Mary Louvestre

She delivered details of plans for the conversion of the wrecked USS Merrimack to an ironclad that would be named the CSS Virginia and which represented a great advance in Confederate naval capabilities.

On 24 September 1834, Mary went before Norfolk City’s Hustings and Corporation Court to register as a free mulatto adult for the first time.

In April 1839, she purchased a 10-year-old enslaved mulatto boy, Mark Rene DeMortie (De Mortie), from the estate of Dr. Robert B. Stark.

[4] Mary met and later married Michael Louveste on 1 June 1844 at Saint Patrick’s Catholic Church in Norfolk, VA.

Susan made it to adulthood and married Robert Francis, who was a mulatto and a butcher, on 7 October 1869 at her parents' house on Nivison Street in Norfolk, Virginia.

Mary probably continued to operate the boarding houses when her husband started working at Gosport Shipyard in the early 1850s.

[9] In 1868, Mary wrote a letter to A. H. Kilty, Commodore at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, where she explained how she did everything for "'Our Navy' and rescue its 'heroic defenders'".

[12][13] Another account exists based on the work by novelist G. Allen Foster published in Ebony magazine in 1964[14] and on a history by Benjamin Quarles written in 1953,[15] aspects of which have been repeated in many other sources, including a 1998 publication by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

When the farm faced two tough years in a row, they were forced to sell Mary, who was bought by her owner's cousin, Simeon[14] or John[16] Louvestre, in Norfolk.

Early in the mornings for the next week, Mary snuck in to the engineers’ office and used her seamstress skills to trace the drawings of the ironclad.

1812-1883) at Sargeant Memorial Collection, Norfolk Public Library's Historical Wiki for South Hampton Roads, Virginia