Personal Background
Cannon was married to local farmer Jesse Cannon, who died around 1826. She lived near the town of Reliance, Maryland (then called Johnson's Corners), on the border at the convergence of Caroline County and Dorchester County, Maryland, and Sussex County, Delaware.
Cannon and her husband had at least one daughter, who twice married men engaged in the criminal slave-stealing trade. Their daughter's first husband was Henry Brereton, a blacksmith who kidnapped black people for sale. Brereton had gone to prison in 1811 for kidnapping, but escaped from the Georgetown, Delaware jail. Brereton was captured, convicted of murder, and hanged with one of his criminal associates, Joseph Griffith.
At some point after this, Cannon's daughter married Joe Johnson, who became Cannon's most notorious partner in crime. Their band included white criminals, black men used as decoys, and Cannon's own husband before his death. In addition, a relative of Cannon's daughter's first husband, a Robert Brereton, continued to be involved with the gang as late as at least 1826.
Read more about this topic: Patty Cannon
Famous quotes containing the words personal and/or background:
“Fine art is the subtlest, the most seductive, the most effective instrument of moral propaganda in the world, excepting only the example of personal conduct; and I waive even this exception in favor of the art of the stage, because it works by exhibiting examples of personal conduct made intelligible and moving to crowds of unobservant unreflecting people to whom real life means nothing.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)