 All right, I'm gonna jump in because I'm gonna make my announcements very short so we can get on with the presentation. And there will be time for Q&A and this event is on our YouTube channel and will be preserved and archived for later viewing. Thank you for that. This is part of our more than a month events and this is part of our Black History Celebration, which at SFPL we've run from January to February and are committed to hosting Black History, Black Information and Black Events all year round, but a super highlight during the months of January and February. So we appreciate you being here tonight. We wanna welcome you to the unceded land of the Ohlone Tribal people and acknowledge the many Romutish Ohlone Tribal groups and families as the rifle stewards of the lands on which we live here in the Bay Area. Again, we are committed to upholding the names of these lands and communities and the community members from these nations with whom we live together. We encourage you to learn more about first-person culture and land rights and are committed to hosting and providing educational resources on these topics. We also wanna let you know that SFPL is not a neutral institution and we stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and are committed to ending our own, we're committed to ending our own structural, systemic and institutional racism within the library and our community and our greater world altogether. The library does have a racial equity committee who has been working really hard on putting together our current racial equity commitment statement. And I'm going to, I have put in the chat box a link to tonight's document and event which has library info as well as these things that we've just spoken on, lots of reading lists and upcoming events. And as our speaker talks, we'll also be taking notes and you'll be able to get anything that comes up to tonight's event. Our library to go locations are opening more and more. We just brought on Bayview and heard some news that maybe new branches will be coming on for library to go. Please remember to wear your masks at all locations and protect my library family out there working in the streets and all of our families working in their community. Please mask up. Oops, sorry about that. What did I do? Whoops, okay, there we go. We are celebrating our 16th One City One Book. Can you all still see my screen? I did something weird. And we are celebrating Chanel Miller for her book, Know My Name. And this is the story of her sexual assault on the Stanford campus and the subsequent court trial and her experience with the judicial system. So very powerful book. We encourage you all to read it and we are gonna have lots of events surrounding the topic of this book and this will be running for March through April, which incorporates Women's History Month and Sexual Violence Awareness Month. So many great events. Please, please check it out and come on by. And I'm gonna breeze through these guerrilla girls. You should come to that. So excited. We're giving shout outs to Borderland Books and Marcus Books, their nation's oldest Black-owned independent book store. Please support local. Don't buy from that guy. You know who. Shop local. We love our bookstores. Again, this is part of more than a month and we are almost done with our more than a month. We have one amazing, well, I'm talking for adults. There's probably still youth, but on Thursday night, we have Rodney Ewing who used images from our archive and creates amazing work. He is our artist spotlight for this campaign. So please come check that out. Amazing artist. Amazing. And same day just before that at five o'clock, we have author Jason Reynolds who will be talking about the transformative power of reading and writing. And without further ado, just a couple other things, please use your, the Q and A function. There will be time for questions and answers at the end of the presentation. Use that Q and A function. I will take YouTube questions back to the Zoom room and this will be available on YouTube for future viewing. So again, we appreciate Evelyn Rose allowing us to archive her amazing work. So tonight's event, Miss Abby Fisher, former slave, cookbook author and culinary entrepreneur, what we now know. And this is going to be presented tonight by Evelyn Rose, FarmD, founder and director of the Glen Park Neighborhood History Project. And Evelyn, I'm going to turn it over to you now. You may share your screen. Thank you so much. And let's get that going. Let's see, I'll try that one. Hopefully this one will do it. Can you see my screen? We see your screen. Awesome. So that's always the most awkward part of the program. So I'm happy that everyone has been able to attend tonight. And thank you very much for that introduction. This talk is about Mrs. Abby Fisher, freedwoman of color, cookbook author and culinary entrepreneur, what we now know. And let's see, is this going to move? So looks like nothing's happening. So I'm going to unshare, pardon. And give that another try. This should work. Looks like I'm not able to do, there we go. All right, so let's see if we can get this moving. There we go. And so I came across Mrs. Fisher for the first time about a year and a half ago. I was actually researching Mary Ellen Pleasant, who I'm sure many of you know is considered the mother of California civil rights. And I came across this particular book by Tricia Martino Wagner about African-American women of the Old West. And within that book is a chapter on Mrs. Abby Fisher, who wrote a cookbook, Mrs. Fisher, What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking. So I made a note that Wagner had said Mrs. Fisher lived in Noe Valley and Glen Park, of which work as a historian here in the district, is just over the hill from Noe Valley. So I made a point to go ahead and follow up on Mrs. Fisher. And I'm very excited to be able to present to you tonight some of this information, some of it new. But we'll start off with the publishing company that published Mrs. Fisher's book in 1881. It was the women's cooperative publishing office had been established in 1868. And even 75 years before Rosie the Riveter, and let's do it, here they're proclaiming women's type and women run presses. They did a whole range of publications and were in business for quite a while until they were acquired by the Hicks Judd Company, which many of you know in San Francisco were publishers of the San Francisco block books. Now, when they published Mrs. Fisher's book in 1881, they used a calvocade of colors for the book cover. These are all books that have been an auction at one time or another. And you see the very detailed and exquisite lettering on the front of the book. From what I can tell, there seems to have been only one edition published. And the book had basically been forgotten for a century until a culinary historian named Karen Hess from New York noted the book being included in an auction at Sotheby's in 1984. And now there have been several copies found and they're held at archives throughout the country. Now, a little bit about Karen Hess and apparently she went by the name Karen. She's considered the matriarch of culinary history and she was really the first to academically perform academically rigorous study of not only recipes but the cooking techniques. And she really challenged the quality of American cuisine and the icons cooking it at that time, which included the likes of James Beard and Julie Child. And she really began the conversation about American food ways and its origins and it started how we began to rethink of how we appreciate and think about food. And she's among the first to recognize the influence of enslaved African Americans on American cooking, particularly Southern cooking. Now, Mrs. Fisher in her book states on the title page that she had received a diploma at the Sacramento State Fair in 1879 in addition to two medals at the San Francisco Mechanics Institute in 1880, one for best pickles and sauces and one for the best assortment of jellies and preserves. Her book is available online. I think you'll see that coming through on the chat momentarily. And she also shares that her preface and an apology which is kind of unusual to include that because she's apologizing for inability to read or write in states that also her husband was without the advantages of an education. And