Mary Briscoe Baldwin
[4][5] Mary Briscoe Baldwin was born at Belle Grove, Frederick County, Virginia, May 20, 1811,[1] in a mansion in the Shenandoah Valley.
For some years, I had felt a great desire to be directly engaged in some Christian work, especially in extending the knowledge of the Gospel among my fellow-creatures, such as is the privilege of clergymen to do, but, being a woman, I could not possibly enter the ministry.
[8] The Protestant Episcopal Society received a letter from Mrs. Hill, of Athens, Greece, stating her pressing need of assistance, and urgently requesting that someone be sent to aid her in the schools she had established.
As Baldwin had some acquaintance with Mrs. Hill, she was interested especially in that work, and after a long consideration of the matter she wrote,—"I rose up with a firm and steady purpose of heart and said, 'I will go.'"
[12] "The changes which ... death has wrought in my family, together with some other reasons, have led me to determine to make Athens my permanent home, so long as the mission can be sustained & I am very much my own mistress."
(Mary Briscoe Baldwin)[13] Arriving in Greece, in mid-summer 1835,[11] she realized with great delight that her life was to be passed in a land full of stirring memories.
The worship of the poorer and unlearned classes consisted mostly in the adoration of pictures, images, and sacred symbols, or in chanting prayers in the olden tongue.
[14] Dr. and Mrs. Hill, American missionaries who had established a school and found the project developing on their hands, sought the assistance of Baldwin, who took charge of the sewing department.
The great benefit thus conferred on impoverished families was such that Baldwin became known among the native population as "Good Lady Mary," and when she appeared on the streets, the people were ready to do her homage.
This school was for the higher class of girls in Athens, and to this project Baldwin, devoted much of her own private fortune until it was a success, so that practically, she became the founder of Christian female education in the country.
As the Cretans returned to their home, Baldwin felt that, having spent 33 years there, her work in Greece was done, and she requested the Missionary Committee to transfer her to Jaffa —the ancient Joppa— as her nephew had been appointed consul.
While visiting one of the churches, she fell, meeting with a serious injury, and from the time of her fall to her death, she was seldom free from pain, day or night.
