Martha Boston, who carried on the Hern/Hearns family tradition of a belief in the importance of education, was the youngest of eight children of Bernard Clinton Hearns and Clara Jones Hearns. Her father, “a very progressive man” in her eyes, worked on the railroad to save money to buy the family farm. Her mother, “seeking the best for her children,” sent her as a child to Baltimore to live with a sister, so she would have the opportunity for better schooling. She and her six sisters all became teachers. A graduate of West Virginia State University in Education and Home Economics, she pursued graduate studies at Temple University and taught school in Albemarle County and elsewhere.
Hern
Pauline Powell Burns
Pauline Powell Burns, a great-granddaughter of Joseph and Edith Fossett, was born and raised in Oakland, California. Her grandmother, Isabella Fossett, was sold away from Monticello and her family at the age of eight, but succeeded in escaping to Boston in the 1840s, using a free pass forged by her brother Peter Fossett. Always at risk of re-enslavement because of the Fugitive Slave Act, Isabella joined the rest of her family in Cincinnati by 1860.
After Isabella’s death in 1872, her daughter, Josephine Turner, moved to Oakland with her husband, William W. Powell, a porter on the new transcontinental railroad. Their daughter Pauline demonstrated artistic and musical talent at a young age and pursued years of study of both painting and piano. She gave numerous public recitals in the Bay Area and was hailed as “the bright musical star of her state.” An exhibit of her paintings in 1890 was said to be the first by an African-American artist in California. She and her husband, Edward E. Burns, both cultural leaders in their community, left no descendants.