Maria Louisa Bustill
| Maria Louisa Bustill | |
|---|---|
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|
| Born |
November 8, 1853 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Died | January 20, 1904 (aged 50) Princeton, New Jersey |
| Spouse(s) | William Drew Robeson I |
| Children | Gertrude Lascet Robeson (1880-1880) William Drew Robeson II (1881-1927) Marian M. Robeson (1894-1977) Benjamin Congleton Robeson (1894-1966) John Bunyan Reeve "Reed" Robeson (1886-1930) Paul Robeson (1898-1976) |
| Parent(s) |
Charles Hicks Bustill Emily Robinson |
Maria Louisa Bustill Robeson (November 8, 1853 – January 20, 1904) was a Quaker schoolteacher; the wife of the Reverend William Drew Robeson of Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church in Princeton, New Jersey and the mother of Paul Robeson and his siblings.
Maria Louisa Bustill (sometimes called Louisa as a child) was born in 1853 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, of African, Igbo,Lenni-Lenape Native American, and Anglo-American descent. Her parents were Charles Hicks Bustill and Emily Robinson, prominent black Quakers.
In the 1870s, Louisa attended Lincoln University, a historically black university in Oxford, Pennsylvania. She was already a teacher when she met William Drew Robeson. Both she and her sister Gertrude married men who were Lincoln graduates, but her family thought Louisa had "married down" by choosing Robeson.
Bustill's ancestors had been free since the mid-1700s, when her great-grandfather Cyrus Bustill was freed after several years of service to a new owner in Burlington, New Jersey. He moved into Philadelphia where he built a business as a baker. Cyrus Bustill became one of the founders in Philadelphia of the Free African Society in 1787. Other family had genealogical records going back to the early days of the Pennsylvania colony.
Louisa Bustill met William Drew Robeson I (1845-1918) when he was a student at Lincoln University. She was already teaching at the Robert Vaux School for black children. Robeson had escaped slavery in North Carolina and come north with his brother Ezekiel at age 15, and worked for the Union Army during the American Civil War.
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