God and One Redhead
As a mill girl, she never felt quite at ease with the social niceties and ample lifestyle of the several missionary families comfortably stationed at Duke Town. (And no doubt they had reservations about her—a twenty-nine-year-old woman who admittedly had climbed every tree worth climbing between Duke Town and Old Town.)
“Sending a single woman to the Okoyongs was considered by many to be an exercise in insanity, but Mary was determined to go and would not be dissuaded. After visiting the area a number of times with other missionaries, Mary was convinced that pioneer work was best accomplished by women, who, she believed, were less threatening to unreached tribes than men. So in August of 1888, with the assistance of her friend, King Eyo, of Old Town, she was on her way north.
For the next quarter of a century and more, Mary would continue to pioneer missions in areas in which no white man had been able to survive.
For fifteen years (minus two furloughs) she stayed with the Okoyongs, teaching them and nursing them and arbitrating their disputes. Her reputation as a peacemaker spread to outlying districts, and soon she was acting as a judge for the whole region. In 1892 she became the first vice-consul to Okoyong, a government position she held for many years. In that capacity she acted as a judge and presided over court cases involving disputes over land, debts, family matters, and the like. Her methods were unconventional by British standards (often refusing to act solely on the evidence before her if she personally was aware of other factors), but they were well suited to African society.
Although Mary was highly respected as a judge and had influenced the gradual decline in witchcraft and superstition, she saw little progress in bringing Christianity to the Okoyongs. She considered herself a pioneer and she viewed her work as preparatory and was not unduly anxious that she could not send glowing reports back home of hosts of converts and thriving churches. She organised schools, taught practical skills, and established trade routes, all in preparation for missionaries (ordained men being her preference) to follow.”
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