she notes that she was late of Mobile, Alabama. So she had moved from Mobile to San Francisco. And her doubts centered around whether she could present a work that would give perfect satisfaction because she couldn't read or write, but she thought about it and she had several lady friends and patrons who encouraged her. Those are listed here at the bottom of her preface. And she said based on her upwards of 35 years in the art of cooking, she is presenting a complete instructor so that a child can understand it and learn the art of cooking. Her book includes 160 recipes over a range of different types of preparation. Terrapin, if you don't know is turtle, but I think everything else is pretty self-explanatory. Even an infant diet, which she noted was from a Southern plantation and which she says, and it's the very last recipe in her book that she had given birth to 11 children and raised them all and nursing them with this particular diet. Now after the Sotheby's auction, over the next decade, Karen has had an opportunity to really dive into the book and study it. And when she republished Mrs. Fisher's book in 1995 with her historic notes, she claimed at the time it was the first cookbook by an African-American. There had been domestic servant, how-to books published prior to that with a couple of recipes, but this was the first pure cookbook identified. Now since then, a few years later, another cookbook by a free woman of color from Tennessee by the name of Melinda Russell was discovered only a single copy. And even though that one is older, Mrs. Fisher's book is really the one that garnishes the most interest. Now, Karen had taken a look at census records, noted that Mrs. Fisher was from South Carolina and not originally from Alabama. And she noted that plantation was used in three recipes in her book and also including the infant diet. And based on Hesse's scrutiny of her technique, it was clear to her that Mrs. Fisher had learned to cook on a plantation and not an urban kitchen, but she makes a note that by 1881, she had truly mastered the art of cooking on the range and then surmise that perhaps she came west as a cook on a wagon train that it wasn't inconceivable. So with the research tonight, I hope to provide more context around some of these early theories of Mrs. Fisher's origins and some new information that I've been able to come across. Now, there've been a lot of culinary historians who have described Mrs. Fisher's work. I am not a culinary historian. I'm more of a cultural historian doing neighborhood work in San Francisco history. And that's the approach I took for this presentation, but I do wanna point out that current Hesse noted that Mrs. Fisher's roots were reflected in her rice dishes from South Carolina. You may know that rice is indigenous to Africa and it's best grown in the United States in the South Carolina low country, right along the Atlantic coast. Now, she pointed out one particular recipe called jumbrily, but she thinks that because of Mrs. Fisher's dialect, it was transcribed the way it sounded. It's really more like a jambalaya. She, Mrs. Hesse found the jumbrily to be exceptionally dry compared to the soupy Creole recipes of New Orleans. And also that the seasonings were more sedate and restrained, lacking cayenne. She said this is more indicative of South Carolina roots. And also the dish is more like a pilaf or a purleau as it's called in South Carolina and not like what you might find in New Orleans. So her understanding then of the African memory of cooking traditions being brought from Africa to the United States can certainly be traced to the slave trade. Here we see the middle passage, so-called because when ships left Europe and came to Africa, they delivered goods and then picked up human cargo, stored them in the cargo hold in actually absolutely hoard conditions, transported them across the Atlantic, delivered them to North America and then picked up more merchandise and goods to take back to Europe. So that triangulation, the middle passage is the passage through which enslaved Africans were brought to the Americas. There were about 12 million African-Americans captured and put on ships to be transported to the New World and about 11 million of them survived the journey. So a million were lost during the journey. And you can just see the numbers here, the volume from the different areas primarily from the coast of West Africa. And then just pointing out Charleston and Mobile here which will be highlights of our talk tonight. So some additional clues. After Ms. Hess did her research about a decade later, 15 years later, Robert Grower who is a culinary historian in the East Bay here in the San Francisco Bay Area did some additional genealogical research to try to find where, what plantation in South Carolina she may have come from. And the documents he used were her death certificate that he was able to acquire. She died in 1915 and the informant on the death certificate, we don't know who that was noted that her father's name was James Andrews who was born in France and her mother's name Abby Clifton who was born in South Carolina. He also looked at her husband's death certificate. He died in 1922 and Friedman records, Alexander Cotchett Fisher born in Alabama. And he notes he had married Abby Clifton. His father was unnamed, had was deceased at the time of the Friedman bank records it's 1867 and noted his mother was also Andrews, M. Andrews. And but then you see on the death certificate the mother is noted to be a Matilda Cotchett and the father Alexander Fisher. Now, whoever the informant was in 1922 whatever they had been told however many years before of course some of those memories are lost over time particularly if they aren't reinforced. So this happens a lot when you do genealogical research things are similar but not necessarily exactly the same from document to document. So Mr. Brower was actually able to locate James Andrews in Orangeburg, South Carolina. And he was a planter up through the 1850s. He was growing rice. He was very wealthy. He owned 66 slaves. He had an overseer on the site with 2000 acres and he was one of the founders of Orangeburg. So in Mr. Brower's research, he made the determination that this was likely the Andrews after excluding several others that Abby may have come from. I was able to come across Mr. Andrews will and there is no mention of Clifton's or Abby's in his will. You can see some of the names in Amanita and several enslaved persons below that were left to a friend and his sons. So that might imply that by the time Mr. Andrews had passed away in 1863 Abby and her mother had already left the plantation. In fact, we're already in Mobile. The Clifton name I tried to take a look at there's Clifton's pretty much all over South Carolina. The one in Orangeburg that I came across had no enslaved persons. But you can see from Columbia, north of Orangeburg and Charleston along the coast, the Beaufort district outside of Charleston. There are several others, some rather prominent but nothing matched yet. So we'll need to do some additional research to try to find if there's a connection with any of the Clifton's. Now, a lot of people assume that much like we observed in the last few years of families being separated, children being separated from families that had always happened in the slave trade. That's not necessarily true. While husbands and wives may have been separated, I think there were many times as well that the children or at least most of the children remained with the mother. And in these really dramatic paintings from the 1860s by two different artists, we see here slaves on the left waiting for sale. Some have children with them. We see here slaves again waiting for sale with children and what appears to be a mulatto woman being auctioned. And just to note that both Abby and Alexander, her husband were mulatto. And here we see evidence of perhaps a mother and her children with other people after being sold, being transported to their new plantation. And so this could be what may have happened with Abby and her family. Now, the day to day life of a slave on a plantation must have been horrific conditions, working from the time it's light to the time it's dark and then getting home, having to do their own chores, only having Sundays off to rest. And so here from Harper's Weekly Magazine in 1867, we