Patty Cannon, whose birth name may have been Lucretia Patricia Hanly (c. 1759/1760 or 1769 – May 11, 1829), was an illegal slave trader, murderer and the co-leader of the Cannon–Johnson Gang of Maryland–Delaware. The group operated for about a decade in the early 19th century and abducted hundreds of free Black people and

fugitive A fugitive (or runaway) is a person who is fleeing from custody, whether it be from jail, a government arrest, government or non-government questioning, vigilante violence, or outraged private individuals. A fugitive from justice, also known ...

slaves Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

, along the

Delmarva Peninsula The Delmarva Peninsula, or simply Delmarva, is a large peninsula and proposed state on the East Coast of the United States, occupied by the vast majority of the state of Delaware and parts of the Eastern Shore regions of Maryland and Virginia ...

, across multiple state lines to sell into slavery in southern states such as Alabama and Mississippi. The activity became known as the

Reverse Underground Railroad The Reverse Underground Railroad is the name given, sardonically, to the pre-American Civil War practice of kidnapping in free states not only fugitive slaves but free blacks as well, transporting them to slave states, and selling them as sla ...

. Mayor Joseph Watson of Philadelphia and Governor

John Andrew Shulze John Andrew Shulze (July 19, 1775November 18, 1852) was a Pennsylvania political leader and the sixth governor of Pennsylvania. He was a member of the Muhlenberg Family, Muhlenberg family political dynasty. Early life and education Shulze was b ...

of Pennsylvania worked to recover young free Black people kidnapped by the gang in the summer of 1825 and to prosecute the gang members. They did not succeed in trying any of the white members. The only time any real efforts to arrest and convict the gang is when authorities found the bodies of several white slave traders, a child and a baby. After being acquitted in Mayor's Court, biracial gang member John Purnell (aliases include "John Smith") was convicted on two counts of kidnapping in Philadelphia County Court in Pennsylvania in 1827. He was sentenced to a fine and 42 years in jail. He died in jail five years later. In 1829, Cannon was the only member of the gang captured and indicted in Delaware for four murders after the remains of four Black people (including three children) were discovered on property she owned. She was held at the Sussex County Jail. She confessed to nearly two dozen murders and died in prison while awaiting trial.Henderson (2008), "Rescuing African Americans", pg. 328 Some sources say she committed

suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...

by poison. Beginning in 1841, some popular accounts referred to the illegal slave trader as Lucretia P. Cannon, although there is no evidence to indicate she used the name "Lucretia" in her lifetime. A popular 19th-century novel based on her exploits contributed to her mythic status as a ruthless figure. She has continued to be featured as a figure in fiction. The state of Delaware placed a historical marker in Seaford dedicated "to the victims of this evil enterprise, and those who struggled against it."

Marriages and early crimes

Cannon married local farmer Jesse Cannon and they lived near what is now Reliance, Delaware/Maryland (then called Johnson's Crossroads), on the border with Delaware at the convergence of Caroline and Dorchester counties in Maryland, and Sussex County, Delaware. Jesse Cannon died around 1826. Cannon and her husband had at least one daughter, who twice married men known to engage in slave-stealing and kidnapping. The daughter first married Henry Brereton, a blacksmith who kidnapped free Black Americans for sale into slavery. Brereton was convicted and imprisoned in 1811 for such kidnapping, but escaped from the

Georgetown, Delaware Georgetown is a town and the county seat of Sussex County, Delaware, United States. According to the 2010 census, the population of the town is 6,422, an increase of 38.3% over the previous decade. Georgetown is part of the Salisbury, Maryland ...

