Lois Tritton was born in 1799 in Nova Scotia to her enslaved mother, Lucy. In the mid-1700s, Lucy and her parents had been stolen from West Africa and brought to St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. There, they were sold to Robert Tritton, a ship captain from London. It is not clear what happened to Lucy’s mother, but she and her father were taken to London and were eventually separated, with Lucy remaining in the Tritton household. At some point the Trittons moved to Nova Scotia, taking Lucy with them. The family had a second home in New Haven, and would go back and forth between the two. In 1790, Robert  Tritton drowned at sea during a storm. Lucy was listed in his estate inventory as one of his most valuable assets. 

In 1799 Lucy gave birth to Lois. Apparently experiencing financial challenges, Sara Tritton used Lucy and Lois as collateral for a loan. The initial purchaser of the loan sold it to a man named John Nicoll, and when Sara Tritton could not repay it, New Haven’s sheriff arranged an auction of mother and daughter. On March 8, 1825, perhaps the final sale of enslaved persons in Connecticut took place on the New Haven Green. Lucy and Lois Tritton were sold to Anthony P. Sanford for $10. Said to have been an abolitionist, Sanford set them free. 

Lucy and Lois worked as laundresses in New Haven, where Lucy died in her 90s. Lois also lived until her 90s, with her obituary appearing in newspapers across the country. She married and had a son named Henry, who was a barber. Known to the community as “Aunt Lois,” she was commemorated in a service at Trinity Church on the Green, where she and her mother are now memorialized alongside each other with Witness Stones markers.