see some scenes from a rice plantation in Savannah, which is immediately south of Charleston and also in Alabama, cotton, also, of course, cotton was considered, quote, king throughout the South. And again, various scenes from Harper's Weekly, also in 1867. And the plantation owner lived a pretty good life for the time. We don't know Mr. Andrew's plantation name or, and there's no photographic evidence that we've come across. But here we see the Connor Station Plantation, which was in Orangeburg. And we see the Connor family, the son standing with a horse. There's a blacksmith sitting over here. There's a person standing on the porch. It's really hard to tell what exactly other than it's probably a woman. And here we see what are probably the house slaves included in the picture on most plantations considered at a higher tier, I guess you could call it, than the field slaves. They were allowed to be in this photograph, but certainly not as far upfront as the horse and the rest of the family were. So still very much in the background to minimize their importance. Here we see Beaufort, South Carolina. These are enslaved persons living on a plantation there. And you can see the conditions are much more dreary than what we saw in the earlier plantation image. Now the kitchens for plantations were typically kept in a separate building for a few reasons. One, the giant hearth here that you see here, the fire was always going. And it being the South, high humidity, high temperatures, the last thing you want is a hot fire running all day long in the house. So that was one of the reasons. Another might be odors that would emanate from cooking, particularly for cooking fish. It might kind of get through all the house and be unpleasant for the plantation owner's family. The fire risk was huge. This fire is always going. And when you see images of African-American cooks in the kitchen with these flowing clothes, the fire risk to them was very high. And there are evidently reports of freed slaves who have fire scars because they were cooking and their skirt got caught in the flame of the hearth. Here we see an example of the building that might be behind what was called the big house, the plantation home. It was often the place where the cook and their family lived as well. And here we see another hearth kitchen, both of these places being located in Alabama. So this is the kind of situation that Karen Hiss surmised that Mrs. Fisher received her training. Here we have though the iron monster as Karen Hiss notes. And she had noted that while it was clear that she had received her training on the plantation, that by the time she wrote the book, she had long truly mastered the art of cooking on the range. And she noted that particularly striking was her mastery of roasting methods showing how to achieve properly roasted meats in the iron box. So this is an example of an iron monster that's actually up in Sonoma at the Toscano Hotel, probably dates about 25 years after Mrs. Fisher, but certainly the complexity of this equipment with the wood fire burning and you've got all these dampers and you got to know how to adjust the doors to adjust the temperature and keep the food cooking and it must have been extremely complicated. And this is something that Karen Hiss says that Mrs. Fisher really knew how to do well. So 1881, Mrs. Fisher's book is published, The Oakland Tribune published the first ad for the book that had nearly daily runs for about a month and it was followed by the examiner that ran for about three months and then one run in the Los Angeles Herald, a single mention. But the thing that really opened the door for my research was this particular article from the San Francisco examiner in July of 1881 where the name of the person who owned Mrs. Fisher is noted Newton St. John of Mobile that Mrs. Fisher had been raised in the family of the late Newton St. John. Now raised to me implies a couple of things. One that she had been with Newton St. John for quite a while which could indicate perhaps how she became familiar with the iron monster. And two, I think raised as being used whether that's her word or the writer of this particular article because in 1881, the abolition of slavery was still fresh people. I think didn't really wanna say the word like it didn't really happen. We'll just put it over here and forget about it which is probably why we still have so many issues with divisiveness in our society today because we haven't faced it. And so it all started right about then. Couple of other important features she was located on Dupont Street which is today's Grant Street in downtown San Francisco pretty much in today's shopping district not too far away from the financial district. And also that her book was being sold for $1.50 a copy which when you do the calculation that's the equivalent of about $40 today. So it wasn't an inexpensive book. So Newton St. John, who was he? Well, he was a New Yorker and he had transferred to Mobile about the mid 1830s started off as a clerk at a merchants and tailors business. But by 1845, 1850, he's a powerful man in Mobile and he's head of the popular banking house of St. John Powers and Company. It was a company that dealt in cotton, timber and other merchandise, the shipping, purchasing and shipping whether it be by land, sea that he was involved with it, particularly on river and rail in the United States throughout the South and the North. And he was also an agent for Bering Brothers in London a very famous company that actually helped finance the Louisiana purchase. So this was a man who was becoming incredibly wealthy with these activities. He was also a multitasker apparently being the director of the board of directors of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad Company as well as president of Alabama Life Insurance and Trust considered a leading banker and merchant whose career was intimately associated with the history of Mobile. And $390,000 in 1860 doesn't sound like a lot but it made my eyes pop when the equivalent of that today is $11.4 million. So this is the man that Abby Fisher said that she was enslaved by basically and she was working for an incredibly wealthy man in the South. Here's a view of Mobile considered the Gulf city. Here we see downtown Mobile on the Mobile River in the Bay of Mobile located here about midway between Pensacola, Florida and New Orleans. And here we see a view about 1873 of Mobile downtown looking off to the Bay and Mobile River in the distance. Now, of course, Cotton was King and Mobile was the place where most of the Cotton came and went and between Mobile and probably Charleston and New Orleans the biggest ports in the South. And Cotton was a huge business. It would come in by steam wheeler and be transported to rail to be sent throughout the States as I mentioned earlier. But Mobile also has additional rich history. It actually has been under five flags, the French, the Spanish, the British, the Americans and the Confederates. So when you see architecture of Mobile, it's somewhat similar to the French Quarter in New Orleans. And so there are similarities there because of the similar histories. But it's also the place where the last slave ship arrived in the United States, at least the last known. And the Cloak Tilda you may know was rediscovered a couple of years ago if you wanna read more about it, just a search for Smithsonian Magazine International Geographic. And it brought about 110 captured West Africans. What is that? 52 years after slavery had been banned. The shipment of enslaved persons from Africa banned in 1808. And this individual thought, the price of slaves was getting too high and he could do it without anybody catching him, which appears to be the case. And he burned the ship after he returned and those were the remains found a couple of years ago. Today, there are descendants of this last ship still living in the Mobile area in a town they founded by its survivors after the Civil War called Africa Town. Newton St. John, even though he was a New Yorker, he was a slave owner and New York abolished slavery, I think around 1830 had been done gradually and the last was right about 1830. So Newton St. John would have recalled slavery in his state. So it may not have been a big transition for him to actually own slaves in Mobile. And here we see in 1850, of course, with most documentation