Family History

Historical family
pictures

Photographs of the Mends-Cole family ancestors, "Liberia days," ceremonies, and memories passed down through the generations.

Samuel Ford McGill — Dartmouth Medical School M.D., Class of 1839 — Dr. Samuel Ford McGill
Dartmouth Medical School M.D. · Class of 1839

A trailblazer

Dr. Samuel Ford McGill

c. 1813–1815, Baltimore — 1871, Monrovia

Samuel Ford McGill, the oldest son of George and Angela McGill, was a trailblazer in medicine and Liberian public life. He sailed to Liberia in 1826, but returned to the U.S. to earn his M.D. from Dartmouth Medical School in 1839. He was the first Black graduate at Dartmouth and the first person of African descent to graduate from a U.S. medical school. According to Dartmouth Medicine, only four Liberians graduated from Dartmouth Medical School between 1839 and 1900: McGill (1839), Dempsey R. Fletcher (1847), Daniel Laing Jr. (1854), and John Anthony Parm (1871). Nine other black Dartmouth graduates emigrated to Liberia during the same time period. Dr. McGill returned to Liberia as a physician, later served as governor of Maryland in Liberia, and helped build the McGill Brothers trading house.

Source: Black Alumni of Dartmouth Dartmouth Medicine

The last ancestor born into slavery

George R. McGill

Born 1787, Maryland — death date unavailable

George R. McGill was born into slavery in Maryland in 1787. He purchased freedom for himself and his family, and in February 1831 emigrated to Liberia aboard the Reaper with his wife Angelina and the rest of the family. In Liberia, they reunited with his eldest son, Samford McGill, who had previously emigrated in 1826. In Liberia he worked as a merchant and Methodist preacher, and served as acting colonial agent of the American Colonization Society for a short time.

McGill family on Wikipedia Source: Black Alumni of Dartmouth

A Monrovia merchant

Urias Africanus McGill

c. 1823 — 1866

Urias Africanus McGill was a free African American born in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1831, his parents boarded the Reaper, a ship bound for Liberia and Urias was an 8-year old child. Unfortunately, his mother, Angela McGill, died shortly after arriving in Liberia. As a member of the well-known McGill family of Monrovia, he and his brothers built a successful trading house, the McGill Brothers, run out of the capital in the mid-nineteenth century. Our grandmother Florence McGill is related to him. Living descendants still carry his name.

Read his Wikipedia page

Bishop S. D. Ferguson
Grandpa's great great uncle · Family archive — portrait

A son of Liberia

Samuel David Ferguson

January 1, 1842 — August 2, 1916

Samuel David Ferguson was an African American clergyman and the first African American elected bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Liberia. Born in Charleston, South Carolina, he moved to Liberia as a child and was ordained a deacon in 1865 and a priest in 1868. Consecrated Missionary Bishop of Liberia in 1885, he founded what is now Cuttington University and established the Bromley Mission School, building the Liberian church on education. He served Liberia for more than three decades until his death in Monrovia in 1916.

Read his Wikipedia page