Born a 'free' black person in 1813 near Denton, in Caroline County, Maryland, just three miles away from Frederick's birthplace she would have been familiar to Frederick in childhood. 

 

During her adolescence, her family moved to Baltimore for better job prospects, developing a relationship with Frederick when he was employed as a caulker in Mr. Bailey's shipyard. 

 

Anna, being a very capable seamstress, was responsible for producing the seamen’s outfit that Frederick used during his escape in September of 1838. 

 

Soon after they married in New Bedford, New York, and over the next ten years bore him five children, three of whom served in different Black regiments that Frederick helped influence the foundation of during the Civil War. 

 

Anna never learned to read or write but took an active interest in her husband's Abolitionist activities, having people read to her the press accounts of his many and long travels in the USA as well as overseas. 

 

A keen gardener she provided fresh produce for the kitchen in their homes near Lynn, and finally Rochester. 

 

Despite her limited education she ran the household and its finances acutely and was principally responsible for the upbringing of their children. 

 

She assisted all those that came and benefited from the Douglass household being part of the “Underground Railroad” for several decades until Emancipation in 1863. 

 

She was an incredible mother to her offspring, but sadly the youngest child, Annie, died at around eleven years of age in 1860 which was a tragedy that Anna Murray Douglass bore very heavily. 

 

Supporting Frederick to the last she passed away in 1882 of a stroke. 

 

 

Representing Anna within this production

 

In recognition of how important Anna was to Frederick we have managed to have one of the only portraits of her in some key scenes in a frame on a side table, as well giving her a voice (London based actress Sandra Espirito Santo) in another scene.