Meet Gumbo Chaff, The Ethiopian Flute Instructor, etc., etc.

by Stephen J. Gertz

In 1848, a curious little volume of "negro melodies of the day," The Ethiopian Flute Instructor, was published in Boston. Containing ninety-one songs for the flute, including Band of Niggers, Get Along Home Yaller Gals, Jim Crack Corn, Carry Me Back to Old Virginia, Happy Are We Darkies, Jim Crow Polka, De Old Jaw Bone, My Pretty Yaller Gal, Old Zip Coon, Stop Dat Knocking, and many more, it was written by one "Gumbo Chaff."

Who was Gumbo Chaff? He's credited as A. M. A. First Banjo Player to the King of Congo, and author of the Ethiopian Glee Book, Ethiopian Accordeon Instructor, Ethiopian Violin Instructor, Ethiopian Flute Instructor, &c., &.

He wasn't Ethiopian, an upscale American euphemism for a black man. Gumbo Chaff wasn't even a man. He was a folk character who became a song which became a pseudonym.

Gumbo Chaff was one of the earliest black-face characters in America, based upon characters found in tall tales told by river boatmen and frontiersmen during the Jacksonian era. The song Gumbo Chaff merged these frontier elements with stereotypes of black slaves, creating a new character who lived

On de Ohio bluff in de state of Indiana,
Dere's where I live, chock up to de Habbana,
Eb'ry mornin early Massa gib me likker,
I take my net and paddle and I put out de quicker,
I jump into my kiff and I down the river driff,
And I cotch as many cat fish as ever nigger liff.

Gumbo Chaff, the song, was first performed in the early 1830s. It became a standard in the repertoire of early black-face performers such as Thomas Dartmouth Rice and George Washington Dixon. Because of the song's popularity, the contemporary black riverboatman became a popular character in minstrel shows, and black-face singers routinely performed "Gumbo Chaff" with a mock flatboat on stage.  

So it made sense for a publisher in Boston to ascribe authorship of a collection of minstrel songs to Gumbo Chaff. The author was actually Elias Howe Jr., the book's publisher and also author of minstrel song collections for banjo, accordion, voice, and violin. He was - no surprise - a white man.

The Elias Howe Company was a 19th and early 20th century musical firm located in Boston and founded by Elias Howe, Jr. (1820–1895), a fiddler. This Howe was not that Howe, the inventor of the sewing machine, but a contemporary and possibly a distant relative. How many Howes of the same name at the same time could there have been in Massachusetts, one fiddling in Boston, the other sewing across the river in Cambridge? What, you were expecting Minstrel Songs For The Sewing Machine? Tote that barge, lift that bale, sew that hem, mend that seam!

Howe's first collection of songs, for the fiddle, appeared in 1840 as The Musician's Companion. By 1850, Howe had published several other song collections and musical instruction books as noted above. In the same year he sold his copyrights to the Oliver Ditson Company of Boston and, by agreement, refrained from publishing music for ten years, after which he returned to publishing and became one of the country's most prolific music publishers. During the American Civil War Howe expanded his business to include manufacturing drums for the military. He was offered the position of Director of Bands for the United States Army with the rank of Lt. Colonel by President Lincoln but he chose to continue manufacturing drums and fifes and publishing books on their performance by marching bands.

Of note to folk musicologists is that on page forty-two of this volume the music for Stephen Foster's  O! Susanna appears. This was not the first publication of O! Susanna - that occurred in the same year (Cinncinati: W.E. Peters, 1848) - but it seems to be the song's second appearance in print, and its first in a published collection. The first public performance of the song occurred on Saturday, September 11, 1847, when the Eagle Ice Cream Saloon in Pittsburgh, PA presented a "Grand Gala Concert." At that performance "Susanna - A new song, never before given to the public," was sung.

Here's a modern perfomance of Gumbo Chaff:

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CHAFF, Gumbo (pseud. of Elias Howe), The Ethiopian Flute Instructor, Containing Full and Complete Instructions, With All the Popular Negro Melodies of the Day, Including Those of the Christy Minstrels. Boston: Published and Sold by Elias Howe, 1848. First edition. Oblong 4to. 6 3/16 x 9 3/4 inches. 48 pp. Quarter cloth over printed wrappers.

