Deborah W. Canby (b. circa 1802 - d. 1864)
MSA SC 5496-047814
Property Owner and Slave Holder, Berrys District, Montgomery County,
Maryland
Biography:
Deborah Washington Duvall was born on December 5, 1802, to Dr. Benjamin
Duvall and Deborah Jackson Duvall. She married Thomas Canby III, a Pennsylvania-born
teacher at the Fair Hill Quaker School, on January 28, 1824.1
However, she does not appear in the Maryland State
Archives' records as an actual member of the large Quaker population in
Montgomery County. Deborah and her husband lived in Colesville during the first twenty years of their marriage,
producing seven children: Virginia (b. 1831), Laura M. and William Mauduit
(1834), Benjamin D. (1838), Eliza A. (1840), Mary B. (1842), and Martha
H., nicknamed Pattie (1845).2 Their oldest daughter Virginia was baptized in Prince
George's Parish, also called the Rock Creek Parish, in Prince Georges County,3
but probably died before 1850. Laura married Richard T. Willson in 1853,
while Mary wed Zachariah Berry in 1865.3 Thomas Canby III died
sometime between 1850 and 1857.
The Canby farm included both free and enslaved labor. In 1860, the census recorded two free blacks named James Canby and William Canby living at Rose Hill as farm laborers.7 Three years earlier, Deborah's father had bequeathed her 300 acres, his circa-1800 manor house Rose Hill,5 and four slaves: Aaron Putnam, Lewis Swams, Remus Boswell, and Jacob (last name unknown). Her three youngest daughters also inherited the slaves Lydia Boswell, Elizabeth Boswell, and Airi Thomas.6 All of these slaves should have received their freedom through Maryland's statewide emancipation in 1864. However, Jacob had already disappeared sometime after 1857, while Lewis Swams had died in prison while serving a twelve-year sentence for assisting runaway slaves.8
The 1862 prisoner record for Lewis Swams stated that Deborah Canby was living in Sandy Hook at the time, a community located near Harper's Ferry in western Maryland. Canby may have joined the many women who attended wounded Union soldiers at the Sandy Hook Field Hospital during the war, as recorded in an 1864 report by the United States Christian Commisssion.9However, more likely the clerk had simply misprinted Sandy Spring. The fact that two of her sons sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War makes her ministering to Union soldiers even less probable. Benjamin Canby enlisted with the 1st Maryland Cavalry, a Confederate battalion, while his brother William was imprisoned in 1864 for sheltering a Confederate spy, Lieutenant Walter Bowie.10
Deborah Canby died on December 6, 1864, and was buried at Grace Church
Cemetery in Silver Spring, Maryland. She bequeathed all of her property
to five of her six children, inexplicably excluding Benjamin, with the brief instructions
to "share and share alike."11
1. MONTGOMERY COUNTY COURT, (Marriage Licenses), Film Reel: CR 8920, [MSA CM724-1]. Thomas Canby and Deborah Duvall, January 28, 1824.
2. U.S. Census Bureau (Census
Record, MD) for Deborah Canby, 1850, Montgomery County, Berrys District,
Page 39, Line 24 [MSA SM61-142, M 1499-1].
U.S. Census
Bureau (Census Record, MD) for D. W. Canby, 1860, Montgomery County, Berrys
District, Page 81, Line 27 [MSA SM61-213, M 7223-1].
3. Helen W. Brown. Indexes of Protestant Episcopal Anglican Church Registers of Prince Georges County, 1686-1885 (Vol. 2. Westminster, MD: Heritage Books, 2006) 135.
4. Maryland Marriage Record
for Richard T. Willson and Laura Canby, April 18, 1853, Montgomery County.
Jordan Dodd, Liahona Research, comp. Maryland Marriages, 1667-1899.
The Generations Network, Inc., 2000. www.ancestry.com.
Maryland Marriage
Record for Zachariah Berry and Mary B. Canby, June 7, 1865, Montgomery
County. Jordan Dodd, Liahona Research, comp. Maryland Marriages, 1667-1899.
The Generations Network, Inc., 2000. www.ancestry.com.
5. Clare Lise Cavicchi. Places from the Past: The Tradition of Gardez Bien in Montgomery County, Maryland (Silver Spring, MD: The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission: 2001) 106.
6. MONTGOMERY COUNTY, REGISTER OF WILLS, (Wills), Liber WTR 2, Folio 312, Film Reel: CR 11968-2, [CM756-1]. Benjamin Duvall, August 7, 1856, Montgomery County. Probated March 3, 1857.
7. U.S. Census Bureau (Census Record, MD) for D. W. Canby, 1860, Montgomery County, Berrys District, Page 81, Line 27 [MSA SM61-213, M 7223-1].
8. MARYLAND PENITENTIARY, (Prisoner Record), 1811-1869, [MSA SE65-5]. Lewis Swan [sic], Page 59.
9. S. Roger Keller. Crossroads of War: Washington County, Maryland, in the Civil War. (Shippenburg, PA: Burd Street Press, 1997) 138-139.
10. "Sentenced to Fort Delaware." The Baltimore Sun 31 August 1864: 4. Baltimore Sun Historical Archive. Enoch Pratt Free Library.
11. MONTGOMERY COUNTY, REGISTER OF
WILLS, (Wills), Liber JWS 1, Film Reel: CR 43-3, [CM756-2]. Deborah W.
Canby, November 3, 1864, Montgomery County. Probated December 27, 1864.
Researched and written by Rachel Frazier, 2010.
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