Louis Sansbury (1806-1861), a black slave owned by George Sansbury, was left with the keys to Sansbury’s hotel to watch over the business. In 1833, left virtually alone with the sick and dying, he fed and treated many cholera sufferers, both slaves and free citizens, who had been abandoned. He wrapped the dead in sheets and buried them in graves he dug in Springfield Cemetery. After his owner died, he was emancipated. A grateful city remembered his courage and compassion by helping him purchase and establish a blacksmith shop at Walnut and Main. In 1854, when another cholera epidemic struck Springfield, he again took care of the sick and dying.