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Images courtesy of John Howell For Books, currently offering this volume, with our thanks.
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Frederick Douglass Gets A Raise, From $1.00 To $31,200

by Stephen J. Gertz

One of only five extant copies.

In 1847, Frederick Douglass, discontent with his fee for the popular articles he wrote for William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator, asked for a raise, from $1.00 to $2.50 per piece.

Edmund Quincy, editor of The Liberator in Garrison's absence, wrote of Douglass's request,  "Talking of unconscionable niggers, I wrote to Douglass to ask him what he should consider a fair compensation for the letters [articles] that he proposed he sh'd write for the Standard [The Anti-Slavery Standard]. In due time I rec'd and answer saying he should think two dollars and a half about right. I consulted Wendell [Phillips] about it & he thought we had better not beat him down; but tell him that $1.00 was as much as we could afford." (McFeely, William S. Frederick Douglass, page 147).

It was clear to Douglass that there were white abolitionists who placed their own position as the self-appointed standard-bearers of social justice above the interests of the famed African-American fighting for social justice.

And so that fall Douglass moved to upstate New York to publish his own abolitionist newspaper, The North Star. Before leaving his home in Boston, however, Douglass took with him an unknown number of copies of the sheets for the Boston Anti-Slavery Society's 1847 printing of his Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (first edition 1845). Once established in Rochester, he had them bound up with the North Star imprint, as seen above.

Only five copies of Douglass's Narrative with The North Star imprint are known to have survived: two in private collections, a defective copy found in a dealer catalog,  one located at the New York Historical Society, and the present copy recently offered at Swann Galleries Printed & Manuscript African-Americana sale where it was estimated to sell for $18K-$22K.

It sold for $31,200, including premium.

Douglass earned this bonus albeit too late to take to the bank and enjoy it.

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DOUGLASS, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself. Boston: at the Anti-Slavery Office, 1847 - Rochester: Published at the North Star Office, 1848. Demi-8vo. xii, [xiii]-xvi, [1]-125 pp.  Original roan-backed printed paper-covered boards; some discoloration and a few abrasions to the front board tips; considerable foxing throughout; early ownership in pencil of "John H. Jones, 1848" and a few repetitions. Lacking the frontispiece portrait of Douglass, as do all other copies examined.

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Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries, with our thanks.

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The Radical Firebrand Behind America's Favorite Thanksgiving Poem

By Nancy Mattoon

Is there any American holiday more old-fashioned and more traditional than Thanksgiving? And does any bit of poetry sum up its virtues better than these familiar verses?

Over the river, and through the wood,
to Grandfather's house we go;
the horse knows the way to carry the sleigh
through the white and drifted snow.

Over the river, and through the wood,
to Grandfather's house away!
We would not stop for doll or top,
for 'tis Thanksgiving Day.

Over the river, and through the wood-
oh, how the wind does blow!
It stings the toes and bites the nose,
as over the ground we go.

Over the river, and through the wood
and straight through the barnyard gate.
We seem to go extremely slow-
it is so hard to wait!

Over the river, and through the wood-
when Grandmother sees us come,
She will say, "O, dear, the children are here,
bring a pie for every one."

Over the river, and through the wood-
now Grandmothers cap I spy!
Hurrah for the fun! Is the pudding done?
Hurrah for the pumpkin pie!

These words were originally published as a poem, entitled A Boy's Thanksgiving Day, in 1844. The woman who wrote them, Lydia Maria Child, was best known at that time for writing the first cookbook in America which was produced for the middle class and the poor. Until the publication of The Frugal Housewife (1829), cookbook writers assumed their reader was a wealthy lady of the manor with servants, cooks, and perhaps even slaves.

The Frugal Housewife,
Dedicated to Those Who Are Not Ashamed of Economy.
By Lydia Maria Francis Child.
Boston: Carter and Hendee, 1830.
(Image Courtesy of Michigan State University Libraries.)

The Frugal Housewife, later entitled The American Frugal Housewife to avoid confusion with a British book of the same name, was the 19th century equivalent of The Joy of Cooking. In the New England Quarterly, historian Herbert Edwards describes it as "one of the most popular . . . books published in New England in the 1830's.... it had gone through fourteen editions by 1834, and for years continued to be one of the most treasured books of the average New England household." According to Michigan State University's excellent website devoted to historic American cookbooks, "The book went through at least 35 printings between 1829 and 1850 when it was allowed to go out of print because of the publication of newer, more modern cookbooks and also because of Mrs. Child's increasingly public work in the cause of anti-slavery."

That last part is a bit of an understatement. In 1833 Lydia Maria Child, a woman, published the first book-length, full-scale analysis of slavery in the United States, An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans. It was, says the Michigan State website, "so comprehensive [in] scope that no other antislavery writer ever attempted to duplicate Child's achievement; all subsequent works would focus on individual aspects of the subject that Child covered in eight thoroughly researched and extensively documented chapters." It was also radical enough, and shocking enough, coming from America's best-loved culinary writer, that it caused Child to be ostracized from Boston society, and caused the children's magazine she edited to go bankrupt, as well as leading to the out-of-print status of her best-seller. Nobody wanted Martha Stewart to do an about face, and begin writing inflammatory political manifestos.

Radical Firebrand Lydia Maria Child, c.1870.
(Image Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons)

The truth is, the woman who wrote that charming ditty we trot out every Thanksgiving was a radical free thinker who was at least a hundred years ahead of her time. In 1824 she published her first novel, Hobomok, A Tale of the Times, in which a Puritan woman marries a Native American, and bears his child. The book's plot is melodramatic, but its depiction of an interracial marriage was amazingly daring. Child was a lifelong advocate of Native American rights when such an opinion was extremely unusual and wildly unpopular. In 1868 she published An Appeal for the Indians, which demanded that the government, and religious leaders, bring justice to the American Indian.

Frontispiece From:

An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans,
By Mrs. Child.
Boston: Allen & Ticknor, 1833.
(Image Courtesy of University of Michigan Clements Library.)

Lydia Maria Child made no bones about her belief in full equal rights for Native Americans, African Americans, and women. Although she did not write feminist literature, reasoning that racial inequality needed to be addressed before the inequality of the sexes, she demonstrated that a woman could write and publish books beyond the domestic realm. She was the first American female ever to make a living solely as a writer.

Even Child's famous cookbook was in many ways a radical text. She sees the home as a miniature economy, in which time, materials, and labor must be as carefully allocated as in any business or factory. The subtitle of The Frugal Housewife was: Dedicated To Those Who Are Not Ashamed Of Economy. In her introduction she tells those women "who can afford to be epicures," to put down her book and pick up Eliza Leslie's cookbook, Seventy-five Receipts For Pastry, Cakes, And Sweetmeats (1832). A reverse "let them eat cake" dismissal of the upper class readers that Child disdained. A vocal critic of The Frugal Housewife was a former suitor of Child's, Nathaniel P. Willis, who found the book a total betrayal of her class, "full of vulgarisms, indelicate references to animal body parts, and an apparent fondness for foods highly despised by genteel readers." A truly well-bred female would never have demeaned herself by writing about money.

Image From The Title Page of:
An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans,
By Mrs. Child.
Boston: Allen & Ticknor, 1833.
(Image Courtesy of University of Michigan Clements Library.)

Lydia Maria Child is remembered today for her Thanksgiving poem, which conjures up a nostalgic vision of the perfect old-fashioned holiday. But her real legacy is as a zealous and tireless crusader against the horrific injustices which were so easily accepted by most members of her race and class. If you are of a more liberal persuasion, but are spending the holiday with conservative friends or relatives, why not suggest a sing-along featuring Child's famous lyrics? Your fellow celebrants will think you've gone all warm, fuzzy, and traditional. And only you will know they are all singing the phrases of one of America's greatest and most uncompromising radical writers.

