Morning journal and courier., 1882-10-05
Wicked Patty Cannon.

! Fifty yards from where I write stands the monument over the grave of Patty Cannon. Patty died while under the sentence of death and was buried in one corner of the jail lot in this town. There are few who are of the opinion that she bribed the sheriff and es. capped, while some one else's remains were inferred at the spot mentioned, as 8 ruse to cover her flight. The monument over her grave is nothing more than a small shanty built to cover the new road machine bought by the town, but the town fathers once se- lected and marked the spot the site of Patty's grave, and since then the mark has gone by the name of ''Patty's monument" Patty gained her notoriety from the crimes she committed. When about to die she con- fessed to having killed eleven persons with sory to many other murders, and had killed her own offspring, and murdered her hus- band by administering to him dose of poi son.
 Patty was the granddaughter of an English nobleman who disinherited her father be- cause he made foolish marriage The hot headed son and his new wife crossed the ocean to Montreal The husband could not get along and died a victim to the flowing bowl. Patty's mother took to keeping boarding house, and at her mothers home a man named Cannon, of this country. while on tour through the North, met the pretty daughter, fell in love and married her. Can non brought his wife here, but Patty tired of her husband in time, and after accomplish ing his death as narrated, she entered upon career of crime unequalled in it's shocking barbarity and blood thirstiness. She moved to Johnsons Crossroads and opened hotel,
 which she made headquarters for slave dealers who passed through the lower county of Delaware. At this hotel she with her as sociates murdered and robbed the wealthy slave dealers who there sought lodging
 Some time after moving to the Crossroads S1o tween Philadelphia and point on the Dela- ware bay convenient to headquarters. Her slave trade was not of the kind then sane toned by law. She adopted & cheaper meth
 cd of obtaining a supply of slaves than of paying cash for them. Her plans for captur- ing the Philadelphia negroes were well laid and generally successful She employed an | intelligent colored man named Ransom and | supplied him with the money necessary to accomplish his purposes. Ransom's head quarters were the slayer, and his dark deeds were done under cover of the night. The plan was to make himself agreeable to all persons of his own color. He treated them frequently to drinks, and got into their good graces in various other ways known to one so we'll skilled in the arts of deception. When he had secured the confidence of his victims he had little trouble in persuading them to accompany him to the boat that lay 1 at anchor in the Delaware. But soon as they got on board the matches were closed upon them and they were put in chains. Sometimes five or six would be cap tured in this way in single night, and then | the boat would weigh anchor and sail down 1 the river short distance, only to return and | repeat the crime, until a sufficient number of | negroes were captured to fill the hold. Then | they were shipped to point down the bay, l carried from thence by way of Johnson's Crossroads to the Chesapeake bay, and from
 here shipped to the South.
 l Patty also had in her employ an old ne- | gress, who kept in the lower part of the city an infamous house, which was the favorite
 resort for colored people of both sexes and 1 thither Ransom would often go for recruits. | Neither Patty nor her accomplices seemed to
 possess the least spark of human feeling. If,
 after lot of negroes had been kidnapped, it
 was found that any of them were old or in
 firm and not worth the expense of transpor-
 tation, they were thrown overheard and l drowned. Or, if any of the females had | children who were troublesome, or whose
 cries were likely to expose her, Patty would | dispatch them by beating them on the head
 with the loaded end of a rattan cane. The
 child eff one of these captives subject to
 fits, and one time, when suffering from this 1 aff1iction it's cries enraged Patty that she
 sprang at it and beat it in shocking man.
 ner This of course did not soothe the
 child, and it continued its cries, whereupon
 Patty took it up and held it's face to the fire
 until it was scorched to a cinder. She threw l
 other skeletons were found after her death.
 Patty possessed remarkable strength, and
 many stories are told of the way in which
 she used to kidnap negroes in her own neigh
 borhood. She is said to have been able to
 overpower and carry off large colored men
 by mere physical force, and she was more
 than terror to the neighborhood in which
 she lived. Her first white victim, after her
 husband was 8 gentleman travelling from
 Norfolk, Va, to New York, and he was dis
 patched at her hotel in the following man.
 ner When meal time came she seated him
 at the table with his back opposite open
 window through which he was shot by one
 of her accomplices. All of Patty's murders
 were committed while she was in charge oi
 this hotel, and nearly all of her white victims
 were slave dealers who carried considerable
 money about with them. Her accomplices
 were desperate characters, steeped in crime
 of every description. yet she was the maste,
 spirit that planned and took the leading part
 in carrying out the difficult and diabolica
 work.