Note 12 — The Fugitives of the Pearl

[return]12. The fame of the Edmondson children through the incident of the Pearl was now wide indeed, and after the Brooklyn meeting there had been made many suggestions looking to their education and further benefit. The movement for the education of Emily and Mary was crystallized into a definite proposition and they were both placed in a private school a short distance out of New York. Miss Myrtilla Miner had already established her school for girls at Washington and had moved to a new location at about what is now the square bounded by 19th, 20th, N and O streets. Here, after returning from New York, Emily assisted Miss Miner in the school and it was in one of the little cabins on this place that the Edmondson family established their home after moving in from the country. Miss Miner, speaking of the establishment of her school at its new location, says: "Emily and I lived here alone, unprotected except by God, the rowdies occasionally stoning the house at evening and we nightly retired in the expectation that the house would be fired before morning. Emily and I have been seen practicing shooting with a pistol."--Myrtilla Miner, "A Memoir," Congressional Library; "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin."