Susannah Maxwell

Susannah Augusta Maxwell née Stokes (10 March 1805 – 11 February 1923) was a prominent Black citizen of Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada, in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Susannah Maxwell, c. 1880s.

Maxwell was born in Pennsylvania in 1805 to free Black parents, but orphaned at a young age.[1] She became an indentured servant to a white family, who apparently provided some education as she learned to read and write.[1] As an adult, she married Henry Maxwell and the couple established a household in Lancaster County, possibly in Christiana.[1]

The family was forced to flee Pennsylvania after the Christiana incident, as the influx of bounty hunters, encouraged by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, made it unsafe for Black residents to remain.[2] In 1855 the family was living in New York State (where her daughter Charlotte Matilda (Tillie) was born) and by 1858 they'd arrived in Upper Canada via the Underground Railroad, spending some time in Toronto.[1][3]

In 1871 they moved to Richmond Hill, north of Toronto, and were one of very few, if not the only, Black families in the town.[1][4] Henry worked as a stoker and Susannah, along with two of her daughters, operated a laundry business from their home.[1] One story tells of Maxwell walking 7 miles (11 km) to work in Markham, where wages were higher, and falling unconscious in a snow storm on her return journey. She was found by a dog who alerted nearby residents who saved her.[1] Her husband died soon after they moved to Richmond Hill.[1]

Maxwell was active in the local Presbyterian Church.[1]

Maxwell's obituary published on page 1 of the Globe.

She lived to the age of 117, surviving her husband and all five of her children.[1] At the time of her death in 1923 she was reported to be Canada's oldest citizen.[1] Her funeral was conducted by Richard Amos Ball, a minister of the British Methodist Episcopal Church church and the son of fugitive slaves who had also used the Underground Railroad to reach Canada.[1][5]