jail. Brereton was captured, convicted of murder in another case, and hanged with one of his criminal associates, Joseph Griffith.Frank, William P. "Interview with genealogist George Valentine Massey," ''Wilmington News'' (Delaware), 2 September 1960, quoted in Ted Giles, ''Patty Cannon: Woman of Mystery'', Easton, Maryland: The Easton Publishing Co., 1965 Some time after this, Cannon's daughter married Joe Johnson, who became the mother's most notorious partner in crime. Johnson had a tavern a few miles from the Cannon house. Information about Cannon and Johnson has been confusing, with fact and fiction mixed; Johnson has been described as Cannon's husband or son-in-law.John Henderson, Joseph Watson, Job Brown, Thomas Bradford Junr., R. L. Kennon, Joshua Boucher, H. V. Somerville and Eric Ledell Smith, "Rescuing African American Kidnapping Victims in Philadelphia as Documented in the Joseph Watson Papers"
''Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography'', Vol. 129 (2008), pp. 317, 330–332, accessed 16 April 2015 The Cannon–Johnson gang included whites and blacks, among them Henry Carr and John Purnell, described as a "yellow" man or mulatto, who used several aliases. They served as decoys to get young blacks aboard their boat or close enough to take captive.Giles, Ted. ''Patty Cannon: Woman of Mystery.'' Easton, MD: Easton Publishing Company, 1965. Robert Bereton, a relative of Cannon's late son-in-law, also continued to be involved with the gang at least until 1826. Kidnapping a free black to be sold into slavery, 1834 woodcut

Kidnapping a free black to be sold into slavery, 1834 woodcut

Political and economic excuses for slaves

The

U.S. Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is Bicameralism, bicameral, composed of a lower body, the United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives, and an upper body, ...

banned the importation of slaves in 1808. Because of demand due to development of cotton culture in the Deep South and the spread of short-staple cotton made profitable by invention of the

cotton gin A cotton gin—meaning "cotton engine"—is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation.. Reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York and London, 1926 (); a ...

, the domestic slave trade became even more lucrative. The cash value of slaves shot upward, creating a strong incentive for kidnappers. By this time, many free Black Americans lived in Maryland and Delaware, which were still slave states, as a result of manumissions after the Revolutionary War, in addition to

mixed-race Mixed race people are people of more than one race or ethnicity. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mixed race people in a variety of contexts, including ''multiethnic'', ''polyethnic'', occasionally ''bi-ethn ...

families formed by unions between free white women and African men in colonial Virginia. In addition, nearby

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

had the largest population of free black Americans in the North and no professional police force in the antebellum years. Residents, especially children because they were more easily controlled, were at risk from kidnappers. At a time when southern slaveholders came to the city with their slaves, it was difficult for onlookers to determine what was happening between adults and children, and especially between adult black Americans and those who appeared to be their children, when kidnappers used black accomplices. Cannon's kidnapping forays could troll waterfront areas throughout the region, enticing young men aboard their boat to help decoy workers. The kidnapping of free blacks left their land and other property behind. The local white communities generally did not take action on behalf of free blacks, if they learned of such kidnappings at all. But Philadelphia had an active mayor, Joseph Watson, a Quaker, who made concerted efforts on behalf of stolen free blacks with officials in Mississippi and Alabama, which included paying for gathering of affidavits and, in the case of Cornelius Sinclair in 1827, a white witness to travel to Alabama to attest to his identity. A novel written about Cannon sixty years after she was most active, ''The Entailed Hat, Or, Patty Cannon's Times'' (1884), suggests that the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It bega ...

, in which thousands of slaves joined the British for freedom, contributed to lack of local white community interest in Cannon's crimes against blacks. The novel describes British activities in

Tangier Island Tangier is a town in Accomack County, Virginia, United States, on Tangier Island in Chesapeake Bay. The population was 727 at the 2010 census. Since 1850, the island's landmass has been reduced by 67%. Under the mid-range sea level rise scena ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

Cambridge, Maryland Cambridge is a city in Dorchester County, Maryland, United States. The population was 13,096 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Dorchester County and the county's largest municipality. Cambridge is the fourth most populous city in Maryl ...

and Georgetown, Delaware, where they recruited slaves to escape their masters and fight with the British by promising them freedom.

Accounts of gang crimes

Detailed accounts by kidnapping victims who regained freedom in 1826 were published in the

abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...

journal, ''The

African Observer ''The African Observer'', subtitled "Illustrative of the General Character, and Moral and Political Effects of Negro Slavery", was an abolitionist publication, produced in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as a monthly journal between 1827 and 1828.Prid ...

,'' published in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

in 1826 through 1827. Kidnapped captives were chained and hidden in the basement, attic, and secret rooms in Cannon's house. Captives were taken in covered wagons to Cannon's Ferry (now Woodland Ferry). They were often put aboard a schooner traveling down the

Nanticoke River The Nanticoke River is a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay on the Delmarva Peninsula. It rises in southern Kent County, Delaware, flows through Sussex County, Delaware, and forms the boundary between Dorchester County, Maryland and Wicomico County ...

to the

Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The Bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula (including the parts: the ...

, from where they were shipped to

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

and other slave markets.Shields, J. ''The Infamous Patty Cannon in History and Legend.'' Dover, DE : Bibliotheca Literaria Press, 1990. Some were taken overland for sale in Alabama and Mississippi. The gang's activities continued for many years. Local law enforcement officials were reluctant to halt the illegal operations, given the lack of concern that most people in authority felt for black people in those days, and may have been afraid of the gang's reputation for violence. When Patty Cannon learned the police were coming, she would slip across state lines away from local police forces. According to depositions from victims who gained freedom and returned to homes in the North, Joe Johnson kept the captives in

leg irons Legcuffs are physical restraints used on the ankles of a person to allow walking only with a restricted stride and to prevent running and effective physical resistance. Frequently used alternative terms are leg cuffs, (leg/ankle) shackles, foot ...

. He "severely whipped" captives who insisted they were free, to stop them from giving that account. His wife, Patty's daughter, was overheard saying that it "did er/nowiki> good to see him beat the boys."''Cannon House''

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

transcript of the Season 1, Episode 4 segment on ''

History Detectives ''History Detectives'' is a documentary television series on Public Broadcasting Service, PBS. It features investigations made by members of a small team of researchers to identify and/or authenticate items which may have historical significance or ...

,''

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

. Accessed online August 29, 2007. ("

Boy A boy is a young male human. The term is commonly used for a child or an adolescent. When a male human reaches adulthood, he is described as a man. Definition, etymology, and use According to the ''Merriam-Webster Dictionary'', a boy is "a ...

" was a degrading reference to a black man of any age; Mrs. Johnson was not referring to male children.) Lydia Smith, a 25-year-old free Black woman, testified that she was kidnapped in 1825 and kept in Cannon's home before being moved to Johnson's tavern. She was held there for five months until she was shipped south with a large lot of kidnapped free blacks being sold into slavery.

Prosecution and conviction

The gang was initially indicted in May 1822. Joe Johnson was sentenced to the

pillory The pillory is a device made of a wooden or metal framework erected on a post, with holes for securing the head and hands, formerly used for punishment by public humiliation and often further physical abuse. The pillory is related to the stocks ...

Winfield Hazlitt Collins, ''The Domestic Slave Trade of the United States''
1904, pp. 90–92. Accessed August 29, 2007. and 39 lashes; records show the sentence was carried out. Cannon and several other gang members, though charged with Johnson, apparently were not prosecuted. In the mid-1820s, Mayor Joseph Watson of Philadelphia and Governor John Andrew Schulze cooperated to retrieve kidnapped young blacks from Mississippi and to prosecute the Cannon–Johnson gang. In 1826 Watson offered a $500 reward for information leading to the arrest of members, and Schulze issued orders of extradition to the states of Virginia, Alabama and Mississippi. That year they aided most of the young free blacks kidnapped and sold in Mississippi the year before to gain freedom and return to Philadelphia. At least one had died of a beating. In 1827, after

Cornelius Sinclair Cornelius Sinclair (c. 1813 to unknown) was an African American child kidnapped in Philadelphia in August 1825 by Patty Cannon's gang. He was one of a number of children kidnapped that summer and later transported south, to be sold into slavery. ...

