Peter Fossett | |
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| Born | June 5, 1815 |
| Died | January 3, 1901 (aged 85) |
| Spouse | Sarah M. Fossett |
| Parent(s) | Edith Hern Fossett Joseph Fossett |
| Relatives | Mary Hemings (grandmother) Betty Hemings (great grandmother), Hemings family |
Peter Farley Fossett (June 5, 1815 – January 3, 1901) was an enslaved laborer at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's plantation, who after he attained his freedom in the mid-19th century, 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 desegregation of streetcars in the city for African-American women. For twenty-five years, she was the manager of the Colored Orphans Asylum in Cincinnati.