Service bell owned by Eliza Kearns Jackson

According to her family, the owner of this bell was Eliza Kearns Jackson (abt. 1801-unknown), an enslaved woman who bartered her freedom for herself and her unborn daughter, Mary Ann Jackson Cooke (1826-1926). Family lore has it that the bell had been used by the mistress of the house to summon Ms. Kearns. When Ms. Kearns gained her freedom in 1826, she felt that the mistress "would no longer be in need of the bell” and “took it as a talisman of freedom and a souvenir of time spent in slavery.'” Her daughter was born on September 15, 1826 in Washington, D.C. where Kearns Jackson lived with her husband Pompey Jackson and her family.