Like other women on the pioneer trail, Bridget “Biddy” Mason walked about 2,000 miles to make a new home in the West, where members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints could be free from persecution. Along the way, she cooked and washed, and took care of her young children.

Unlike others in her company of Mormon pioneers, Mason wasn’t a member of the church. She also had to cook, clean and serve as a nurse to another family, and herd their livestock. The home she made at the end of the trail wouldn’t be hers, and she wouldn’t be free from persecution.

Biddy Mason was a slave, brought to Utah territory by her master.

When her owner chose to move to California just a few years later, she’d endure another long journey — but this time the end of the trail would be very different.

Mason is one of the few pioneers with Utah ties mentioned in “Women of the Frontier: 16 Tales of Trailblazing Homesteaders, Entrepreneurs, and Rabble-Rousers,” a new book by Brandon Marie Miller (Chicago Review Press, $19.95). Hers isn’t one of the 16 featured stories, just a brief mention, but it’s a powerful tale.

“She would win her freedom by taking her master to court,” said Miller, of Cincinnati.

And Mason wouldn’t just win her freedom — she’d go on to become a wealthy and respected woman.

Mason came to Utah in the fall of 1848, with Mormon converts from the South.

“She was part of a group of about 34 slaves who left Mississippi with their owners,” said Ronald G. Coleman, a professor in the University of Utah’s history department.

Mason was born into slavery in 1818, and given the name “Bridget.” Some biographers say she was born in Mississippi on the plantation of Robert Marion Smith; others claim she was born in Georgia, and later purchased or received as a wedding gift by Smith and his wife.

Either way, she was Smith’s slave when he joined the LDS church and decided to move to the Salt Lake Valley.

Mason had three young daughters on the journey, the youngest an infant, the oldest age 10; some sources say the girls were likely fathered by Smith. In addition to caring for her own family, according to The Black Past website at www.blackpast.org, Mason had to set up and break down the Smith’s camp, as well as cook their food, take care of their children and animals, and serve as nurse and midwife.

Things weren’t much better when she finally arrived in the valley of the Great Salt Lake, and the Smiths settled in the area later called Holladay.

“It was harsh,” said Coleman. “The winters, at that time, were pretty hard, and the small group of African-American women and men, and some children, lived in dugouts when they first arrived here.”

Slavery in Utah

There were no laws about slavery on Utah’s books until 1852, after Mason left, but she was still considered a slave — and she wasn’t alone. Records show there were slaves in Utah, Salt Lake and Davis counties.

“I don’t think there were ever more than 50 to 75,” said Coleman.

Most of the Utah pioneers were from the Northern states, Canada, Great Britain or Scandinavia, and didn’t have slaves. Southerners who came with slaves were allowed to keep them.

“Just because one had resided in the North, it doesn’t necessarily mean one was anti-slavery,” said Coleman. “The assumption is that, even though they didn’t perhaps themselves have a need for slaves, they did believe somehow that it was acceptable.”

In the Compromise of 1850, the U.S. Congress accepted California into the Union as a free state. At the same time, Utah’s boundaries were defined and the territory was allowed to choose slavery or freedom.

“Black servitude did not become legal in Utah until 1852, when the Utah legislature passed the statute then called ‘An Act in Relationship to Service,’ ” said Coleman. “Some have said it was more along the lines of indentured servitude, but it was slavery.”

Slavery officially ended in Utah in 1862, when Congress abolished the practice in U.S. territories.

But Biddy Mason didn’t have to wait that long.

California-bound

When Brigham Young sent members of the LDS Church to start a new settlement in San Bernardino, Calif., in 1851, Mason’s master was one of them.

“I think some of the slaveholders might have been particularly inclined to go,” Coleman said, because Utah’s “certainly wasn’t the same climate as they were used to in Mississippi.”

The move wasn’t without risk for the Smiths.

“They had been warned by President Brigham Young that they should be careful about taking slaves there, as he noted that California was a free state, and more than likely those slaves were going to be free,” said Coleman.

Still, Smith chose to take Mason and her children, as well as other slaves, on to California — and he continued to keep them as slaves, even though it was prohibited.

In 1855 Smith decided to relocate to the slave state of Texas, but a sheriff stopped Smith from taking his slaves away, and Mason sued for her freedom.

“To have the gumption to take her master to court was amazing,” said Miller. “She had to wonder if her rights would actually be upheld by the court.”

They were. In 1856, Judge Benjamin Hayes ruled that Mason and her family were free.

Freedom

In Los Angeles, Mason found work as a nurse and midwife. She saved her money and, according to Miller, became one of the first African-American women to buy property in the U.S. She built a home for her family, and commercial rentals.

“She goes on to be fairly successful, and is even today regarded as one of the more prominent early California African-American settlers,” said Coleman.

Her real-estate transactions made her a wealthy woman, and she gave back to the community by helping to build the First African-American Methodist Episcopal Church, as well as caring for the sick, the poor and prisoners.

In 1884, a flood destroyed homes and left many people with nothing.

According to the California Social Work Hall of Distinction website, Biddy Mason “placed a standing order at a grocery store to give free food to any flood victims, black or white, who needed it.” She picked up the tab.

Mason died in 1891.