Peter Fossett
Peter Fossett (June 6, 1815 – January 1901) was an enslaved laborer at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's plantation, who after he attained his freedom in the mid-1800s, settled in Cincinnati where he established himself as a minister and caterer. He was a captain in the Black Brigade of Cincinnati during the Civil War. Fossett was an activist for education and prison reform. He was a conductor on the Underground Railroad. His remembrances, "Once the slave of Thomas Jefferson", were published in 1898.

His wife, Sarah M. Fossett, was active in the church and Underground Railroad as well, but she was also noteworthy in her own right. Trained by a French specialist in New Orleans, she was a hairdresser to the elite women of Cincinnati's society. She was brought to Cincinnati by Abraham Evan Gwynne, the father of Alice Claypoole Vanderbilt. In 1860, she filed a suit after being denied passage on a streetcar, which resulted in the segregation of streetcars in the city for African-American women. For twenty-five years, she was the manager of the Colored Orphans Asylum in Cincinnati.
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Monticello
LOC
Q11812
Thomas Jefferson
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Cincinnati
LOC
Q4920434
Black Brigade of Cincinnati
PER
Q8676
Civil War
EVE
Q868393
Underground Railroad
ORG
Q4725780
Alice Claypoole Vanderbilt
PER
Q83390557
Peter Fossett
PER
1815-06-06T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
June 6, 1815
DATE
1901-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
January 1901
DATE
1898-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1898
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1860
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date of birth
date of death