of enslaved persons and census records, there are no names. If you watch Finding Your Roots with Dr. Gates on PBS, he often repeats how difficult it is to track African-American genealogy because of the pitiful documentation of white plantation owners in the South. But here we see in the 1850 census, if Mrs. Fisher were with him at that time, she would have been about 20, 22 years old. And there's three women in the age range. But when we get to 1860, there are no women of her age range. So we will still go with Mrs. Fisher's word that she was with Newton St. John. It's possible that she had already married Alexander by 1860. That seems to be about the year they married based on how they recorded responses to length of marriage in census records in the early 1900s. But we'll have to do more research to figure that one out. Now, Alexander Cotchett Fisher, very interesting. I reviewed earlier his story, his family's story between his death certificate in Friedman's bank records. Based on his bank record, M. Andrews, I assumed it would be M for Matilda. And in fact, in 1880, there is a Matilda Andrews, 60 years old, a black female working as a servant in the next county over. So perhaps that is his mother. The age would be about right as well. Also that their name was Andrews as well. It's not clear if there's any connection with James Andrews of Orangeburg. There were probably quite a few Andrews in the South. And with his father being Alexander Fisher, there was a prominent man in Mobile by the name of Fisher, but I've not been able to identify any Alexander's in that family line. So that research is continuing as well. And for John Cotchett, there was a John Cotchett in Mobile born in England. However, we see a South Carolina connection in 1790. He was in Charleston, spent some time in Fairfield, which is a little bit north of Columbia that I showed you earlier. There does seem to be some evidence linking him between Charleston and Mobile and that he was involved with firefighting. But primarily he worked as a commission merchant, especially in the 1840s running schooners between New Orleans and Charleston. And then in the 1860s, he was working as a wharf finger or wharf agent. And so this may have given him plenty of opportunity to engage with Newton St. John, who was probably going to the wharf a lot to make sure that shipments were being handled appropriately and, you know, arriving and leaving on time and the like. They're also noted to have attended a couple of meetings before the Civil War began to protest against secession from the States. They opposed it likely because of the disruption in business it would cause as opposed to abolition of slavery because he as well owned slaves and he owned five in Mobile. And this record a little bit hard to read, but it's a manifest that he signed in 1853 for the shipment of Thomas Finley, a living human from New Orleans to Charleston. So this is quite busy, but I think it helps us kind of see the connections. Here we have John Cotchett, who was living in Mobile, also living in New Orleans. And as I mentioned earlier, had been living in Charleston as well. He married Mary Jane Logan, whose father was born in Charleston and living in Charleston about the same time, you know, not too far off from John Cotchett. Maria actually dies outside of Charleston in 1857. It's noted that she was a resident of Mobile in the announcement in the paper. So this is Cotchett's wife. He married again, a woman from Louisiana who really there's no further connection, I think. But we can see here how the movement through the sale of these enslaved persons could have made their way along this corridor in South Carolina. And because of John Cotchett's shipping business, perhaps if Abby and her mom were one of them would have made their way over to Mobile. And the same is true for the St. John family, though not quite as obvious, Newton St. John living in Mobile, he had married a Mary Jane Pope who interestingly her brother, William Wyatt Bibb was the first governor of Alabama when it was still as territory. They had actually married St. John and Pope in 1804. I'm sorry, take that back. Their parents had married in South Carolina in 1804, though Alexander was from Delaware and Dorothy was from Virginia. But Alexander had been living in Charleston in 1790, the same time that John Cotchett was living in Charleston. So there's these interesting connections that while these may not be as direct, Maria Jane was born in Wilkes County, Georgia just across the Savannah River from South Carolina. Again, the fact that perhaps Mrs. Fisher, maybe her mother came with Maria to Mobile upon the marriage with Newton St. John. So still some more research, very intriguing. We may never know for sure, but it's certainly fun to keep looking. So the links continued between John Cotchett and Alexander. Here we see the 1870 census, John Cotchett living in Mobile with his wife Matilda who was the same age as Alexander, so not his mother. Here we see a Daniel Logan from his previous marriage, probably a brother living with them, as well as three Andrews, which you'll recall was also the name of Andrew's mother's family. Lizzie Porter-Emily, at least Lizzie and Porter might be Alexander's siblings. Perhaps Emily is a daughter of one of the two, unclear. But the other thing I wanted to point out was, Mrs. Fisher had said in her preface that her husband was without the advantages of an education. But here, I think there is evidence that perhaps Alexander Fisher learned how to read and write from John Cotchett. We see here the magnificent flourish of John Cotchett. Something very similar here in Alexander's signature and the only letter we can compare is a C. So it's possible that Alexander was not formally educated but did learn how to read and write from John Cotchett. And therefore I will add may have transcribed Mrs. Fisher's book and not one of her friends and patrons having transcribed it. So here we see the town of Mobile on the Mobile River and we're gonna take a deep dive downtown because now we see that Mrs. Fisher, perhaps after leaving plantation life in South Carolina, is living in an urban setting. And this is why Karen Hess had said was, that's how you learn the iron monster. And here is the residence of Newton St. John on Church Street and St. Emmanuel. His offices were nearby. After the war, St. John lived with a cousin for a bit, Thomas St. John, a little bit further away from the downtown district. But also Mrs. Fisher was not too far away about six blocks or so from the slave market and I can't even imagine what that must have been like if she ever had to go over to that district to see the activity there. Here we see the St. John residence and you'll note that while other structures are apparent, this is from the Sanborn Fire Insurance map in 1885. It seems to be an empty lot. And it seems this is I think the earliest map we have that shows it as an empty lot. And not clear what happened to it. And I've been communicating with a representative of the Church Street East Neighborhood Association. The whole district here is a historic district. He did some on the ground footwork for me given I'm not a mobile and it's a pandemic that he was able to get out there and do some looking around. And it's just not clear what happened to this property. So here is the lot today. This was the entire lot. So huge, it was huge. It must have been a huge structure perhaps with yard and gardens. Perhaps they planted vegetables in the back. It must have been spectacular. And here we see Christ Church across the street and then this whole district back in here is the Church Street East Historic District. So interestingly, Mrs. Fisher didn't have far to go to get to the market. This was the market in Mobile, the Southern Market just a block away. And at the Southern Market had all kinds of stalls for meat, fish, game and poultry, vegetable, had some coffee stands, meat stalls. And she may have gone over there daily to get all of the ingredients for her daily fare. And given her activities in San Francisco that I'll discuss in a bit, perhaps she was also selling some of her pickles and preserves and jams and jellies over there as well to make a little cash. So we don't know for sure, but it's something interesting to think about. The Southern Market building is still there today. It houses the Museum