Nationality Canadian Religion Christianity | Name Rose Fortune | |
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Born March 13, 1774 ( 1774-03-13 ) Colony of Virginia Died February 20, 1864, Annapolis Royal, Canada | ||
ROSE FORTUNE MONUMENT DEDICATION
Rose Fortune (March 13, 1774 – February 20, 1864) was a Canadian woman who came to Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, with the Black Loyalists, where she became a successful businesswoman and the first female police officer in Canada.
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Rose fortune
Life and career
Rose Fortune was born into slavery in Philadelphia, PA, March 13, 1774, her family subsequently being relocated to Virginia by the Devones family. Escaping slavery during the American Revolution the family was relocated to Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, as part of the Black Loyalist migration, when Rose was 10 years old. In 1825, she started her own business, carting luggage between the ferry docks and nearby homes and hotels. She became entrusted with safeguarding property and maintaining order on the wharves and warehouses of Annapolis Royal, acting as the town's waterfront police officer.
Rose Fortune died on February 20, 1864, in the small house she owned at the engineer's lot near Fort Anne. The business she founded was continued by her grandson-in-law Albert Lewis as the Lewis Transfer Company and continued for several generations, remaining in business until 1980. Rose Fortune was buried in Annapolis Royal in the Garrison Cemetery. Her grave is unmarked, but a plaque in the Petite Parc on the Annapolis Royal waterfront commemorates her life and contribution to Nova Scotian history.
Legacy
Her direct descendant was Daurene Lewis, who was elected Mayor of Annapolis Royal in 1984, being the first African-Canadian woman to attain that position. In May 2015, the name M/V Fundy Rose was given to the ferry that crosses the Bay of Fundy to New Brunswick.
FORTUNE, a play inspired by the life of Rose Fortune, written by playwright George Cameron Grant, has been performed through the US and Maritimes. In 2013, Grant, on a Candlelight Graveyard tour led by Annapolis Royal historian Alan Melanson, was guided to the final, unmarked resting place of Rose Fortune. A year later, the play FORTUNE was finished, a year after that, the new Digby ferry bore her name, and a Rose Fortune Memorial, sculpted by noted artist Brad Hall, was dedicated in Annapolis Royal's Garrison Cemetery, Canada Day, July 1, 2017.
The Government of Canada named a new ferry party after Rose. The ferry MV Fundy Rose, commissioned in 2015 to operate between Digby, Nova Scotia and Saint John, New Brunswick, was named for the Bay of Fundy and Rose Fortune.