File:Mammy Belle Crummel.jpg

Summary

"Mammy Belle" Crummel was a liberated former slave who worked in the home of Dr. and Mrs. Harry Slicer Hedges on 115 E. Potomac Street. As she was still listed as a servant in Eichelberger household in Martinsburg in 1910, she lived with the Hedges family for less than 5 years. Mrs. Hedges was formerly an Eichelberger, whose family operated a newspaper in Martinsburg.

"Mammy Belle's" back story is fascinating, according to this research:

Robert Daniel Jr. (or Daniels) 1784-1866 was a miller in Gerrardstown Virginia (now West Virginia). He owned some slaves. There is a story that he planned to sell his slaves to a trader to be taken to the south, but his wife Elizabeth B. Housworth Daniel (1805-1888) hid them in the attic and they escaped that fate. At some time, Belle came into the household of the Daniel’s daughter, Mary Daniel Eichelberger (1827-1898). She later moved to Brunswick Maryland to the house of Mary’s daughter, Mary Daniel Hedges (1861-1945) who was the wife of Dr. Harry Slicer Hedges (1863-1925), a surgeon for the B&O Railroad in Brunswick.

See the handwritten notation on the photo. Her 1915 obituary read as follows:

Belle Crummel, aged about 75 years, who was a negro slave in the Eichelberger family, Berkeley county, W. Va., and later a servant in the family of Dr. H. S. Hedges, of Brunswick, this valley, died on the afternoon of Jan. 7. She was a familiar character and was better known as “Mammy” and belonged to a class that are fast becoming extinct. Her remains were taken to Martinsburg, W. Va., and buried in the Episcopal cemetery in the lot of her former mistress. Services were held last Friday afternoon at the home of Dr. Hedges and the pallbearers were members of the Hedges family.

(Photo and information courtesy of Betty Hedges)