Biographical Info

Rachel Lamar was the daughter of Jenny Lamar. Rachel demonstrated considerable skills as a seamstress, but she also appeared to believe that her status as Jenny’s daughter entitled her to special consideration. When Mary Ann wanted Rachel to accompany her to Washington during Howell’s tenure in Congress, Rachel agreed to go provided that Mary Ann assumed complete responsibility for the well-being of her children while she was absent. She also complained to her mother who joined with her daughter’s lamentations. Mary Ann learned of these communications. Outraged, she expressed the wish that Jenny and her entire bloodline might be dispatched to Liberia. Rachel married Coleman Cole, a skilled carpenter who was enslaved by Asbury Hull. The marriage produced several children. Rachel’s tempestuous relationship with Mary Ann came to a practical end in 1857 after Mary Ann learned that Coleman and Rachel had negotiated their daughter Sabina’s hire to the Hull family for the coming year without informing Mary Ann. Mary Ann immediately voided the parent’s agreement and resolved to banish Rachel to the Hurricane Plantation outside Milledgeville. Although Rachel managed to delay her exile for more than a year, once she had been dispatched to the plantation there is no evidence that she ever worked in the Cobb household again. Rachel died in 1867.