To all seekers of equality and justice, a Happy Thanksgiving from Booktryst.

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A Killer Exhibit From The National Library Of Medicine

by Nancy Mattoon

The last words of a dying penitent: being an exact account of the passages...on which was grounded the first suspicion of his being concerned in the...murder of Dr. Clinch... Written with his own hand after condemnation... Author: Henry Harrison. 31 pp. (London, 1692).

Henry Harrison, the pamphlet's alleged author, was sentenced to death by hanging for the murder of Dr. Andrew Clinch, who had loaned a large sum of money to Harrison’s friend, a widow, and had evicted her when she failed to repay him.
(Courtesy The National Library of Medicine.)

Axe murders, murder by bludgeon, horrific mutilations, dismembered corpses, torture, impalement of a virgin on a stake, family members with slashed throats and crushed skulls, killings for profit, suicides, incest and child abuse, botched abortions, death due to "female troubles," "irregular" pregnancies, illegitimate children, unfaithful spouses, "womanizers," loose women, prostitutes, pregnant governesses, venereal diseases, perjured testimony, tainted "expert" witnesses, blackmail, crimes to cover up other crimes, poisonings ("strange-looking" dumplings laced with arsenic), clergymen gone bad, insane and "monomaniacal" killers. And let's not leave out these perennial favorites: serial killings (by both men and women), and political assassinations (the British government had failed to justly compensate him for his bad business dealings, so the Prime Minister had to die).

What is this, another day at the local grindhouse? Or are we virtual jurors parked in front of TruTV (formerly, Court TV)?

Nope, it's a remarkable exhibit, Most Horrible And Shocking Murders: "True Crime" Murder Pamphlets in the Collection of The National Library of Medicine (NLM). This online museum of mayhem is derived from an exhibit by the NLM in 2008, and is curated by Michael Sappol.

In Life: Dr. George Parkman, Boston Brahmin, murdered in 1849 by Dr. John Webster, a chemistry professor at Harvard Medical College. Webster had taken out a loan from Parkman that he couldn't repay. He used his medical knowledge to disarticulate the body and consign it to the furnace. Alas, Dr. Webster was sloppy: he was done in by, among other things, a brother-in-law who ID'd the corpse due to "its extreme hairiness," and a dentist who recognized the deceased's false teeth. "A Correct Likeness of Dr. Parkman," from Trial of Professor John W. Webster, for the murder of Doctor George Parkman. Reported exclusively for the N.Y. Daily Globe... 76 pp. (New York, 1850).

Documented on this site are a selection of historical pamphlets that depict humans on their worst possible behavior. The toll and consequences of murder and savagery, and various other crimes, are gut-wrenchingly detailed in a chronological array of pamphlets, published from 1692 - 1881. The pamphlet covers are gorgeously reproduced, as well as selected pages of the actual text.

Many of the authors of these studies in scarlet are quite rightly anonymous, as they reveal shocking details of the case in question, whether from actual court testimony or straight out of their own fevered imaginations. Other authors, especially scandal-mongering journalists, take full credit for their work, their names being prominently emblazoned on the title page. Invariably accompanying the text are drawings and sketches, again either from real life or the artists' imagination, and sometimes bearing little, if any, resemblance to the actual crimes they "depict."

In Death: Scattered about at the scene were various body parts, including a dismembered thigh, the lower part of a leg, a torso crammed into a chest (minus the heart and other vital organs). Professor Webster was found guilty. After the trial, he did, in fact confess to the crime, but plead self-defense. He was hung later that year. "Restoration of Dr. Parkman's Skeleton," from Trial of Professor John W. Webster, for the murder of Doctor George Parkman. Reported exclusively for the N.Y. Daily Globe... 76 pp. (New York, 1850).

At times these rags also included lurid "confessions," by the perpetrators, typically just before their date with death, and in highly dramatic fashion. These alleged confessions, could include heretofore unreleased and appalling details of the crime or provide an outline of the miscreant's sordid life as a rationale for resorting to murder. They could be wholly made-up fictions, in order to sell a sensational story, or florid apologies to give the document a patina of redeeming value. Sometimes, instead of a confession, readers would be treated to a plea of innocence, even including the identification of "the real killer."