had been freed from slavery in Alabama, he was among witnesses to testify against Henry Carr and John Purnell (alias "John Smith"), two members of the gang who were prosecuted for kidnapping free blacks. They were acquitted in Mayor's Court, and Carr left for Alabama, where he died in 1828. Purnell was also tried in the Philadelphia County Court, where he was convicted in Philadelphia on two counts of kidnapping, and sentenced to a $4000 fine and 42 years in prison. He died five years later while incarcerated in

Walnut Street Prison Walnut Street Prison was a city jail and prison, penitentiary house in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from 1790 to 1838. Legislation calling for establishment of the jail was passed in 1773 to relieve overcrowding in the High Street Jail; the first ...

in the city.Judson E. Crump and Alfred L. Brophy, "Cornelius Sinclair's Odyssey: Freedom, Slavery, and Freedom Again in the Old South"
Social Science Research Network, July 2014, p. 59, UNC Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2469529, accessed 16 April 2015. In 1829, bodies of four black people, including three children, were discovered buried on farm property which Cannon owned in Delaware. A tenant farmer uncovered their remains during plowing. In April 1829, Patty Cannon was

indicted An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concept often use that of an ...

on four counts of murder by a grand jury of 24 white males: *an infant female on April 26, 1822 *a male child on April 26, 1822 *an adult male on October 1, 1820 *a "Negro boy" on June 1, 1824, The indictments were signed by James Rogers, the Attorney General of Delaware. Witness Cyrus James stated he saw Cannon take an injured "black child not yet dead out in her apron, but that it never returned." James, a

(mulatto) man, had been purchased as a slave by Cannon when he was only seven years old. He had grown up in her household and participated in her crimes, sometimes serving as a decoy to make free blacks feel safe in working with him on a task.

Death

Cannon confessed to nearly two dozen murders of black kidnap victims, and died in prison while awaiting trial. Cannon died in her cell, in Georgetown, Delaware, on May 11, 1829, at an age estimated to be between sixty and seventy. Sources differ as to whether she was convicted and sentenced to hang before her death. Shields asserts that she committed suicide. Other sources contend that she died of natural causes. The novel ''The Entailed Hat'' attributes her death to self-administered poison.

Burial

Her body was initially buried in the

graveyard A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek , "sleeping place") implies that the land is specifically designated as a buri ...

of the Georgetown, Delaware jail. Before that land was developed as a parking lot in the 20th century, her remains, along with those of two other women, were exhumed and reburied in a

potter's field A potter's field, paupers' grave or common grave is a place for the burial of unknown, unclaimed or indigent people. "Potter's field" is of Biblical origin, referring to Akeldama (meaning ''field of blood'' in Aramaic), stated to have been pu ...

near the new jail.

Public display of her skull

Her skull was separated from the rest of her bones, lying in the pauper's grave or

, when a future parking lot was being excavated and later put on display in various venues, including on loan to the Dover Public Library in 1961. It was loaned to the Smithsonian in 2010 to allow scientists to learn more about settler life in the Chesapeake.

Legacy

In the 1990s, a historical marker was placed on the highway near what is sometimes called the "Patty Cannon House" in Reliance, Maryland, but this structure was built about 1840. A

history series proved the marker was placed on land which Joe Johnson bought in 1821 for $150, and Patty Cannon bought from him in 1826. Her own residence, which was built in the 18th century, stood several hundred yards away and was torn down in 1948. "Nearby Stood" was later added to the marker. In 2012, a new marker, which more explicitly details the horrors committed by the Cannon/Johnson gang, was erected across the state line from the previous marker. A housing development, which was established in 1973, stands on the Delaware side of the Nanticoke River and is named the Patty Cannon Estates.

Representation in other media

*''Narrative and Confessions of Lucretia P. Cannon'' (1841), published anonymously in New York. This pamphlet inspired others, in which the main character's name and crimes were changed.Babylon: Sin City, U.S.A., (Part) I
Part of the ''Red, White, Blue and Brimstone'' online exhibit sponsored by the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...

