Murder on Delmarva, Hal Roth, Nanticoke Books, 2009, 0976254514, 9780976254515, . . DOWNLOAD HERE The Windvane Self-Steering Handbook , Bill Morris, Feb 24, 2004, Sports & Recreation, 224 pages. Here is the definitive manual for choosing, purchasing, installing, maintaining, repairing, using, and even building a windvane self-steerer, that amazing device that relieves .... The War of 1812 on the Chesapeake Bay , Gilbert Byron, 1964, , 94 pages. . Cost Conscious Cruiser Champagne Cruising on a Beer Budget, Lin Pardey, Larry Pardey, 1999, Sports & Recreation, 358 pages. The pleasures and adventures of cruising under sail are amazingly affordable, say Lin and Larry Pardey. But to keep your dreams on budget, financially, emotionally, and .... The Capable Cruiser , Lin Pardey, Larry Pardey, Feb 1, 2010, Sports & Recreation, 392 pages. "The Capable Cruiser" is a logical extension of the Pardeys' "The Self-Sufficient Sailor" (978-0964603677), with more emphasis on seamanship underway, including careful .... Sailing , Jeremy Evans, Apr 1, 2008, Sports & Recreation, 352 pages. For anyone considering setting sail "Eyewitness Companions offer an essential reference library, perfect for novices or anyone who just wants to know more about their favourite ....
Hal Roth was an avid sailor and prolific sailing writer. The success of his first book, about the John Muir Trail in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, prompted him and his wife to try the precarious worlds of adventuring and writing. They quit their jobs, and began a 19 month voyage around the Pacific in a 35 foot sloop.[2] Their vast journey culminated in the publication of his first sailing book, "Two on a Big Ocean." He and his wife, Margaret, subsequently made a life of sailing and writing about it, including sailing around South America and a circumnavigation via Panama, the Torres Strait, and Suez. He then raced single-handedly around the world in the 1986-87 BOC Challenge, finishing fourth in a class of fourteen. History description from The Hal Roth Papers of San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park Historic Documents Department: Hal Roth was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1927. He was an aviator during World War II and the Korean War. During the course of his lifetime, Roth was also an author, sailor, mountaineer, and photographer. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a degree in Journalism, and became a free-lance writer and photographer. He studied photography with Edward Weston and Ansel Adams. He worked as a photographer for the American Society of Magazine Photographers based in Sausalito, California and took countless images of life in the surrounding area of California during the late 1950s and into the late 1960s. Roth's free-lance works
of note include magazine titles such as Colliers, Fortune, The Saturday Evening Post, and The New York Times. Themes of his work include: California landscapes and wildlife, San Francisco (including Fisherman's Wharf), Winter Olympics, Dr. Suess, and Native American wildland firefighters of the Southwest. Hal was also engaged in photographic study of human life as represented by his "Time and Place" album and his Chinatown exhibit. In 1964, the San Francisco Museum of Art exhibited 40 of Roth's black and white photographic images titled "The Faces of Chinatown." Roth's first published book, Pathway in the Sky (1965) displays his passion for the John Muir Trail and the Sierra Mountains. The associated images of the John Muir Trail also reflect people enjoying the trail and document its use in the early 1960s. In 1959, Roth met Margaret Hale-White from Oxford, England who was visiting a friend in San Francisco, California. Margaret was born in Bombay, India and was the daughter of an English engineer. According to Roth, she worked in Paris for six and a half years as a dual language secretary for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Sharing backgrounds in mountaineering and hiking and a love for adventure, they married in 1960.