Booktryst has plucked one such juicy story, and leaves it for you to determine its redeeming value (if any).

Exhibit: Patty Cannon

Narratives and confessions of Lucretia P. Cannon, who was tried, convicted, and sentenced to be hung at Georgetown, Del., with two of her accomplices; containing an account of some of the most horrible and shocking murders ever committed by one of the female sex. 24 pp.
(New York, 1841).

A rather fanciful account and in error on several points: Patty Cannon was never tried, thus never convicted or sentenced, and it is very doubtful if she ever "confessed."
(Courtesy The National Library of Medicine.)

Lurid details surround early 19th century American female serial killer, kidnapper, and torturer Patty Cannon. She was nicknamed by some "Lucretia," in homage to Lucrezia Borgia, the notorious Italian Renaissance aristocrat and Machiavellian-style serial poisoner. To others, she was known simply as "Fat Patty." Still others flat-out called her "the wickedest woman in the world." Described in a 1907 newspaper article as "massive of bosom, massive elsewhere," this "Amazonian Paul Bunyan," was foul-mouthed, and "swarthy," all 260-plus pounds of her, and was no shrinking violet . She was said to be as muscular as any man, able to heft a 300-pound bag of grain onto her shoulder with ease. She ran a tavern and was the resident bouncer as well, snatching up unruly customers and pitching them into the street (often while rifling through their pockets for cash or valuables on the way to the exit). Documents at the time reported that she was "of a fierce temperament and homicidal."

George Alfred ("GATH") Townsend, Author of the Crime Novel

The Entailed Hat, Or, Patty Cannon's Times (1884).

Very little reliable information exists about the crimes of Patty Cannon, and only scant court records have survived. In truth, much of what is stated as "fact" derives equally from local legend and journalistic exaggerations, as well as from an influential crime novel published several decades later: George Alfred ("GATH") Townsend's wildly popular The Entailed Hat, Or, Patty Cannon's Times (1884, and reprinted numerous times). (The full text of which can be found here.)

The Entailed Hat by "Gath" [George Alfred Townsend]. Harper & Brothers, (1884).

(Courtesy AbeBooks.com.)

Patty Cannon's origins are simply unknown: she was born around 1760, and may have emigrated from Canada, or even Eastern Europe, leading to her being described by the derogatory term "gypsyish." Even her real name is in doubt. She may have adopted an alias to hide her true identity. Patty's first husband, Jesse Cannon, who she married at the tender age of 16, died under mysterious circumstances a few years later. Her tavern, on the Maryland/Delaware border in an area known as the Delmarva Peninsula was the headquarters for the gang she commanded. Here she recruited both relatives (the family that slays together...) and low-lifes from the bar scene to aid in her nefarious schemes.

Often Mistakenly Reported as Patty Cannon's House. In fact, many of the architectural details prove that it is decidedly not, even assuming it was vastly remodeled. Her true house was actually some distance away.
(Courtesy symonsez.wordpress.com.)

Though she dabbled in standard highway robbery and stolen goods, this big bad mama's forte was kidnapping free blacks and slaves and literally selling them down the river, especially to plantation owners in the Deep South. Trafficking in humans was an especially lucrative business in the early 1800's. In 1808 Congress banned the importation of slaves. Once the supply was cut, the financial value of slaves skyrocketed. A healthy slave could fetch $1,000 or more. Patty Cannon's slave trade in 1819 alone made as much as $25,000. (All in gold coin, of course.)

Historical Marker Erected in 1939. Again, Many Details are Incorrect.

(Courtesy Historical Marker Database)

Patty Cannon's area of Maryland/Delaware included a significant free black population; some historians say that it was the largest concentration of African Americans in the country. It was also smack-dab on one of the routes used by the famed Underground Railroad, which spirited slaves and free blacks to safety. Kidnapping free blacks was less risky for Cannon's gang than stealing slaves from their masters. And greedy property owners in the area were all too eager to purchase any blacks from Cannon, no questions asked.