of Mobile and also some city government offices. So when the war began, as I mentioned, Newton St. John opposed the session, he and his family left for New York. And for a while it wasn't clear, well, gee, did he take the fishers with them or did they stay and kind of take care of the home while he was gone or the like? And this seemed to confirm that they did not go with him. Once they got to New York, he got a passport for he and his family and they set sail on July 3 on the ship Africa. And this is the Africa here. Looks a little terrifying to me. And took the, I think it was a 13 day trip across the Atlantic. And here we see that he left with his wife and three children. We see here that some of the other families are listing that they're also traveling with a servant. And so this makes me think that the fishers did not travel to New York with the St. John's and remained in Mobile for the duration of the war. When he gets back from the war, his business has been crippled. One of his partners died in 1862. And it was just in a financial mess. Though in his obituary a few years later, he was, it was exclaimed his politeness. Lord Chesterfield could hardly have excelled that he was very diligent in ensuring that every dollar of his obligation was paid. However, he did sue or was sued for some of those debts. And he fought back saying that, hey, when the start of war start and when the war began, the business basically dissolved, that's the law. And so in the end he was awarded a goodly sum, something the equivalent of about $900,000 today. And also it's noted in this particular litigation that during the war, the Confederacy apparently upset that he was supposed to be a Southern gentleman. And here he went back to New York and supported the United States. They tried to confiscate his personal real estate in Mobile and it just makes me think what prevented them from succeeding, was it the fishers and maybe Mr. Cotchett at the door saying no way, it certainly raises some interesting possibilities. So the war is over and the fishers are now no longer enslaved. And we find Mr. Fisher here, associated with a gentleman named Wilbur Strong, who was really the leader in the South at the time of establishing the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, the AME Zion Church. And so this opens up a whole new world into Alexander's background. And he was a reverend, he was a pastor and whether he started during the Civil War or even before, we don't know, but it wasn't unusual for enslaved persons to be pastors, not only for the slaves on the plantation but the plantation family as well. And here he's listed as the colored pastor of State Street Methodist Church and residing at Leon between Gaston and Clay in Mobile. And the first listing of him as a clergyman is actually in 1871. And this is of course, at a time when African Americans are finally beginning to be documented as they should be. And 1872, he's also a minister at the Methodist Episcopal Church. Interestingly, no directory listings in 73 and 74, but then in 1875 he is listed as the State Street Methodist Church. And it appears that it may be a very historic church in Mobile that was founded, I believe, in the early 1850s. It was one of the earliest churches in Alabama. Today, still active, of course, with the pandemic, maybe not as active as it should be, but clearly a beautiful, beautiful church and Wilbur Strong, I believe, was pastor here as well. And so there still needs to be more research done. Mr. Morrow of the Church Street Neighborhood Association, I believe said, had spoken with, or maybe it's a Roy Hoffman who's written a book that includes some description of Alexander's journey as a pastor, even going so far as down to Key West, support Wilbur Strong and establishing the AME Zion Church in the South. There doesn't seem to be a lot of records of Alexander at the church, any at all. So there still needs to be more confirmation, but it certainly is leaning in the direction that he was a pastor at this very historic church. Also at the time, of course, now it's reconstruction and President Grant was noted here to be announcing the appointment of, quote, colored men in the Republican Party to various appointments in Alabama. Here we see some male agents being appointed and also a note that the Mobile Custom House that's run by the Internal Revenue Service and will also receive an appointment. And very interestingly, we find Alexander appointed as a customs collector in Pensacola. So about 60 miles to the east, this is the Pensacola Customs House. I haven't found the actual document of appointment, but he clearly is documented as having worked at this location, making $1,000 annual, almost 1,100, $24,000 annually today. So it probably a good chunk of change at the time. Pensacola was another major golf court and Hiram Potter was a customs collector there at the time. He was a highly respected Republican, had even previously been appointed state assessor of North Carolina by Abraham Lincoln. But there was also some pushback that particularly from Florida State Center, George Wentworth, who we see here. He had been president of the state Senate in 1870 and was generally known as a corruptionist. He stated he was in control of another Florida State Center who was running for reelection. And he wanted to purge all of those from office who would vote against him, including Alexander's boss, Hiram Potter. And it was described at the time that the Florida Republican Party was very divided because of feuds and dissensions. And they feared the Democrats would win the next election, which sounds kind of familiar given recent history. So history does repeat itself. There you go. So there was a note delivered to President Ulysses S. Grant. And it says this, this will be handed to you by Reverend A.C. Fisher, who has confidence in respect of a large majority of the Republicans of this county. Be so kind as to listen to Mr. Fisher's story and you will look for a great favor. What this means is that Mr. Alexander Fisher was delivering a personal message to President Grant, handing it off to him personally. And this is out of the Ulysses S. Grant papers. So extremely significant finding. Then there was a Richard Gagnier who himself sent a note to President Grant in July, a little bit after the first note. And he says the undersigned colored citizens and Republicans of West Florida respectfully represent to your excellency that retention of higher importer juniors collector of customs will be ruinous to the Republican party. And we also protest against the action and representation of one A.C. Fisher. He is not a voter of our state, nor is he a representative man at all of the Republicans of this section. Then there is a telegraph from Alexander directly to President Grant. In August, a month later, and he's alerting President Grant that a colored man named Harriet left Pensacola Tuesday for Washington and is supposed with bogus papers against Elector Potter. There have been no public meetings nor legal petition here as yet. Please take no notice of him till you hear from me. And there the evidence ends. I got to do more digging in the grant papers to see if there's any outcomes that we can take from this. In the end, Grant did remove Hiram Potter from the collector's position in Pensacola, but he would later reappoint him to a higher position. So Hiram still remained active in the state of Florida. So the Purchase, the Fisher's Purchase property in Mobile as I mentioned, here was the residence of Newton St. John. So a little bit more out of town. This area out here is interesting. If you're on Google Maps and you get to a certain zoom level, it actually says the Fisher tract. And there's a whole African-American history here that was destroyed through redevelopment, very similar to our story of the Fillmore District here in San Francisco. It was a rich, robust community with lots of jazz in all kinds of activity. Fisher, it turns out, was named for an owner of a large plot of land earlier in the 1800s. So this is the Fisher that if, I'm wondering if there's a connection between Alexander and this Fisher's family for his father's side of the family. But anyway, here is the deed signed for the sale of the property in 1876. So they owned it about eight years. Here we see Alexander's signature with not too much of a flourish because there has