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TASK FORCE TO STUDY THE HISTORY AND LEGACY OF SLAVERY IN MARYLAND (Final Report) 1999/12/31 MdHR 991422 MdHR 991422, Image No: 391 Print image (56K) |
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TASK FORCE TO STUDY THE HISTORY AND LEGACY OF SLAVERY IN MARYLAND (Final Report) 1999/12/31 MdHR 991422 MdHR 991422, Image No: 391 Print image (56K) |
| Joe (Joseph) Johnson Inn Keeper and Slave Kidnapper Joe Johnson was the notorious son-in-law of Patty Cannon, the Lucretia Borgia of the Peninsula, who had been active in kidnaping, murder, and other crimes in Delaware and Maryland. Joe Johnson operated a tavern in Dorchester County, Maryland,1 just a few yards from the Delaware line. It was reputed that he taught Patty Cannon the tricks of the kidnaping trade. In 1816 he was sentenced to be publicly whipped on the back and to stand in the pillory to have his ears nailed to the wood. Together, Cannon and Johnson went after free Negroes. Johnson sailed a schooner from Cannon's Ferry to Baltimore and stole all the Negro men he could hire. He induced them to go as stevedores in the hold of the ship and, when he got them there, would enslave them and take them to the Deep South.2 In most instances Cannon and Johnson stole free blacks because they were not someone's property, nor would anyone be searching for them as opposed to slaves, who were valuable property. Upon the capture of Patty Cannon, her imprisonment, and death, Johnson went to New Orleans and points beyond. Under an assumed name he became a respectable probate judge in Arkansas (Giles 85). Notes 1 Giles 17; Townsend; Clark. 2 Giles 24; Delaware Gazette; Niles Weekly Register, Shannahan. Sources Clark, Charles B. The Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virginia. Vols. I-HI. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, lac., 1950. Delaware Gazette 17 April 1829. Giles, Ted. Patty Cannon: Woman of Mystery. Eastern, Maryland: Easton Publishing Company, 1965. NUes Weekly Register 25 April 1829. Shannahan, J.H. Article in Baltimore Sun 31 March 1907. Townsend, George Alfrei The Entailed Hat. William Julius "Judy" Johnson (1899-1989) Baseball Hall-of-Famer William "Judy" Johnson was born in Snow Hill, Maryland, on 26 October 1899. He began his Negro League baseball career in 1918 and ended it twenty-one years later in 1939. He played in more than 3,000 professional games and was known as the best all-time third baseman. He later served as a teacher of baseball and worked as a scout for the Philadelphia Athletics, and in 1975 was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Source Worcester County, Maryland African-American Heritage Tourist Brochure. Worcester County Tourism Office. 31 |