Pierre Toussaint

“The Father of Catholic Charities in New York”

● He was born in 1766 on the French island of Saint-Domingue (Haiti).

● He was a domestic slave of Berard’s family, that family moved to the United
States and brought five of their slaves with them, including Pierre.
● His owner/boss died a couple of years later when he came back to Haiti to
check on his property.
● Pierre started to work as a hairdresser, which allowed him to earn enough
money to take care of his mistress Marie Berard, and bought the freedom of
his future wife Juliette.
● At the age of 40 years old, his mistress Berard died, and he became free.
● Pierre took the surname of Toussaint, likely in honor of Toussaint
Louverture, the leader of the Haitian Revolution.
● Pierre also purchased his sister’s freedom and adopted her daughter,
Euphemia, but she died at the age of fourteen from tuberculosis.
● He was a benefactor for a Roman Catholic Church that became St. Patrick’s
Cathedral.
● The Toussaint family used their home to provide refuge for orphan children,
whom they educated and taught trades.
 ● Pierre and Juliette were benefactors of the First New York City Catholic
School for black children and the Oblate Sisters of Providence, a Catholic
school in Baltimore established to educate black girls.

123 W and 23th St

● Also, he assisted French-speaking immigrants arriving in New York from
Haiti.
● Pierre and Juliette never stopped working to help other people until she
died in 1851, three years later, he died at eighty-seven.
● Pierre was buried beside his wife and Euphemia in St. Patrick’s Old
Cathedral cemetery in New York City.

In recognition of Pierre Toussaint’s virtuous life, the late Cardinal Cooke

introduced Pierre’s cause for canonization (in the Roman Catholic Church is the
official admission of a dead person into sainthood.) at the Vatican in 1968.

On December 17, 1997, Pope John Paul II declared Pierre Toussaint, Venerable,
thus placing him firmly on the road to becoming North America’s first black saint.