Hester Patterson
burial certificate
*The birth of Hester Patterson is celebrated on July 9, 1805. She was a Black domestic and abolitionist.
Hester was born in Mississippi and was enslaved on a cotton plantation until she was about 60 years old. During the American Civil War's Siege of Vicksburg in 1863, in an uncommon act of bravery, she escaped and made her way to the camp of the 5th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry. There, she was befriended by company surgeon Dr. William H. Leonard, who booked passage for her on a steamboat that was headed to St. Paul.
When she arrived, she took a train to Minneapolis and made her way to Leonard's home. Patterson moved to Hennepin Island, where she owned two plots of land. She built a cabin from scraps of wood that workers from a nearby lumber mill gave her. She took in laundry and mending to make ends meet. She insisted on being baptized in the Mississippi River in January, an act that resulted in both Hester and the minister needing to be rescued from the freezing water.
Her one regret was that she could not read the Bible. Often referred to as a Freedom Seeker, Hester Patterson died on February 8, 1875, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
