A slave by birth and a hairdresser by trade, St. Pierre Toussaint (1776-1863) came to New York from his native Haiti just after the Revolutionary War. He was a man of remarkable humility, grace and generosity; it was said of him that no finer gentlemen ever walked the face of the earth.
Saint Pierre’s Deathbed Prayer: “God is with me, I want nothing on the earth.”
Woodeene Koenig-Bricker in Prayers of the Saints (New York, HarperCollins, 1996) 55.