Archives of Maryland
(Biographical Series)

Harriet Tillison 
MSA SC 5496-51316 
Alleged Accomplice to slave flight, Kent County, 1858                                                                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                                                                
Biography:

    Nearly immediately after a mob expelled suspected abolitionist James L. Bowers from Kent County in July of 1858, they came for "a certain negro woman named Tillison," believed to be guilty of the same crimes.1 As in many such cases, the evidence against her was quite thin. Her accusers claimed that Harriet was from Cecil County but often traveled through the region, "exerting wherever she goes her wonderful powers of conjuration and fortune-telling," which "excite a great influence upon the more superstitious portions of blacks."2 Unfortunately for Tillison, her presence in Kent County allegedly correlated with great numbers of slaves fleeing the area. Being a free woman of color from out of town made her an easy target for vengeful, Eastern Shore whites.  

    The aggressors found her in the home a free black man named Butler. Despite his objections, the mob violently infiltrated his home and found Tillison secreted inside.3 Perhaps to enhance the contention that she engaged in some superstitious religious practices, the woman was described in unusual terms. The Cecil Whig account claimed she was " dwarfish in appearance, scarcely weighing fifty pounds," and "has a strong infusion of the Anglo-Saxon."4 Regardless of these physical deficiencies, she was dragged out of Butler's house then tarred and feathered just as Bowers had been. As if this humiliation were not punishment enough, Tillison was subsequently arrested and charged with "preaching and circulating pamphlets of an incendiary character."5,6 However, court records from that time no longer exist, so it is unknown whether she was convicted of these crimes. There is scant documentation to suggest what, if any, interaction Harriet Tillison may have had with slaves in Kent County, nor is there evidence of her continue presence in Maryland.

Footnotes - 

1. "Lynch Law in Maryland," The Cecil Whig, 03 July 1858.

2. Ibid. 

3. Ibid. 

4. Ibid. 

5. "Suspicious," Public Monitor, 8 July, 1858 

6. Kate Clifford Larson. Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero. New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 2004.

Researched and Written by David Armenti, 2012.

Return to Harriet Tillison's Introductory Page


 
 
 


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