Margaret Mercer on Loudoun County 1854 wall map (Virginia)

We were working on the 1854 map of Loudoun County, Virginia and noticed something very unusual: One of the five images included on the map was of a memorial monument to a woman. Who was Miss Mercer and why was this monument on the map?

1850s County wall maps showed all roads and homeowner names, and often had pictures decorating the margins. There are 5 pictures on this map, three of which are "public" properties - a Leesburg street view, a courthouse and old  house of former President Monroe. The other two relate to Margaret Mercer.

 

Margaret Mercer was an active  abolitionist and advocate for women's education. Her father was John Francis Mercer, governor of Maryland. He gave her a rigorous education equal to her brothers', and a solid Christian upbringing. After his death in 1821 Miss Mercer came to believe that the keeping of people as slaves did not square with her profound Christian faith. She freed the slaves she had inherited from her father.  

  

In 1836 she bought the estate known as Belmont, near Leesburg, Virginia, and there established a girls' boarding school, Belmont Academy. That building is also on the 1854 wall map.

The map labels the owner as George Kephart (misspelled "Hephart") who bought the place from Margaret's heirs in 1851.  Kephart's wealth derived from his business as a slave trader, an odd twist in this tale of an active abolitionist and this wall map.


Belmont was (and is) located just south of the Leesburg Pike, the major road between Leesburg and Alexandria Virginia (Washington DC).

Today it is the Belmont Country Club. The locale is Ashburn. 

The monument to Margaret stands about 1/2 mile east of "Belmont" , on the grounds of St. David's Church. Margaret Mercer began St. David's when she built Belmont Chapel here in the 1841. After her death in 1846, her Belmont Academy pupils erected the monument.

The incription reads: 

Sacred
 to the memory of
Margaret Mercer
Born July 1st 1791
Died Sept. 17th 1846
Her remains repose beneath
the channel of this
chapel built by her own
self denying labors
This Monument
is erected by her pupils
as a testimony of their
admiration of her elevated
Christian character, and
of their gratitude for her
invaluable instructions.

Historical Marker set in 2028.

This photo, courtesy of St. David's Church, shows the old chapel and the monument as it stood in the early 1900s.  The chapel burned in the 1960s. St David's has preserved the foundation stones as a sanctuary.  (Below)

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But we still have the unanswered question of why are these two Margaret Mercer pictures on the map.  The Belmont house picture may have been paid for by George Kephart.  County map-makers of the time would augment their income by charging a fee for a house picture added to a map. The caption does not mention that Margaret was the owner a few years earlier.

The Mercer monument is an atypical feature of a county wall map, notably because it records a woman, and in this case an abolitionist who lived in an area where slavery was widely accepted.  One clue as to why the monument appears is that the map maker, Yardley Taylor, was a Quaker and a vocal abolitionist who lived nearby and must have known Margaret, who shared his anti-slavery beliefs. Taylor was fined by a county court in 1828 for helping a slave escape to Pennsylvania. 

Yardley Taylor 's house still exists.  Today it is known as Evergreen Farm. (below)

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And the publisher / printer, Robert P. Smith of Philadelphia, was also a Quaker. Quakers as a group were fervently anti-slavery..
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More research might yield a better explanation, but for now we could surmise that the map's author broadcasted his respect for a former abolitionist to bolster his opinions at a time of great ferment in the United States.One wonders how well the map sold amongst the landed gentry of Virginia with Margaret Mercer so honored..

Here's the monument as it is on the Yardley's 1854 map.

Dave Allen     June 2025
West Chesterfield, NH 
old-maps.com
 

 More:
Wikipedia on Margaret 

Boston Rare Maps nice 1854 map resrearch

Ghosts of Belmont   a 2020 online article - very nice

Evergreen Farm - Yardley Taylor house 2025

Evergreen Publishing 2025  - in Yardley Taylor house