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At the age of ten, the Shadd's moved to West Chester, Pennsylvania where Mary attended a Quaker School for the next six years. This experience influence dMary later in life, whereby she returned to this location and opened a school for Black children in 1840.
Mary Ann Shadd was born in Wilmington, Delaware on October 9, 1823. Her father Abraham was a shoemaker. His father, Mary Ann's grandfather, was the son of a free black woman and a German soldier who served under General Braddock in 1755.