Passport
Edmonia Lewis's sworn 1865 application for a passport states her vital statistics,
born in Greenbush, NY, on or about the 4th of July 1844, etc. She probably
prepared it months before she signed it, creating a small but easily resolved
discrepancy between the age of 20 and the July birth date. Greenbush (now
Rensselaer) did not officially record births until the 1870s.
Note her small stature, only four feet tall at the age of twenty.
Her sponsor, merchant Parry Kennard, wrote in the margin, "M. Edmonia
Lewis is a black girl sent by subscription to Italy having displayed great
talent as a sculptor."
