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Biddy Mason (August 15, 1818 – January 15, 1891) was an African-American nurse and a Californian real estate entrepreneur and philanthropist. She was one of the founders of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles, California. Enslaved upon birth, she developed a variety of skills and developed knowledge of medicine, child care, and livestock care. A California court granted freedom to her and her three daughters in 1856.
Biddy had three children: Ellen, born in about 1838; Ann, born in about 1844; and Harriet, born in about 1847. The fathers of her children are unknown, but some authors have speculated that Robert M. Smith likely fathered at least one of her children. An enslaved woman named Hannah Smiley (later Embers) worked with Biddy on the Smith farm. Robert and Rebecca Smith had purchased her from the estate of Rebecca's father. Hannah also had three children when the family left for the West.
The Smith household joined a group of other church members from Mississippi as part of the Mormon exodus in 1848. The group departed from Winter Quarters, Nebraska on July 3, 1848 and arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, Utah Territory on October 10, 1848. During the journey west, Biddy herded livestock, prepared meals, and midwifed while caring for her own children. Thirty-four enslaved people went with their owners to the Utah Territory. The enslaved people built log cabins, cleared fields, and planted in the town of Cottonwood in the Salt Lake Valley.
Church leader Brigham Young sent a group of Mormons to Southern California in 1851. Young instructed the group that California was a free state, and their slaves would be free when they arrived in California. Robert Smith, the people he enslaved, and his family settled in San Bernardino, California. Biddy was among a number of enslaved people in the San Bernardino settlement. As part of the Compromise of 1850, California was admitted as a free state. Nevertheless, some migrants from the South, including Robert Smith, continued to bring enslaved people into the state. California's courts routinely ruled against the freedom claims of enslaved African Americans in support of slave owners. Biddy was under the control of Robert Smith and ignorant of the laws and her rights.
Like every enslaved person, Biddy had no legal last name when she was enslaved. After she became free, she used the last name Biddy Mason. Authors occasionally speculate that she took the name in homage to Apostle Amasa Mason Lyman, but the name "Mason" was more likely her original family name from Hancock County, Georgia.
In 1872, along with her son-in-law Charles Owens and other Black residents of Los Angeles, Mason was a founding member of First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles, the city's first Black church. The organizing meetings were held in her home on Spring Street. She donated the land on which the church was built. She also helped to establish the first elementary school for black children in Los Angeles.
Mason spoke fluent Spanish language and was a well-known figure in the city. She dined on occasion at the home of Pio Pico, the last governor of Alta California and a wealthy Los Angeles land owner.
After Mason's death on January 15, 1891, she was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in the neighborhood of Boyle Heights. On March 27, 1988, in a ceremony attended by the mayor of Los Angeles and members of the church she founded, her burial place was marked with a gravestone.
Mason is an honoree in the California Social Work Hall of Distinction. She was also celebrated on Biddy Mason Day on November 16, 1989. A ceremony at the Broadway Spring Center unveiled a memorial to highlight her achievements. Biddy Mason Park is near the site of Mason's home. It is a downtown Los Angeles city park and the site of an art installation describing her life. Artist Sheila Levrant de Bretteville designed an installation called Biddy Mason's Place: A Passage of Time. It is an concrete wall embedded with objects that tell the story of Mason's life.
Mason is featured in a mural by Bernard Zakheim originally installed in Toland Hall Auditorium at the University of California, San Francisco during the 1930s. The painting along with others in the series, was removed from the building before it was demolished as part of a campus upgrade.
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