According to FindAGrave.com, her headstone is in the Heard
Cemetery, Sandtown, Wilkes County, Georgia. It reads, “MAMMY KATE WHO RESCUED
HER MASTER STEPHEN HEARD IN FEB 1779 ON EVE OF HIS EXECUTION BY THE BRITISH.” Stephen
Heard served as temporary governor and council president in the early colonial
days of Georgia. Mammy Kate, a slave in his household, was well over six feet
tall, very strong, and absolutely fearless. As the story goes, Mammy Kate
learned her master had been captured by the Tories and sentenced to be hanged.
She showed up with a large basket of laundry and told his guards, “Let him hang in clean clothes.” They let her pass. When she left again, Heard was in
the basket, hidden under clothing. No doubt this tale has been embellished many
times in nearly two and a half centuries. But then, there is that grave marker.
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