MARY SHADD CAREY.
Mary Ann Shadd Carey is a native of Delaware, and has resided for several years in Canada. She is tall and slim, with a fine head, which she carries in a peculiar manner. She has good features, intellectual countenance, bright, sharp eyes, that look right through you. She holds a legitimate place with the strong-minded women of the country.
Mrs. Carey received a far better education than usually fell to the lot of the free colored people of her native State, and which she greatly improved. She early took a lively interest in all measures tending to the elevation of her race, and has, at various times, filled the honorable positions of school teacher, school superintendent, newspaper publisher and editor, lecturer, and travelling agent. As a speaker, she ranks deservedly high; as a debater, she is quick to take advantage of the weak points of her opponent, forcible in her illustrations, biting in her sarcasm, and withering in her rebukes.
Mrs. Carey is resolute and determined, and you might as well attempt to remove a stone wall with your little finger, as to check her in what she conceives to be right and her duty. Although she has mingled much in the society of men, attended many conventions composed almost exclusively of males, and trodden paths where women usually shrink to go, no one ever hinted aught against her reputation, and she stands with a record without blot or blemish. Had she been a man, she would probably have been with John Brown at Harper’s Ferry.
When the government determined to put colored men in the field to aid in suppressing the Rebellion, Mrs. Carey raised recruits at the West, and brought them on to Boston, with as much skill, tact, and order as any of the recruiting officers under the government. Her men were always considered the best lot brought to head-quarters. Indeed, the examining surgeon never failed to speak of Mrs. Carey’s recruits as faultless. This proves the truth of the old adage, that “It takes a woman to pick out a good man.” Few persons have done more real service for the moral, social, and political elevation of the colored race than Mrs. Carey. She is a widow, and still in the full-orbed womanhood of life, working on, feeling, as she says, “It is better to wear out, than to rust out.”