General Map Showing Major Routes of The Underground Railroad,

Taking Slaves and Free Blacks Northward.

Detailed View of Underground Railroad Routes, Including Maryland & Delaware (Large Red Concentration at Right.) Several Routes are Virtually at Patty Cannon's Doorstep.
(Courtesy Maryland State Archives.)

Local law enforcement was haphazard in dealing with illegal slave trading. On those rare occasions when the authorities did come to the Cannon house and tavern to investigate crimes, gang members would simply slip across the border into Delaware. In one instance, when the Maryland authorities came knocking at her tavern door, Patty brazenly stood her ground and said the very turf she was standing on wasn't in Maryland, but actually one state over, in Delaware. In true Keystone Kops fashion, the police left to verify this. By the time they got back, Patty was long gone.

"A picture of Joe Johnson's Kidnapper's Tavern, as it stood in the year 1883." An Artist's Rendering, Nearly 60 Years After the Events That Took Place There. Frontispiece illustration for George Alfred Townsend's Novel
The Entailed Hat, Or, Patty Cannon's Times (1884).

Even when suspicions of her illegal activities were finally running high, the Cannon Gang's reputation for extreme violence gave the authorities pause. And some actually suggested Patty may have been a "witch," a "conjurer," or a "supernatural," using magical powers to escape detection. Witnesses said they had seen her morph into a black crow, able to fly from place to place and spy her targets from on high. Naturally, gang members embraced these superstitions, offering to "hex" or "cast spells" on troublesome neighbors for a little extra cash.

Patty's "black contraband" was kept close: hidden for months at a time in "secret rooms" in her house, as well as in the basement and attic, and held in leg irons with manacles around their necks. There were persistent rumors that her victims were routinely beaten and tortured. "Ear-witnesses" reported hideous screams emanating from the house in the dead of night. Ominously, behind the property were several unmarked graves. The gang worked in conjunction with white slavers, using nearby waterways to ship large batches of captives to the South, some to as far away as Georgia. The gang's activities continued relatively unhindered for several years.

This business was also a family affair. The first husband of Patty's daughter (name unknown) was later hung for kidnapping blacks. Her second husband was a whole lot worse. The notorious Joe Johnson, was not just a kidnapper of blacks, but an expert at administering beatings, giving special attention to those captives who claimed to be free. Though he upped the violence quotient considerably, he still couldn't outdo his mother-in-law for sheer mayhem and terror. It was said that Patty herself beat several victims to death, often because they were "troublesome" or "damaged goods," for which she wouldn't get her usual asking price. On one occasion, she plucked a crying young slave from her mother's arms and tossed the child into the fireplace.

"This is not a rare case." An Illustration From the Anti-Slavery Almanac (1836),

Warning of the Kidnapping of "a free colored man," from Westchester Co.,

New York, to be Sent into Slavery.

In 1822, the law caught up--with some of the Cannon Gang. Their crimes had become increasingly audacious and the many local disappearances of free blacks could no longer be explained away or ignored. Son-in-law Joe Johnson was arrested, but got off relatively lightly, considering the enormity of his crimes, with 39 lashes at the pillory. Records do not survive to indicate exactly what happened to him or to the other gang members arrested with him. We can only conclude that there were no further trials. All were apparently freed and immediately resumed their crimes.

It wasn't until several years later, in early 1828, that a local farmer out plowing his fields uncovered what were later determined to be the bodies of three males and one female. One body was rumored to have been Patty's husband, who had mysteriously disappeared. The authorities, however, really perked up when it was revealed that one of the corpses was that of a wealthy slave trader from down South who had been missing for over a decade. This man had apparently been lured to the house by Patty and Johnson, on the promise of a good deal on slaves, a hearty meal, and more than a few tankards of rum. He was said to be carrying a bankroll of $15,000 in gold coin, intending to purchase a dozen slaves. This unlucky fellow was quickly dispatched by the gang, then neatly wrapped in a tablecloth and hastily buried in one of Patty's trunks, along with the butcher knife used to kill him. His money was never recovered.