to be room for Abby's Fisher. Now, we recall that she could not read or write. So this is actually Abby's mark for the signature on the deed of sale in 1876. So what was happening in 1876 that they would sell their home? Well, Alabama Reconstruction had ended in 1874. In the directory in 1876, there's no occupation listing for Alexander. On September 19th, they sell their home about 10 days later, Newton's H John dies while visiting New York City. Plus, there is a lot happening in the South, of course, who were opposed to Reconstruction efforts wanted to gain back power and control from African-Americans who were becoming very influential and independent. And of course, that included the ex-Confederates, the white supremacists, the Klan. And also, as I noted earlier with Alexander very active in the expansion of the church, he may have decided to move West to help with that effort. So, Karn Hess had thought, well, maybe, you know, they came West on a wagon train. It wasn't inconceivable. But I think it's more likely they probably went by rail and there's a couple of reasons for that. Here's the Mobile in Ohio offices in 1892. You'll recall that Newton St. John was the director of the board of directors. So, rail was a big business for the St. John family. And by that time, the overland travel by wagon was pretty much done by 1876 because the Transcontinental Railroad had been completed in 1869. Plus, as we saw, the Fishers had recent income. He had been making pretty decent money in Pensacola up for a time anyway. They had just sold their home for $500. So, they had a little cash and perhaps Mrs. Fisher had been selling for pickles and preserves over at the Southern Market. So, we have no evidence of that, but, you know, they had a little bit of a cash flow. And it could be too, if he was traveling West because of the church that the church may have helped fund travel by rail. Now, how they would have gotten there, here's the Mobile in Ohio running from Mobile up to Columbia, Kentucky, right on the Mississippi River. And from there, they could go across the Mississippi to Cairo, Missouri, and then connect with another train that could take them further West where they could connect with the Union Pacific to come to San Francisco. And the Rock Island route, the Chicago Rock Island Pacific Railway is actually one of the rails that advertise in African-American newspapers at the time. So, my vote is that they likely came by rail. So, the earliest evidence of them in San Francisco is on March 21st, 1877. He's attending, Alexander is attending the nice session of the California annual conference at the first African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church Stockton Street near Sacramento, which here we see the spires of the church here. We can see just barely here, Alcatraz, Angel Island in the haze. And he was fully admitted into the church and became an elder rather quickly within a year or so. But we also find him working for the mayor of San Francisco. Okay, so he's here six months and he's already working for the mayor of San Francisco. That implies connections. And there's still some information to find what were those connections, but they keep the evidence that there is a connection keeps appearing. And so my goal is to try to find out and confirm what that might be. So, he's working for the mayor. He's working as a church elder, but in February of 1878, he filed suit against the first AME Zion Church for almost $700 for services rendered for one year. And he claimed that he hadn't been paid. And the first AME Zion responded that Alexander had never been employed. He had only performed services of pastor in an ignorant, wretched, insulting, unsatisfactory manner. It's like, what? Falsely represented himself competent, which clearly was not true based on the activities that we saw in the South, that he drove members away from the church and he was basically sent off to Napa to preach. So things were not going well with the AME Zion Church in San Francisco. And in May, he was fully expelled for what was called unministerial conduct. And an article in September of 1878 kind of calls it a queer case of the colored preacher. Alexander notes, he came to San Francisco to preach the Holy Ghost. So that implies the church may have funded the travel. Bishop Hillary of the local congregation notes that he had better drop the Holy Ghost and go for the sack that no one around here had any of the Holy Ghost about them, meaning all of the pastors, but they had a lot of money and that he should go for that instead. And Alexander came back with, I don't approve of all the sensualities being practiced, nearly all the preachers had three or four concubines besides their wives and he was horrified by that. So he's actually calling them out for unministerial conduct and they turn it back around on him. So the San Jose Mercury News was kind of following this and they in one article surmised that Alexander would ultimately be found to be a very bad egg, but when the case went to court, the court was satisfied that Alexander had been legitimately employed by the church, but because he had waited too long to sue, he was only awarded $191 for his efforts, but his occupation as a pastor was pretty much done. So in 1878, he's employed as a coachman living at 905 Sutter Street, which just happened to be the home of Edward E. Eyre, who had been personal broker to the Comstock Silver Kings. So again, he's connected to himself with extremely wealthy people and Eyre was also a prominent Mason and a member of the California Academy of Sciences and so it was before he was basically excommunicated from the church, he had been moonlighting as a coachman, which was another complaint of the church that he wasn't dedicating his complete 100% time to the church. And so far at this point, there's no listing for Mrs. Fisher. And of course this was the Gilded Age and so there was a lot of wealth in San Francisco based on the gold rush and then 10 years after that, the Comstock Silver Load in Nevada. In 1879 though, he's employed as a janitor, still no listing for Mrs. Fisher, they're living on Mission Street, one block over from Market Street, but they both go to the California State Fair to exhibit some of their goods. And it was considered the most elaborate fair in California with tens of thousands of visitors and considerable status accrued to any state fair premium winner. And it was noted in the Sacramento Daily Union that Mrs. Abby Fisher, so this is her first note in the press in San Francisco or elsewhere, that she was exhibiting a large variety of pickles, preserves, conserves, preserved fruits and lots of other stuff at the fair. So here we see from the report of the 1879 fair that it wasn't just Mrs. Fisher, but it was also Alexander also helping with displays, maybe because it was their first time, maybe because they took so much stuff that they had to tag team to make sure it was all handled appropriately. But here we see the fruits, the pickles, the jams, and then Mrs. Fisher actually won best display of pickles for $5 and got a special mention. Now, this best display of pickles is not mentioned in her book. I just find it very interesting. I think that is kind of a prominent award that maybe should have been included. We also see that Alexander got a special diploma for Best Blackberry Wine, listed right next to Mr. Gumblock, who of course is a pioneer wine maker up in Sonoma County. So the pickle business begins in the very first ad that appeared was in the Mariposa Gazette, which is like over Yosemite way in the foothills, that's the purest homemade pickles and preserves of all kinds, put up in that good old Southern style, Mrs. Abby Fisher at the time on Howard Street. Here we see the ad from the San Francisco City Directory. And the business was at 569 Howard, near Second Street, so south of Market. And then in March, 1880, they added a storefront around the corner at 207 Second Street. And she was listed as I noted in the 1880 directory. And in the census, it's Alexander who's listed as the Pickle and Preserve manufacturer and Abby is the cook. They also have four children, Benjamin, Eliza Jane, Jenny and Mary Matilda. Tilly, her name would go by, she was actually born in Missouri. So in January of 1877. So on that journey in the middle of it, in the middle of winter, Abby at about the age of 40 