Christopher "Kit"
Anthony (b. circa 1822 - d. 1900)
MSA SC 5496-8023
Fled from slavery, Dorchester County, Maryland, 1857
Biography:
"Kit" Anthony escaped from slavery on October 24, 1857 in a group of twenty eight blacks from the Cambridge District in Dorchester County. Prior to the escape, he was the property of Samuel Pattison, whom other fugitives had described as a man that "drank pretty freely," and "wouldn't bear nothing."1 Immediately after Kit's escape, Pattison placed an ad in the Cambridge Democrat for the fourteen slaves that absconded from his plantation. The other slaves include Kit's wife, Leah, and their family, Susan Viney and her family, and several others.2
Samuel Pattison lived in Cambridge in close proximity to William E. Brannock and Reuben E. Phillips, who also owned slaves who ran away in the "Cambridge Party". This group of freedom-seekers likely received information from Harriet Tubman as many local blacks had in recent years. The news quickly spread throughout the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Their profile was much too high to head directly to the known accomplices in Wilmington, Delaware. Pattison, and the other fugitives' owners, were reportedly on the trail of the Anthony family. Kit, Leah, and the children were forced to travel through constant rain with scant supplies, but were finally able to make it to William Still's Philadelphia depot in early November.3 Here, Aaron Cornish and Joseph Viney were among the members of the large group that recounted the details of their harrowing journey, including a violent skirmish with "several Irishmen," from which everyone somehow escaped safely.
On November 16, Pattison wrote a letter to "L.W. Thompson," of Philadelphia, whom the Dorchester planter had enlisted to attempt to find his escaped bondsmen. He claimed that Kit "can read and write," without offering any explanation for that quality, so rare among slaves. Perhaps this ability had helped the group plan, or at least avoid detection as they ran. Pattison's acknowledgement also might indicate that he had allowed for Kit Anthony to become literate, and that he had some advanced status among the slave hierarchy. William Still, who later published the letter, would posit that Pattison's emotions about the loss must have gotten the better of him, or "he would have weighed the matter a little more carefully before exposing himself to the U.G.R.R. agents."4 He does not reveal just how the Vigilance Committee acquired the document, but Thompson may have been less sympathetic to the Maryland slaveholder than he was to the prevalent abolitionist community in Philadelphia.
Even with such efforts, and the likelihood that he utilized slave catchers, Pattison was not able to retrieve Kit Anthony or his family. In fact, nearly all of the Cambridge party was able to successfully relocate to the growing fugitive community in Canada. The Anthonys appear in the 1861 Canada Census, where they lived as freemen alongside many of the same individuals that they had labored with as slaves in Maryland, including Joseph and Susan Viney.5 Kit's literacy would also become useful as he carved out a role in the black community there. As of October 1861, Anthony became the secretary of the fledgling Fugitive Aid Society of St. Catharines, established and staffed by Harriet Tubman.6 Along with several other former Maryland slaves, including Horatio Wilkins, Kit Anthony played a central role in easing the transition of former slaves to their new homes in Canada.
Anthony moved back to the United States sometime before 1870, when he was listed as residing in Elmira, New York. Kit may passed through the city on his way to St. Catharines, as Elmira had become a hub of underground railroad activity in the 1850's. He was living there with a new wife, Mary, and two of his sons, Morris and Robert.7 It is unknown what happened to Leah or their youngest son William, who had been born in Canada. By 1880, Kit, Mary and Robert were living in Philadelphia, possibly because his wife had been born in Pennsylvania. Anthony was working as a steward.8 Unfortunately, his son Morris died on Christmas Eve, 1880.9 Christopher Anthony is largely absent from any documentation until 1900, when his own death was recorded in Philadelphia.10 "Kit" had come almost full circle, establishing a life in the city that had facilitated his escape from slavery more than forty years earlier. He was 78 when he died.
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