[3] Even though neither was a sailor, their friends shared a love of sailing and introduced them to the sport in 1962. The couple chartered a boat in the West Indies where they learned a great deal from the captain. Later, they chartered another boat in Greece, then took sailing lessons in Scotland. After purchasing a home in Sausalito in 1964, they took a trip (1966) north along the west coast and purchased a fiberglass Spencer 35, built in Vancouver, British Columbia and designed by John Brandlmayr in Seattle, Washington. They named her Whisper, and sailed her home to California. The Roths began sailing on their own in 1966 and completed several voyages in Whisper. Destinations included Japan, Aleutian Islands, Alaska, Canadian islands, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Cape Horn, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Mediterranean, and Canary Islands. In 1978, they relocated to Maine. Roth published hundreds of articles in his lifetime. Although, his book publications appear to be his dominate body of work and document the couple's voyages and growing knowledge of sailing. The 1972 account of their first circumnavigation of the Pacific Basin (1967-8) resulted in the publication Two on a Big Ocean. The Blue Water Medal of the Cruising Club of America was awarded to the Hal Roth, and Margaret was noted as the sole crew, for this voyage. After 50,000 Miles (1977) describes technical aspects of sailing. The 1978 book Two against Cape Horn describes their journey from California to Maine via Cape Horn. Always a Distant Anchorage (1988) describes their four year (1981–1985) circumnavigation west through the Panama Canal, Torres Strait, the Red Sea, and the Suez Canal. The couple sold Whisper and purchased the American Flag (later renamed Sebago) and Roth then sailed solo in the Brin's or British Oxygen Company (BOC) Challenge Race of 1986-7. He completed the race 4th in his class, taking 171 days. Chasing the Long Rainbow (1990) is his account of this BOC race. In 1990, he tried the race again in the same Santa Cruz 50 now named Sebago (his sponsor), but due to capsizing, the voyage took 211 days. Chasing the Wind (1994)is his account of the second race. In 1992, they sold Sebago, purchased a Pretorien 35, named her Whisper, and the couple spent two years together tracing Odysseus' voyage through the Mediterranean. We Followed Odysseus, How to Sail Around the World, and Handling Storms at Sea represent books that he wrote based on the couple's final unique voyages. Roth recorded reminisces and continued to draft manuscripts throughout his life. His last two works, The Paradise Book and Graf Spee were completed but never published. He worked on these manuscripts during his later years and during his two and half year battle with lung cancer. He died October 18, 2008, while living in Maryland with his wife, Margaret, who survives him.[4] Most natives to Delmarva and newcomers with an interest in the region’s history have heard the story of Patty Cannon, alleged by some to have been “the wickedest woman ever to walk on American soil.” Unfortunately her biographers have been mostly writers of fiction,
and the first booklet about her exploits – published in 1841 – contains outrageous fabrications that have been repeated hundred of times over the years, often with enhancement. We tend to be intrigued by our villains, and when the miscreant is female, we can never get enough of the details. During the first quarter of the nineteenth century, Patty’s family lived on the Maryland-Delaware line at the present town of Reliance, formerly known as Wilson’s and then Johnson’s Crossroads. Her husband and son were involved in the slave trade. Surviving bills of sale suggest that at least part of their business was legitimate, but as the demand for slaves in the South increased, they began to purchase kidnapped free African Americans and sell them into slavery. Joe Johnson, the husband of Cannon’s daughter, became one of the most notorious kidnappers in the nation. Johnson and his brother, Ebenezer, sometimes sailed to Philadelphia to engage in their trade, causing that city’s mayor to eventually offer a reward for their arrest. Under expanding pressure to bring the Delmarva kidnappers to justice, Joe, Ebenezer and the Cannon children fled south in 1826, leaving Patty behind. Her husband, Jesse, had died about four years earlier. Patty then moved 200 yards across the state line from Delaware to Maryland. There she lived quietly in Johnson’s former home until April 1, 1829, when she was arrested for murder. In Georgetown, the Sussex County seat, one writer claims the town crier was the first to publicly announce the event while calling the hours: “Three o’clock and Patty Cannon taken!” From our correspondent’s account we gather the following particulars: About ten days previous to his writing, a tenant, who lives on the farm where Patty Cannon and her son-in-law, the celebrated Joseph Johnson, negro trader, lived for many years in North West Fork Hundred near the Maryland line, was ploughing in the field, in a place generally covered with water, and where a heap of brush had been laying for years, when his horse sunk in a grave, and on digging, he found a blue painted chest, about three feet long, and in it the bones of a man. The news flew like wild fire, and people from many miles around visited the place; among whom it was universally agreed that a negro trader from