Author: Walter Hawkins

Hawkins, Walter. (Georgetown, Maryland, 1809?--August 6, 1894, Toronto, Ontario). American/British Methodist Episcopal. Born a slave, he reckoned that he was converted in 1822, but had little chance to develop his faith until he escaped to Philadelphia about 1840. Moving to Buffalo, New York, he organized an AME congregation before settling (after a brief stay in New Bedford, Massachusetts) on a farm near Saratoga. The Fugitive Slave Act (1850) brought about his move to Toronto, whose few black Methodists were then worshipping with their white neighbors; both accepted his services as a lay preacher. In 1856, however, Ontario's blacks formed a British ME church, which accepted him as a full-time pastor for communities which many ex-slaves we… Go to person page >