has her last child. She said she had 11 children. I've only found eight named. These were the only children that made it to San Francisco. There were children named in Mobile that apparently passed. And there's three others that there's just no record. So that may have happened in South Carolina. And we may never know the names of those children. So here we are the Sanborn fire map. And we see Howard Street right here, which is their residence and right on Howard Street. Then around the corner was the storefront. Howard was the site of the original manufacturing of pickles. And then it moved to second. It was also the storefront. And it's labeled here on the, the Sanborn map as a storefront. And then in 1881, about the time her book is published, she moves over to the shopping district of San Francisco. So here we are at second and Howard, her storefront would be, I think, right about in here. If we look at the map, it's two or three doors down. And this is second street going towards Market Street. Here is another view. This is taken in 1906. The fire after the earthquake is approaching. And here we see the corner building. And then their residents should have been at this location based on the Sanborn map. There's an alley right here. But for whatever reason in 1906, that building is already gone. So she also went to the mechanics fair in San Francisco. And on the left is a Carlton Watkins image of the fair. There's no date attached to that. It's probably anywhere 1870s to 1880s. And it would be interesting to know if her display is in here somewhere. Very exquisite looking displays throughout the auditorium. We see here that as she noted on the title page of her book that she won the silver medal and bronze medal. And that she had also won a premium for her assortment of jellies and preserves. So by the middle of 1881, they're in the heart of the shopping district. She's listed now as the pickle manufacturer. And then Alexander is working as a porter for Miles and King. He's also living on 2nd Street. Now, Miles is the name of one of her friend and patrons in the preface of her book. He was a stock broker. He would later be secretary for the spring Valley Water Company in San Francisco. Life is the daughter of the individual considered the father of modern artillery, artillery who was mortally wounded at the battle of Palo Alto in Mexico 1846 during the Spanish American war, which also happened to be president grants first military battle so again trying to find those links who know who knew who that might have given a letter of introduction as they made their trip to San Francisco. So just an intriguing clue. Here's the rest of their friends listed here and their industries. I've done a bit more research about them too much detail to share now. But we can see that there's a range of connections possible connections with St. John, or with the military of the various industries. But also a little bit more research to see which one of these was really key in making connections so far. It does seem to be Mr Miles. So at DuPont Street. Here's Grant DuPont. And this is post street here. It appears to have been the storefront of the Pacific Club today known as Pacific Union Club which is housed in the flood mansion flood was one of the silver kings that Mr ire had been the stock broker for so there we see some additional connections. And so right here, you know, this very high premium shopping I guess you could call it right in the middle of San Francisco this is the area where all the rich San Franciscans of San Francisco went to shop. So here is a view actually of across the street, the building that her storefront would have been in would be just off this side on the opposite side of the street but it gives you an idea of the look and feel of the district at the time. And then we find that when she goes to the mechanics fair in 1881 her book is published. And sure enough her books are selling like hotcakes. And she didn't win any awards but clearly the books were flying off the shelves. She also exhibited at California State Fair in 1881 but I couldn't find any evidence of an award. And she also went so far to go down to Stockton for their agricultural affair. And her pickles one second place which I'm sure she was not very happy with, and that would be the last fair that I have found evidence that she attended. Now to talk about the State Fair in Wagner's book about African American women of the West. She had made this quote or had quoted this statement in her book, saying that the exhibitors had said that, you know, Mrs Fisher made it all by herself that she's a colored woman for the south with energy and business built up a large and well, very lucrative I'll say since I can't say remunerative right now. And which alone she has the receipt. And I love the lessons her pickles and sauces have a picancy and flavor seldom equal than when once tasted not soon forgotten. So we look here at in the report from that particular fair. Actually, the exhibitors were asked to furnish the information so this is Mrs Fisher speak, whether it's her and Alexander drafting that together, perhaps with a little help from patrons and friends that, you know, she was very aware of her business tacked her entrepreneurial skills and skills and certainly that she was an excellent cook. Also interestingly, and one of the books that I presented at the beginning of the program that in the frontest piece of the book is written the Goldberg Bowen and Company of San Francisco and it turns out that just a block away from where her DuPont Street location was was the Goldberg and Bowen grocers they were the master grocers the world our field founded in 1850 a pioneer grocer at the time as I said about a block away from her downtown. There's several periods of ownership finally closing about I think in the early 1960s I came across an article that even columnist her cane was lamenting over the closing of Goldberg and Bowen, but they were dealers of choice with not only groceries but teas wines and importers of all kinds of foods from Europe so it's very likely that her books were at the grocery and I like to think of them on display all the different colors on this shelf. It must have been quite the site. So, sorry that is wrongly placed. So now we have Alexander working for another mayor Washington Bartlett. And he worked for him as a messenger in 1882 to 1885 Bartlett of course was later governor of California. And at his funeral in 1887 Alexander walked with another Bartlett servant immediately behind the casket. And they were accompanied by the likes of George Hurst and Levi Strauss in this procession. So Alexander had a very prominent place in Bartlett's funeral procession. At this point they're residing at 119 Ellis she's still manufacturing pickles, and there's no more fair exhibitions. As we're coming into the 20th century. Thanks begin to get a little bit more quiet for the Fisher family. She's an 1885 listed as a caterer and professional cook giving lessons. Alexander continued to work at the mayor's office until 1891. But sadly, in 1886 there's 17 year old daughter Eliza Jane passed away. And I just wonder if that had an impact on the business and Abby's desire to continue to push forward. At this point she is about 55 years old or so. Anyway, it's, it's very sad, you know that they lost a daughter so young. And then in 1889. The fishers are noted as one of the prominent colored people of the city who were present at a concert by Flora Bateson who's pictured here, who was called at that time the colored Jenny land met so soprano I think was her description. The last listing of Mrs Fisher's business was in 1890. Also in 1890, the fishers made it in the paper because the 1890 census was apparently a complete failure in San Francisco in terms of its reporting. There are many families in the city that were not recorded and they specifically called out the Fisher family. And then in 1891 they've moved to Noe Valley they purchased this home viewed here on 27th street between church and Sanchez streets and you might recall in Mobile. Newton St. John had lived on Church Street so she's just a few doors away from San Francisco's Church Street. Alexander is noted to have retired from City Hall. And by 1892 he and a son are janitors at the Academy of Science, which you might recall stockbroker ire who he had been coachman four