"[2] Mitzi Smith suggests that Elaw and other Black women of the time such as Old Elizabeth used Pauline biblical texts to develop their own "politics of origins".
[4] After Joseph's death from consumption in 1823, Elaw opened a school for African-American children in Burlington, but increasingly believing she had been called upon as a minister, she departed in 1825 and went on a preaching mission among slaves in Maryland and Virginia.
The 1841 census for England shows Elaw as living in Addingham, Yorkshire, states her occupation as Itinerant Preacher and that she is from foreign parts.
Records show a Zilpha Elaw married a Ralph Bressey Shum at St Mary Stratford Church, Bow, Tower Hamlets, East London, England on 9 December 1850.
The 1861 England census shows a Zilpha Shum as living in Turner Street, Tower Hamlets and her place of birth as America.