Georgia, named Bell or Miller, or perhaps both, had been murdered by Johnson and his gang about 10 or 12 years ago, and that the bones now discovered were those of one of them. The man or men had been missed about that time, and the horse on which one of them rode was found at Patty Cannon’s, who had laid claim to the animal until a person from Maryland, who had lent the horse, came forward and claimed his property, and she alleged at the time that Bell and Miller had sailed a short time previous with a cargo of negroes for the South. Since that time he has not been heard of, and it is said that a few days before he was missed, he was heard to say that he had with him fifteen thousand dollars with which he purposed to purchase negroes. The supposition now is that the knowledge of his having this money in his possession formed the inducement to take his life, and that to conceal the body it had been deposited in the place where the bones had been found. The excitement produced by this discovery, as may naturally be supposed, was very great in the neighborhood, and on the 2d [sic] instant, one of Johnson’s gang named Cyrus James, who has resided in Maryland, was caught in this State and brought before a Justice of the Peace at Seaford, and on examination stated Joseph Johnson, Ebenezer F. Johnson and old Patty Cannon had shot the man while at supper in her house, and that he saw them all engaged in carrying him in the chest and burying him; and stated moreover that many others had also been killed, and that he could show where they had been buried. The officers and citizens accordingly accompanied him to the places, which he pointed out, and made the necessary search. In one place in a garden they dug and found the bones of a young child, the mother of which, he stated, was a negro woman belonging to Patty Cannon, which, being a mulatto, she had killed for the reason that she supposed its father to be one of her own family. Another place, a few feet distant, was then pointed out, when upon digging a few feet, two oak boxes were found, each of which contained human bones. Those in one of them had been of a person about seven years of age, which James said he saw Patty
Cannon knock in the head with a billet of wood, and the other contained those of one whom he said they considered bad property; by which it is supposed was meant that he was free. As there was at the time much stir about the children, and there was no convenient opportunity to send them away, they were murdered to prevent discovery. On examining the skull bone of the largest child, it was discovered to have been broken as described by James. Another witness by the name of Butler has already been secured, and it is thought that some others will be brought forward who are acquainted with the bloody deeds of Patty and Joe. This woman is now between 60 and 70 years of age and looks more like a man than a woman; but old as she is, she is believed to be as heedless and heartless as the most abandoned wretch that breathes. Joe Johnson, who is said to be residing at this time in Alabama, is stated to have been seen in this State in Dec. or Jan. last; and the probability is that his business here was to do something at his old business of kidnapping. He was convicted of this crime some years since at Georgetown and suffered the punishment of the lash and the pillory on account of it. He is a man of some celebrity, having for many years carried on the traffic of stealing and selling negroes, in which he was aided and instructed by the old hag, Patty Cannon, whose daughter he married after she had lost a former husband on the gallows. He continued to reside near his tutoress until within a few years, when a reward of $500 was offered by Mr. Watson, Mayor of Philadelphia, when having obtained information of the fact before any others in his neighborhood, he suddenly decamped and has since been very cautious in suffering himself to be seen in that part of the country. From the circumstances which have already taken place, it would appear probable that such developments may be expected to take place as will present the wretched actors in the scenes of blood, which have taken place on the border of our State in Sussex county, as successful rivals in depravity of the infamous Burke, whose bloody deeds and recent execution in Scotland have occupied so large a portion of the public prints. The “correspondent’s account” mentioned in the article may have been an unsigned letter discovered in 1927 by historian H. C. Conrad, which has been preserved in the Delaware Archives. The letter begins: “Much excitement now prevails in this county in consequence of the discovery of the bodies of several persons, interred upon the premises of the celebrated Patty