years before was also one of the early members of the Academy of Science. In 1910 daughters Jenny and Tilly continue to live at home. Benjamin kind of came and went in terms of living at the Fisher home. And then 1915 mentioned earlier she passed away in January the age of 87 he passed away at 82 in 1922. Little discrepancy in the years there. But because originally they were two years apart in age based on the earlier records and here they're, you know, more years apart. But he had been living in the relief home for the infirm and aged in San Francisco for five years before his death sadly. Both are buried along with Benjamin Jenny and Tilly. We don't know where Eliza Jane is likely her grave was lost when they moved grave sites out of San Francisco to coma just south of the city. And they are buried and unmarked graves right here. This is the Fisher family there are no monuments or marker or any anything here to identify them. Son Benjamin is actually about three quarters of a mile away at Cyprus lawn, but Alexander and Mrs Fisher are both here, and they both share a grave with their daughters or a close member of a family. So it just seems like something needs to be done about that. So as I mentioned, Tilly is the last surviving member she's still living at the 27th Street home. And there's a backyard neighbor that lived on the time on army street. And today says our Chavez, who he said as a boy in the 1940s he could, he and his mom could sit in their kitchen and look across their backyard into the Fisher's backyard and, and her mom would strike up a conversation with Tilly. And he recalled Tilly is being a very nice lady, tending to her large backyard with flowers and vegetables. She worked downtown at the current theater as a matron. And you know he said she was a real lady when she went out she wore the hats and gloves. I like to think that the representation of Tilly by this neighbor is one that also reflects both Abbey Fisher and Alexander Fisher and how they presented themselves and how they live their lives. I just want to call out if any of you saw my suffrage talk last August, Joanna pinther co lead of the, you know what we have determined to be America's first suffrage March and Oakland in 1908. Before she moved to Glenn Park between 1900 and 1906 she lived in this house I blew my mind that she and Mrs Fisher of all the streets in San Francisco. She was also backyard neighbors, and it makes me want to imagine you know did they have conversations. At that time, Mrs Fisher would have been about 70 years old Mrs pinther would have been about 40. Did they talk, what did they talk about did they share recipes I mean it just is at least for me, a very interesting coincidence. That is some of the new information that I have about Mrs Fisher. Now we know a little bit more about what Mrs Fisher new. There's certainly a lot more to learn, but I am happy to answer any questions if there are any if you don't have time tonight please email me at Glenn Park history at gmail.com and thank you very much for listening. Thank you Evelyn and there are a few questions, and I will read those to you and some like thank yous and great job. Number one, who do you think was the intended audience for the book, especially at an equivalent of $40 per copy. Right. So, Dr. Zafaya Zahar I hope I'm saying her name right she's in Michigan, and she made a few comments about that. In 2001, she thinks Mrs Fisher's book was directed for white women who may, you know, probably more on the wealthier side, who are now finding themselves more independent and having to cook for themselves. And Dr. Zafaya Zahar even makes the implication that when Mrs Fisher refers to a child, you know, make it as easy, so easy that a child can do it that perhaps Mrs Fisher was alluding to some of the white wealthy women who previously had had had everything done for them who are now having to navigate the kitchen on their own. So, I think it was definitely and based on her location in downtown there for a while, definitely directed to upper tier residents. Thank you. What is the source of the excellent map of the middle passage. Okay, if you want to learn more about the history of slavery and you really, it's gut wrenching. Those are, I think it's called slave voyages.org it's out of Emory University. They even have a 3D animation of what slave ship looked like and the conditions and the cargo. So that is an excellent website to spend a lot of time on. Some of the images I gathered are from a website called slave images, and you can look at a map and they have markers where you can view maps specific to that region that show, you know, African Americans in their daily life as slaves. But it is, you know, I highly recommend everyone do that because it's a lesson we need to learn. It's not something that we have been taught in all of our lives. Yes, and I put that link in the chat box. It's not correct email me. Where was the mechanics pavilion I've never seen that image or heard of that building before. The, oh, you mean the interior image, I think it was the site of today's Graham auditorium. I think I'm sure there's San Francisco historians who are probably screaming at me right now. I believe that's where it was located about that area. Wonderful. Let's grab a couple more. Have you cooked anything from this cookbook. I made the chow chow. And it was delicious. It was, I guess, being a white woman not knowing to navigate the kitchen that much. You know, it was complicated for me. But Abby Fisher also made recipes in huge amounts because she's, you know, she's cooking for big plantation families she's cooking for dinner events with, you know, dozens of people coming over so they're big menus. And currently on Karen Hesse's book, she does give some tips about, you know, her reproduction of Mrs Fisher's cookbook. She does give some tips, you know, like what some of the ancient measurements mean, because that's another challenge I think it was fanny farmer that came up with modern cooking measuring style and around 1900. And the Fisher's book predates that. But if you spend some time with it, you know, the recipes can be done, and the chow chow was excellent. Yeah, wonderful. And let's just take one more and this one. This one's interesting. Do you know why the Fisher's grave has been unmarked for all these years. And are there any living descendants from the Fisher family. The next pieces of research, you know, with the pandemic it's been hard going on site to do research that this is all pretty much digital work, other than what I've been able to collect from like Mr Brower shared the death certificates and Mr morrow in mobile did a lot of pounding the pavement really appreciative of that. So my next mission is to look more into burials of African Americans in San Francisco. It would seem that perhaps they're, you know, the fishers may have had funds or maybe they didn't I mean, by that time they hadn't been working for a while the daughters though and the son were working. So, you know, can't explain it other than there isn't another reason that African Americans didn't get headstones, you know, which is true and many grave sites across the country they're putting poppers graves at least the fishers ended up at Cypress lawn in the main cemetery. And thanks to Cypress lawn on a map it helps pinpoint exactly where they are but that's more research that needs to be done. In terms of descendants, there is at least one family history on ancestry.com that has the fishers Alexander and Abbey listed as ancestors, but at least in terms of Matilli who never married. Jenny, the next youngest daughter was married I don't think she had children Benjamin never had children. So, I couldn't find any descendants to speak of at least in the genealogical records that we have available. Okay, such a thorough job. Always a pleasure Evelyn Rose we appreciate you I'm popping back on hi friends. So stick around. I'll come back for some more events I put a link to Evelyn's last event, the suffragist event that she mentioned it's on our YouTube, as well as so many events that we have done since shelter in place. So friends, thank you so much Evelyn thank you so much. And Norm thank you for doing the tech hosting tonight, and we miss you we love you San Francisco and we'll see you next time. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Everyone take care.