encyclopediavirginia: The story of a Virginia slave made good: Cornelius [Sparrow] was born a slave at Norfolk, Virginia, in 1824. In the 1840s and 1850s, a number of escaped slaves came to Saint John [in New Brunswick] and Sparrow, probably hounded by slave hunters after the passing of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, escaped and made his way to Saint John in 1851. He married a Saint John lady, Martha Jane Moore, in 1851, and the same year he became a Freeman of the City. Cornelius first worked as a labourer but by 1862 he had opened his Royal Saloon at 18 Charlotte Street, where the now demolished Shoppers Drug Store stood across from Calps.  Read more.

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