Cannon, who lives upon the line of the state and whose house has been for a long time the resort of all the kidnapping and negro traders in this part of the Peninsula.” Patty Cannon, late of North West Fork Hundred, widow, not having the fear of God before her eyes and being moved and seduced by the Devil, on the 26th day of April, 1822, with force and arms in and upon a certain infant female child to the aforesaid unknown then and there lately born and alive in the Peace of God and of the State of Delaware then and there being feloniously, unlawfully and of malice aforethought did make an assault, and that the said Patty Cannon with both her hands about the neck of the said infant and – did choke and strangle, of which said choking and strangling the said female child to the jury aforesaid unknown so being alive [sic], then and there instantly died. Patty Cannon did kill and murder against the peace and dignity of the state…[and] did cast and throw the infant child on the ground and cover over with earth. Some historians have compared Niles Weekly Register to Time, Newsweek and the New York Times all rolled into one. In its day it was a highly regarded source of news. On May 23, 1829, publisher Niles brought the name of Patty Cannon to national attention when he reprinted the following brief report from the Delaware Journal. The Delaware Journal says: At the Court of Quarterly Sessions recently setting in Sussex County, the grand jury found three indictments against Patty Cannon for murder, and one against each of the brothers, Joe Johnson and Ebenezer Johnson, [to be tried] at The Court of Oyer and Terminer in October. The others reside out of state – where is not exactly known, but we take it for granted that the proper steps will be taken to discover and bring them to justice.
Levi Sullivan, a resident of Broad Creek Hundred in Sussex County, kept a private diary from 1818 to 1844. On its pages we find this notation, nearly as concise as the one in Niles Register: “May 11th 1829 Patty Cannon deceased in Georgetown Jail said to have committed murder.” And that was all the news would have to offer about the demise of Patty Cannon until years later. While Delmarva folklore contains several suggested scenarios to explain Patty’s death (and one claim that she didn’t die in 1829 but was aided in escaping to Canada), popular tradition insists that she took her own life by ingesting poison; but is that a reasonable and supportable belief? Had she committed suicide, would such a dramatic event not have been newsworthy? There is no mention of the cause of Patty’s death in any court record or newspaper of the day. John Middleton Clayton was a Delaware attorney, member of the Delaware House of Representatives, Delaware Secretary of State, several times United States Senator and also United States Secretary of State under President Taylor. In several letters to a journalist friend, written years after the events occurred, he reported a variety of details about Patty Cannon and her family, many of which were exaggerated or untrue. Then, in 1841, under the title “Narrative and Confessions of Lucretia P. Cannon, The Female Murderer,” that friend anonymously published what historian John Munroe once referred to as “a penny dreadful.” The twenty-three page Gothic horror tale – a genre popular at the time – is an outrageous fabrication about the life of Patty Cannon, but its details have found their way into hundreds of articles in the ensuing years and continue to provide the basis for most of what people “know” about the much vilified woman. The pamphlet repeats the statement in Clayton’s letter that Patty committed suicide and offers macabre details. There are no known contemporary sources to support such a claim. Patty was at least in her sixties when she died, well past the average life expectancy for the first third of the nineteenth century. What reason would authorities have had to conceal the cause of her death? Would it not have made better press and would the public not have been wildly interested had this “demon” dramatically taken her own life, as Clayton suggested? For the past ten years I have been attempting to uncover the truth about the life and death of Patty Cannon. I suppose it should be no surprise to me that most people are quite content with the gruesome legend that continues to grow. Remember the indictment against Patty for participating in three murders? In 1997 a journalist reported that she had killed twenty individuals by her own hand and assisted in dispatching at least twenty others. Shortly afterward another writer upped the total of her personal murders to thirty. By the year 2100 she may well be credited with annihilating the entire population of North West Fork Hundred.