, 1999–present. Accessed September 25, 2007. These pamphlets were a subgenre of sensational literature which resembled a combination of modern

pulp magazine Pulp magazines (also referred to as "the pulps") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 to the late 1950s. The term "pulp" derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. In contrast, magazine ...

s and

true crime True crime is a nonfiction literary, podcast, and film genre in which the author examines an actual crime and details the actions of real people associated with and affected by criminal events. The crimes most commonly include murder; about 40 per ...

books; they were contemporary with the British

penny dreadful Penny dreadfuls were cheap popular serial literature produced during the nineteenth century in the United Kingdom. The pejorative term is roughly interchangeable with penny horrible, penny awful, and penny blood. The term typically referred to ...

s. Cannon was given the first name "Lucretia" in the 1841 pamphlet, apparently to associate her with

Lucretia Borgia Lucrezia Borgia (; ca-valencia, Lucrècia Borja, links=no ; 18 April 1480 – 24 June 1519) was a Spanish-Italian noblewoman of the House of Borgia who was the daughter of Pope Alexander VI and Vannozza dei Cattanei. She reigned as the Govern ...

, a notorious Italian poisoner. *The novel, ''The Entailed Hat, Or, Patty Cannon's Times'' (1884) by George Alfred Townsend, included fictional material. Its popularity resulted in numerous hardback editions; it was reissued in 1890, 1912, 1955 and 1969. A paperback edition was issued in March 2007. *Various modern collections of ghost stories include information on Patty Cannon. *The slave-stealing Patty Ridenour character in a sixth-season episode of '' Homicide: Life on the Street'' entitled "Sins of the Father" (aired January 9, 1998) appears to be modeled on Cannon. * James McBride features Patty Cannon as a figure in his 2008 historical novel, ''Song Yet Sung'' (2008). *

Clive Cussler Clive Eric Cussler (July 15, 1931 – February 24, 2020) was an American adventure novelist and underwater explorer. His thriller novels, many featuring the character Dirk Pitt, have reached ''The New York Times'' fiction best-seller list ...

and Grant Blackwood's novel, ''Spartan Gold'' (2009), is based in part upon Cannon and a modern-day search for valuable stolen artifacts which she may have left behind. *The WGN TV series ''

Underground Underground most commonly refers to: * Subterranea (geography), the regions beneath the surface of the Earth Underground may also refer to: Places * The Underground (Boston), a music club in the Allston neighborhood of Boston * The Underground (S ...

'' introduced the character Patty Cannon (played by Brigid Brannagh and later Sadie Stratton) in its first-season finale (2016). However, this was an

anachronism An anachronism (from the Ancient Greek, Greek , 'against' and , 'time') is a chronology, chronological inconsistency in some arrangement, especially a juxtaposition of people, events, objects, language terms and customs from different time per ...

since this Cannon is a fairly young woman in the late 1850s, more than three decades past when the real person died. *Cannon was featured in an episode of ''

Deadly Women ''Deadly Women'' is an American true crime documentary television series produced by Beyond International Group and airing on the Investigation Discovery (ID) network. The series focuses on murders committed by women. It is hosted by former ...

''. Season 11 episode 4 The Dark Side

References

External links

''The Entailed Hat: Or, Patty Cannon's Times''
online text of book at

Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a Virtual volunteering, volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the ...

Selections from ''The Entailed Hat''
edited by William C. Chase (2002), emeritus, McDaniel University

History Detectives: "Cannon House"], ''

'' website containing transcrip

photo, and evidence used in Season 1, Episode 4
Homicide: Life On The Street
"Sins of the Father" episode details at

Internet Movie Database IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

Jane Burt, "Patty Cannon"
with a photo of Patty Cannon House historical marker, Global Classroom, 2009–2010 project of elementary schools, Salisbury, MD.
"The Legend of Patty Cannon" Delaware Public Radio program
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cannon, Patty 1829 deaths 1820s suicides American female serial killers American people who died in prison custody American slave owners American slave traders American women slave owners People from Caroline County, Maryland People who committed suicide in prison custody Prisoners who died in Delaware detention Serial killers who committed suicide in prison custody Suicides by poison Suicides in Delaware Year of birth uncertain