James McBride, Song Yet Sung (2008). A Novel About a Runaway

Slave and a Determined Slave Catcher, Patty Cannon.

This murder proved to be the gang's undoing. It was one thing to traffic in human cargo, torture and kill blacks, but quite another to kill a white man. When the cops raided her home, the proof of the gang's crimes (or at least some of their crimes) was literally staring them in the face. At the time of Patty's capture, 21 blacks were discovered manacled in her house. As the leader of the gang, Patty Cannon was indicted in Georgetown, Delaware, on four counts of murder by a (naturally) all-white grand jury. More than one gang member ratted her out while in prison. Further eyewitness testimony came from several black victims. In particular, from Cyrus James, whom Cannon had "bought" when he was a small child. James grew up in the Cannon household and was apparently a full participant in some of the crimes.

Patty Cannon, however, had one final trick up her sleeve. Days before her trial, long lines of eager observers, stretching around the block, had cued up for seats in the courthouse. On the eve of her big day, Patty, now around 70 years of age, cheated her audience and certain execution by allegedly poisoning herself. She had apparently previously sewn a vial of arsenic into her dress. Others, though, insisted that this was just another magic act, and that she had in fact escaped, leaving behind a lifeless replicant to take her place. The total number of her victims can only be guessed at, but it may well have been over 100.

Former Dover Library Director Bob Wetherall, posing with Patty's skull in 1997,
for Maryland author Hal Roth's book on the case,

The Monster's Handsome Face, Patty Cannon in Fiction and Fact.
(Photo courtesy of Hal Roth.)

Decades later, when authorities were expanding the Sussex County Courthouse and Jail, the pauper's field behind the buildings was excavated, with the bodies to be re-interred elsewhere. Patty's remains were re-buried as well -- minus her head. It seems one of the diggers presented his father with her skull as a "gift."

What happened years later sounds like the storyline of a bad joke, but in 1961, a man walked into the Dover, Delaware Public Library, gripping a hatbox and some papers. Patty Cannon's head had resurfaced and was authenticated by the documents. Would the library like a "donation" for their collections? They took it, where it remained for over 50 years. Dover Public Library's Director, Margery Cyr, whose office has been graced by Patty Cannon's skull for some years, says: "Patty Cannon was not a nice person in life, but [in death] she’s been quiet and respectful."

The Monster's Handsome Face, Patty Cannon in Fiction and Fact, by Hal Roth (1997). A Non-Fiction Account of Her Crimes.

This past June, Patty Cannon's skull was taken to the Smithsonian for modern scientific testing, as part of a study documenting life in the Chesapeake area, from colonial times into the 19th century. Dr. Douglas Owsley, chief of the Smithsonian's Division of Physical Anthropology, says: "We’re stepping back, tracking our ancestors, and seeing what their bones tell us about their lifestyles....We’re sweeping broadly across Maryland, Virginia and Delaware to study what life was like in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.... My focus is not really on Patty Cannon, it’s at looking at her as an individual in a specific time."

Rumors have persisted through the years that Patty and her gang had buried as much as $75,000-100,000 in gold coins in troves throughout the area. Treasure hunters from the 1910's to the 1950's have recovered caches of as many as one hundred coins, some placed in glass jars, and buried a few feet from where Cannon's tavern once stood. To this day, adventurers continue to comb the area. Rumor has it that the locale is haunted by Patty Cannon's vengeful spirit, her restless ghost wandering the back roads she knew so well.

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Digital Database Names The Nameless

An Advertisement For A 1769 Slave Auction.

Imagine you're an amateur genealogist. You want to learn more about the history of your family. Where do you start? By tracing legal records bearing your family name, of course. But what if in the legal census, the age, race, and gender of your ancestors was recorded but never their names. What if your family members were considered not people but property?

