From the CBC description, “As an adult, she started a successful baggage-carting business along Annapolis Royal’s waterfront, toting goods and luggage in a wheelbarrow. That business was maintained by a grandson-in-law into the 1980s. She also helped keep order along the docks, and is widely considered to be Canada’s first female police officer — a huge feat in a time where major civil rights and feminist movements were still more than a century away.”
The Nova Scotia Archives state that, “Rose’s death is recorded among the burials at St. Luke’s, Church of England, Annapolis Royal on 20 February 1867: “age unknown, supposed about ninety.” Several written accounts of her survive. Long after her death, Rose was remembered as an authoritative person and one of the more notable and interesting characters of early Annapolis Royal.”
Rose Fortune is one of the Black families who remained in Annapolis. Other families would relocate to Digby, then New Brunswick and finally join the exodus to Africa.
Sources:
Nova Scotia Archives: https://archives.novascotia.ca/africanns/archives/?ID=30
CBC:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/black-loyalist-rose-fortune-recognized-for-historical-significance-1.5219561
