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Anna Minerva Henderson was an award-winning poet, writer, and civil service employee, born in Saint John, New Brunswick, on August 8, 1887, the second daughter of William Robert Henderson and Henrietta Leake Henderson and her older sister Mabel M Henderson. Her father William Robert Henderson was an African American [|Civil War] veteran who moved to New Brunswick. Henderson’s poetry book ‘Citadel’ was the first collection of poems by an [https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/canlit/article/view/192988/189471. African Canadian woman.]

Anna Minerva Henderson started her career as a teacher for a short period in Nova Scotia for the black community. After, she worked as a civil servant in Ottawa. She finished her business school in 1912, and she wrote the Federal Civil Service Exam for a clerical position. Henderson was one of the top scorers and obtained a job as a stenographer at the Department of The Interior of Dominion Land Branch. After that, she moved to the Immigration Board of the Department of Mines and Resources, Ottawa, where she worked for 33years.

Anna Minerva Henderson started her literary journey with feature writing and poems in Ottawa Citizen titled “Colyum”. She wrote some sonnets “Parliament Hill” when she was 50years old and actively engaged with writing in little magazines. Henderson wrote poems in Canadian Poetry Magazine edited by E.J Pratt in 1937. In 1945 she backed to Saint John and worked as a stenographer for local firm Fairweather and Stevenson. In 1967, Henderson published her book Citadel -collections of her poems about her hometown. Anna Minerva Henderson was the ‘first Black woman in English in Canada to dare to publish a chapbook of verse’(Clarke). She portrayed Saint John’s beauty, a foggy day at Market Slip in Saint John maritime. People should know who she is, her creations- poetry, her life, and her contribution to Canadian literature is immeasurable.