This is the dilemma facing not only genealogists but historians when they wish to find out more about the estimated 12 million men, women, and children who came to the United States not as immigrants but as slaves. A new online resource, The Digital Library on American Slavery, has uncovered the previously lost identities of roughly 80,000 slaves and 8,000 free people of color. The database offers a fascinating, if tragic, glimpse into the lives of a small fraction of the United States residents deemed "three-fifths of a person" by the Founding Fathers.

An 1861 "Slave Map." The darker areas represent proportionally higher slave populations. Compiled by mapmaker A. von Steinwehr.

The Digital Library on American Slavery is the product of 18 years of painstaking research conducted by the History Department of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Led by Professor Loren Schweninger, the researchers visited hundreds of county courthouses and archives in 15 states and the District of Columbia uncovering legal documents, called "petitions" which were often the only records ever to include the names of slaves.

Chowan County Courthouse, Edenton, NC.
One source of the documents used to create The Digital Library On American Slavery.

And the names are only the beginning of the tales told by the petitions. The database includes a summary of the contents of each document, (The full documents are available on microfilm.) and the stories they tell are amazingly detailed and unbearably sad. Petitions by emancipated slaves attempting to free their own, still enslaved, family members are among the most heartbreaking.

Cover of A Guide to the Microfilm Edition of Race, Slavery, and Free Blacks, Series II: Petitions to Southern County Courts, 1775-1867, Part B: Maryland (1775-1866, Delaware (1779-1857), District of Columbia (1803-1865)

The story of William Moreton, a freed slave from Lousiana is recounted in Petition Analysis Record #11000014: "William Moreton and his wife, Violet, were emancipated by Jesse Carter in Louisiana about 1814. The Moretons left their daughter, Charlotte, in the possession of Carter, as a slave for life. After Carter's death, the couple bought Charlotte for $352. Moreton now petitions to free his daughter. He writes, "Your Petitioner although' a colored man is not devoid of feelings of humanity and nature & considers it against the laws of nature to hold his own offspring in a state of servitude."

Poster For The Play: Let My People Go.
An Original Theatre Piece Based On The Stories In The Petitions.

Even more shocking is the tale of Percy Ann Martin, a free woman of color asking the North Carolina courts to make her once again a slave. The abstract of Petition Number 11286301 reads: "Percy Ann Martin states that "she belongs to that class of our population called 'free negroes' and has had a husband for the last five years who is a slave." Martin laments that her said husband "has been sold under execution, and she is informed that the marriage and cohabitation between her and her husband is against the law and will be broken off." Confiding that "she is attached to her husband and does not wish to be seperated from him," Martin cites that she is "poor, has no property" and is unsure of how she will support herself "in these time of scarcity of provisions and high prices." Being “fully of the opinion that her Condition as a slave under a good master is greatly to be preferred to her Condition as a houseless and suffering free negro," Martin prays that an act be passed "reducing her to slavery and respectfully solicits that she may be made the slave of Henderson Adams Esqr who is the owner of her husband."

The Digital Library on American Slavery may be searched by names, keywords, and subject headings. Each slave and free person of color in the database has been give a "Personal Profile" including as much information as can be gleaned from the legal record. Last name, first name, nicknames, aliases, age, gender, date and place of birth and death, occupation, education, physical attributes, and personal history of emancipation, punishment, residence on a plantation or in an urban or rural area, and even any references to the individual's moral character are all included whenever possible. In short, the database attempts to humanize those who for so long were considered merely property.

An 1811 Portrait of Elizabeth Freeman,
The First Slave To Win Her Freedom In A Massachusetts Court.

When one segment of humanity endeavors to subjugate or eliminate another, the first step is to paint those to be dominated as inferior and less than fully human. If history tells the tale of an individual and insists on that person's unique identity and singular life story, he can no longer be treated as part of a nameless, faceless, class undeserving of common decency. The Digital Library On American Slavery, and others projects like it, let us see the individual tragedies of the previously unknown millions destroyed by hatred, greed, and prejudice. And as writer and social critic Lillian Smith noted: "Here is the real enemy of the people: our own selves dehumanized into 'the masses'.''

Posted by Nancy Mattoon