Pierre Toussaint - c. 1860

Life
Our tour of SoHo will bring you by St. Patrick's Old Cathedral, where you'll find the grave of Pierre Toussaint.

Toussaint led an extraordinary, rags-to-riches life. He was born a slave in Haiti. In 1791, when the famous Slave Rebellion broke out, he was brought here by his owners - the Bernard family. With the clothes on their backs, they all fled in a small boat, arriving in New York a few weeks later. Monsieur Bernard died from wounds suffered in the Rebellion, leaving his family penniless and stranded in a foreign land.

But Toussaint had been trained as a hair dresser for the French aristocrats in Haiti , and in the 18th century, that was lucrative trade. Every American knows the song Yankee Doodle Dandy:“Yankee Doodle went to town riding on his pony, stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni.”

The song was originally sung by the English to make fun of Americans as country bumpkins. But Americans threw it back at them by adopting it as their national anthem during the Revolution. A doodle back then was a redneck or moron; a Macaroni was an extremely elaborate Italian hairstyle.

When preparing to attend a ball, ladies would spend hours having their hair done up in huge constructions, often braced by wooden supports that rested on their shoulders. Some would have ships of the line circling around towering beehives. Others would have elaborate birds nesting above, and so forth - all of which meant that good hairdressers were in high demand.

Toussaint was one of the best. In the early 1800's, New Yorkers were becoming rich and putting on airs; this French-trained artiste was just the man to fulfill them. Toussaint did well, managing to support his mistress and her children until they were grown. When she died, she gave him his freedom. He then became a pillar of this church and helped other refugees like himself get on their feet in New York .

Toussaint is currently in the process of being made a saint by the Catholic Church.