made during her lifetime calls her "Biddy," with the exception of a single census record that called her Bridget Owens. The census record does not suggest who provided that name, and it could have been a neighbor. Rather than Bridget, she should be known by the name she used for herself in every known record including legal and tax records. Her own family used the name Biddy for their mother. See Delilah Beasley, The Negro Trail Blazers of California, 88-90, 109-111, https://archive.org/details/negrotrailblazer00beas/page/110/mode/2up. KHearts (talk) 16:06, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Mason's Family Name

The claim has been made that Biddy Mason adopted the family name Mason in homage to Latter-day Saint apostle Amasa Mason Lyman. The claim has no basis in any documentation or fact. The only argument for it is that it has been repeated since the claim was invented in the 1980s or 1990s.

The arguments against it:

1. There is no documentation from her lifetime that this is where Biddy's name came from. Her daughters and grandchildren never made this claim. The claim was invented in the late 20th century as speculation.

2. It would be impossible to show that Biddy knew Lyman's middle name. First, he would have been called "Brother Lyman" or "Elder Lyman" or "President Lyman." Second, even if she knew his first name — which was likely since she probably worked as a hired nurse in his household — his middle name would not have been common knowledge. In most of the records from the time they would have known each other, Lyman used the name "Amasa Lyman" and did not use a middle name or initial. This includes the 1850 federal census, 1852 California census, 1860 federal census, newspaper articles, and most of the letters in the Amasa Lyman Collection at the Church History Library in Salt Lake City. (https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/record/cf556800-11eb-42f6-895b-3fa73839f3bc/cef5bfdc-713d-4be5-8018-efe90e57136a)

3. There is no reason to believe that Biddy Mason felt any affection for Lyman. Lyman allowed the enslaved people in San Bernardino to remain in illegal bondage. In 1855, he wrote a letter to try to sell Green Flake on behalf of Agnes Flake in 1855. (Green had been freed by Brigham Young and was living in Utah and Brigham Young did not agree to sell him.) Given this history, it's unlikely that Biddy Mason felt any lasting affection toward Lyman.

4. There was a Mason household in Hancock County, Georgia, that sold several enslaved people, two of them unnamed, about the time Biddy showed up in Mississippi. It's likely she came from this household and used the name from her biological family, as many enslaved people did.

Although this claim has been repeated in books and articles, it is not accurate. For better-documented history of Biddy Mason than these articles and books that copy myths over from each other, see Thiriot, Slavery in Zion (2023), https://uofupress.lib.utah.edu/slavery-in-zion/. KHearts (talk) 13:18, 17 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The National Park Service has information that differs, although I don't know their sources. The page is here: https://www.nps.gov/people/biddymason.htm

Does anything there suggest edits to her page here? Brian1121 (talk) 15:22, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The National Park Service article is inaccurate in many regards and should not be cited. For one quick example, they use the inaccurate name "Bridget" which Biddy never used for herself. A number of historians have tried to contact them to have them correct it, but they don't appear to have the ability to do that.KHearts (talk) 15:31, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]