Early Life of Lewis Latimer: Son of Escaped African Slaves Becomes Electric Lighting Innovator

Photo: Lewis Howard Latimer

Lewis Howard Latimer's story begins before he was born, but I guess that may be said about all of our stories. The years leading up to Lewis' birth were particularly interesting because his parents George and Rebecca Latimer made a firm decision to escape Virginia's slavery. According to Dr. Winifred Latimer Norman, Lewis' granddaughter, the family's papers recount the determination of his mother Rebecca to "not be the mother of a slave."

Lewis Latimer's Parents Escape Slavery

In 1842, Rebecca Latimer devised a very peculiar plan to escape slavery. She and her husband George would escape slavery by his passing as White and acting as his more hued wife's master. They did leave Norfolk, Virginia accompanied as master and servant. They headed for Baltimore and continued to Boston, Massachusetts. This is the family history Lewis Latimer was born into on September 4, 1848, the youngest of four children, in Chelsea, Massachusetts. 

When the Latimer's arrived in Boston, George was immediately recognized. He was imprisoned as a fugitive slave. Rebecca had escaped capture. George's owner refused to give up his efforts to have him returned to Norfolk, Virginia as his personal property. Fortunately, the Latimers arrived in a Boston that had a strong slavery abolition movement brewing. Bostonians did not like the fact that their tax dollars were being used to enforce the fugitive slave law. George Latimer's case became a slavery abolitionist cause.

William Lloyd Garrison publicized the case in his abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator. It included a letter from Frederick Douglass regarding the community's efforts to secure George Latimer's freedom. After a month's stay in jail, Black abolitionist purchased his freedom from his owner for $400.00. Rebecca remained a fugitive, coming in and out of family life as she could. According to the family records, Rebecca worked at jobs that allowed her protection from detection in spaces were the fugitive slave law was still enforced.  Eventually, George Latimer's high profile case garnered the signature of 65,000 Massachusetts citizens that led to the passage of a state law that "all judges, justices of the peace, and officers of the commonwealth, are forbidden, under heavy penalties, to aid or act in any manner in the arrest, detention, or delivery of any person claimed as a fugitive slave."

Lewis Latimer Contributions to Electric Lighting

In light of his family's history, it is no surprise that the young Lewis would want to participate in the U.S. Civil War. In 1864, at the age 16 years, Lewis lied about his age and enlisted in the Union Navy. He would serve aboard the USS Massasoit and saw military action on the James River in Virginia near the plantations where his parents had been enslaved.

Lewis Latimer Returns to Boston

After the U.S. Civil War ended, Lewis returned to Boston. He secured a job as an office assistant in the patent law firm of Crosby and Gould. Here, he became fascinated with the mechanical drawings the draftsmen prepared for the U.S. Patent Office. Lewis taught himself mechanical drawing. Soon, he was hired at the firm as a patent draftsman. He stayed with the patent firm for twelve years and became its chief draftsman. He believed, as many during that time, that patenting inventions was the way to wealth.

In Boston, Lewis also met Alexander Graham Bell. According to his journal, he made the drawings for Bell's first patent application for the telephone. In 1879, Lewis left Boston with Mary, his new bride, and moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut -- a kind of silicon valley of technology innovation at its time. In 1881, Lewis' patent for the "Incandescent Electric Light Bulb with Carbon Filament" was sold to the United States Electric Company. In 1882, Lewis patented a process for efficiently manufacturing the carbon filament, as well as developed the now famous threaded socket for his improved bulb. In 1890, Lewis wrote the first book on electric lighting, "Incandescent Electric Lighting". He went on to innovate and was a major contributor to the international installation of public electric lights. Lewis contributed to public lightings in Philadelphia, New York, Montreal, and London.

Mary Elizabeth Bowser: A Union Military Spy in the Southern Confederate White House

Mary Elizabeth Bowser

The story of Mary Elizabeth Bowser is one of intrigue and espionage during the U.S. Civil War. She is among a number of Black women who served as spies for the Union. The most well-known Union spy is Harriet Tubman, who worked in South Carolina and Florida.

Like much about Mary, her exact birth and date of death are shrouded in mystery. Many commentaries report that she was likely born in 1839 as Mary Elizabeth Richards into slavery on the plantation of John and Elizabeth Van Lew near Richmond, Virginia. John Van Lew was a wealthy hardware merchant. In 1851, when John Van Lew died, his widow Elizabeth freed Mary and all of the other enslaved Africans on the Van Lew plantation. A staunch abolitionist and Quaker, Elizabeth also purchased many of her former slave's family members owned by others. She would also free them in an effort to bring the families back together.

Recognizing Mary's keen intelligence, Elizabeth sent her north to attend the Quaker School for Negroes in Philadelphia. After Mary graduated she returned to Richmond and married Wilson Bowser, a free Black man on April 16, 1861. This was only a few days before the U.S. Civil War began. The couple settled near Richmond and Mary maintained a close relationship with Elizabeth.

A southern lady, Elizabeth had earned quite a reputation for her sympathies. Dubbed "Crazy Bet", she encouraged this personae to cover the very serious espionage work for the Union when the Civil War began. She organized an intricate spy operation in support of the Union by using her resources and connections in the Confederate capital. It is said that her mansion was outfitted with many secret doors that led to secret rooms that became a safe haven for African fugitives who also supplied Elizabeth with information that she transcribed into cipher codes sent to Union officers, which included General Ulysses S. Grant.

Elizabeth's operation became so sophisticated that she planned to send a spy to the white house of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy. Mary Elizabeth Bowser, an able actress like Elizabeth herself, would become "Ellen Bond", a dull-witted, but able servant for the White House of the Confederacy. 

Once settled in Davis's home, Mary played her role well. She pretended to be slow-thinking. No one suspected that she could read, for this would have been illegal within the Confederate states. Mary read warfare dispatches as she cleaned the house. She listened keenly to the conversations of the Confederate men as she served them meals. These military communications would be relayed back to the Van Lew mansion. Elizabeth coded information, which was placed inside of false eggs or printed on dress patterns -- to be passed to her network of Union agents.

Jefferson Davis eventually began to suspect that there was a leak. The Union was learning entirely too much, as the most secret communications of the cabinet were divulged. In the last days of the war, suspicion fell on Mary and she fled from the Davis's house in January 1865. Her last act for the Union was an attempt to burn down the Confederate White House, but this was unsuccessful.

Even after the war, Elizabeth never revealed Mary's espionage work. We know about this information today from others, such as Thomas McNiven, another Union spy in Richmond who was a baker. The Thomas McNiven Papers report that Mary "was working right in the Davis home and had a photographic mind. Everything she saw on the Rebel president's desk, she could repeat word for word. Unlike most colored, she could read and write. She made a point of always coming out to my wagon when I made deliveries at the Davis' home to drop information."

After the Civil War ended, the U.S. federal government destroyed its records related to Southern spies during Reconstruction to protect their lives. There was, however, a journal known to have been written by Bowser herself. It is said to have chronicled her wartime work, but the journal was lost by the Bowser family around 1952. There is no record of Bowser's life after the war. There is no exact date known regarding her death. In 1995, the U.S. government honored the service of Mary Elizabeth Bowser by inducting her in the Military Intelligence Corp Hall of Fame.