Lisse & Elizabeth Washington with Peter Turner

Photo Info

Lissie & Elizabeth Washington with Peter Turner

This is the first photograph ever taken of Elizabeth Carr Washington (center).  Elizabeth worked longer than anyone on the Hill, starting as an enslaved person at the age of 8 until she died at the age of 90.  She was a laundress and a cook, but was most known for her work as a midwife. During her era, she delivered more babies, both black and white, than anyone else in Brooksville.  Elizabeth also had nine children of her own.  Lissie (left) also worked on the property, doing household chores.  Peter (right) was the Robins’ cook and according to an interview with Chinsegut Hill owner Elizabeth Robins, Peter “Our Peter, who learned his craft of the Cubans during the late war, is the beguiling of conversationalists.  In beautiful sky-blue, brass-buttoned clothes showing under a spotless apron, he stands, interlarding his promise to make it Spanish style’.”

The Washington and Turner families had arrived with Colonel Ederington from South Carolina as enslaved people.  Most stayed on as employees of the estate following Emancipation.  Following Ederington’s death they worked for his daughter Charlotte Ederington Snow. This photo was taken by Chinsegut owner Elizabeth Robins (who purchased Chinsegut from the Snow family). She hired members of the Washington and Turner family as staff and documented their stories in photographs and interviews.  They are highly valued as rare artifacts of local black history.

CITATIONS/CREDIT:

Elizabeth Carr Washington (1848-1938): https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1447&context=tampabayhistory

Peter Turner (unknown)

Lissie Washington (unknown)